Below The Line - DP & Camera Operator (Donnie Darko)

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Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to another episode of Below the Line with What Went Wrong.

These episodes are dedicated to the exploration of various positions on film sets that tend to go unsung.

And today we are looking at the role of the cinematographer and camera operator through the lens of a recent film we covered, Donny Darko.

In part one, I will speak with cinematographer Steven Poster on both his career and his work on Donny Darko.

And in part two, we will deep dive on the complex camera movements that director Richard Kelly demanded of operator Dave Comides.

We hope you enjoy the knowledge that Stephen and Dave shared with us as much as we did.

Steven Poster is an American cinematographer with nearly five decades of experience behind the camera.

Early commercial work led to second-unit opportunities on incredible films with legendary filmmakers, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Blade Runner.

By the 1980s, he was helming the camera department.

collaborating again with the likes of Ridley Scott, Rick Moranis on Strange Brew, a favorite of mine, Sylvester Stallone, and many more.

Mr.

Poster is a president emeritus of the International Cinematographers Guild and previously served as the president of the American Society of Cinematographers.

Fun fact, when I was in film school, we used footage Mr.

Poster shot for Roswell for an editing exercise, and it cut together like butter.

Of course, we are here to discuss his incredible work on Richard Kelly's remarkable debut film, Donnie Darko.

Stephen, we are so thrilled to have you here today.

My pleasure.

All right.

So, the way that we like to start these interviews is very simply:

why

cinematography?

Of all the roles in film, possible roles, you know, that you could take on,

what drew you to cinematography in particular?

Ah, the origin story again.

Well,

very simply,

I

got

interested in photography when I was about 10.

And I had seen darkroom work.

My neighbor's father

had built a darkroom in his basement.

And I saw darkroom work.

And that kind of intrigued me.

You know, I was 10 years old.

There's not much there.

But I did get very interested in it.

And when I was 13, I was Burmitzvid, and I took some of my Burmitzva money

and bought an old Roloflex.

There was a camera store in the neighborhood, and he knew I was interested in photography.

And

I took

$100

and went into this store, and he sold me an old 1949 Roloflex.

Do you know what a Roloflex is?

Yeah, it's a twin reflex Tessar lens.

In fact, it was a TESR.

Does it have a Selenium light meter?

Yeah, it has a little Selenium light meter.

But it carried me through high school.

And then when I went to college,

I went to Southern Illinois University.

But before that, what happened was when I was 14 years old, I lived in the suburbs, north suburbs of Chicago.

And there was a man who drove up to an empty lot next to my house.

and I saw that he got out of an old Jaguar, and he had a beard and a cap on and a light meter on his belt.

And I saw him from my living room.

I ran outside, and I said, Hi, I'm Steve.

I live next door.

What kind of light meter is that?

And he said, The son, we'll have a lot of time to talk about that.

I'm building a house next door to you.

He was a CBS Newsreel cameraman, Maury Bleckman,

and he was an old Navy photographer and had become a CBS network guy.

And he became my mentor.

And the day I met him, I thought he was the coolest human being I ever met.

And I said, I want to be him.

He was also smoking a pipe.

I smoked a pipe for many years.

I had caps.

I had a beard.

I emulated him.

But the only thing I didn't do was

I didn't shoot news.

He did not want me to shoot news.

He thought there were better things for me to do.

And he was right.

So that's where I got interested in it, not even knowing

what it was other than it involved photography.

And I knew that's what I wanted my life to be.

So you mentioned, Stephen, you're coming up in Chicago, Illinois, not exactly Hollywood or Hollywood adjacent.

And yet, through some interviews I read that you gave, there were a couple of unique lightning-striking moments where you had an opportunity to move not into like news, camera newswork, but commercial and then eventually narrative filmmaking.

Can you talk a little bit about those unexpected left turns that got you onto your first Hollywood productions?

Chicago was a great market for the kind of projects that gave me and others a lot of experience.

Industrial films, these are like 15 minute films where you go in the factory and you you photograph uh mufflers being made or pharmaceutical stuff interviews and so industrial films educational films there was coronet films and encyclopedia britannica films were based in chicago and there were commercials i my my first commercial was when I was a senior in college and I went into this little boutique commercial company, production company, and they were based on the whole idea of cinema verite

for doing TV commercials.

And they also did some very serious documentaries and were very closely allied with a wonderful documentary co-op called Kartempquin.

And they had the converted oricons which sat on your shoulder and they were made made into a documentary with double system cameras, sound cameras.

And so I went in for a job as an assistant and they looked at a little film that I had shot in college and said, so you know how to light.

And I had been a student at Art Center and certainly did learn all about

how to understand lighting in a way that most people don't get taught.

It's a very interesting process of exercises that I pretty much teach the same stuff at Art Center today and find it a wonderful way of learning how to see light as opposed to learning how to light, how to put front light, side light, back light.

It's none of that.

It's how to see and understand

what light is doing to the subject.

And so I said, yeah, I know how to light.

And they said, okay, we're going to hire you as a cameraman.

I said, okay, I'm a cameraman.

That was it.

And a week later, I was asked to shoot a TV commercial for Kellogg's.

It was a national commercial.

And there I was doing it.

You're a DP on a commercial shoot for national.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But some of the things that happened to me that were really wonderful, there was a slowdown in the business and they had to let me go about four months into my journey there.

But they helped me, the production manager in the company knew a man named Herschel Gordon Lewis, who is the inventor of the gore films.

And he would make full-length color feature films for anywhere from

10, 15, 25, $30,000 at the most.

That was like a huge production for him in 35 millimeter.

And so I was introduced to him and he hired me right on the spot as a cameraman.

Ursul was responsible for things like Monster Gogo and 10,000 Maniacs and some really classic horror films.

And

he would direct them himself.

He would write them himself.

He had a small family of people that hung around him as actors and as crew people.

And so that summer, I worked on three feature films.

Three in a summer.

Yeah, one of them was six days.

Okay.

That is insane.

And for reference, Donnie Darko would be what, 28 days eventually?

And that's a pretty tight shoot.

You know what I mean?

Not even 28 days.

I think

it was 24.

So I had that experience.

And I went on to commercials and I eventually became a member of the union.

But the next thing I know is I got a call from Universal,

and it was

an old production manager who said, He said, Stephen, we'd like you to, we're coming to town with a TV movie, and we'd like you to be our location manager.

And I said, I'll take the job.

What's a location manager?

Right.

And fortunately, I was through my then mother-in-law.

I was connected politically.

I could get into the mayor's office.

So I actually worked as a location manager for this TV movie.

The director happened to be a vice president of Universal Television, Richard Irving.

And the executive producer and writer is Dean Hargrove, who did Columbo and Mystery Movie and a bunch of those types of TV shows.

And when we were finished, Dick Irving said to me, Kid, when you get out to California and you get your union stuff straightened out, he said, call me,

which is what I did.

And in fact, three weeks later, I had a TV show to shoot called Class of 65.

Henry Bumstead was one of the great production designers, Hitchcock, and on and on.

He did all the Clint Eastwood's early stuff.

And he did the Sting.

He did.

Just one of the greats in Hollywood.

And through him, he kept recommending me for stuff.

I got as a union standby, I got three days on the sting when it came to Chicago and got to meet Robert Sertes.

And he was so gracious and sweet.

And he just, he said, I'll, when you come out to California, I'll sign your union application.

And those are how just randomly how things, you never know.

Speaking about how you never know, jumping forward into the 90s, you've been a cinematographer, now a cameraman, you've full-fledged director of photography, multiple feature films under your belt.

I've heard conflicting stories about how Donnie Darko ended up crossing your path, but I have heard that maybe it was by way of a recommendation.

So, how does this unusual script that was definitely flying around the town at the time reach you in the late 1990s?

I was at a gathering of directors of photography, and

Thomas Newton Siegel was there.

And I said to him, I'm looking for a show.

And the next thing I knew, about a week later, I got a call from a production manager who said, you were recommended to us by Thomas Newton Siegel.

He couldn't do the job.

The guy said, I'm friends with him.

I asked him.

He couldn't do it.

And he recommended you.

That was it i went i read the script i loved the script i fell in love with the script it was brilliant and i said yes i want to do it and let's have a meeting so i went over in venice it was a house that several guys were renting it was like a dorm it was

open jars of peanut butter laid around and crumbs and It was three young guys living in a kind of a dorm house.

And it was a meeting between Richard and myself and Sean McKittrick, who was the line producer, who was the producer.

And

I noticed that

Richard was very nervous.

He was pacing back and forth while we were starting to talk.

And

I said, Richard, stop a second.

I said, just stop a second.

I'm your friend, okay?

I am, don't consider the fact that I've had all this experience and worked on big movies.

I said, I work on small movies as well.

And I said, I am your director of photography.

I don't want to direct.

You're the director.

I will support that.

And I said, so relax.

And he did.

And we just started talking about the script.

And I said, I love the script.

I really would like to do it.

I said, but I need something.

I need a guarantee on something.

I said, I need at least four days alone with Richard reading the script and planning.

I said, but it has to be four complete days alone.

And they said, okay.

And I

went away.

And by about four o'clock in the afternoon, I got a call back saying, okay, we'd like you to do it.

And was four days something that you would ask for on other films?

Like this was a process that you'd gone through?

Okay.

No, I don't know where that came from.

I just said to myself, listen, Richard seems to know what he wants, but I want to know what it is he wants so I can plan.

I said, I just came out of me.

I said, let's do that.

And we spent four days.

The first day was back at that house.

And I said, you know what?

Let's spend the rest of the time in my place.

And so he would come over every day, and we would read the script.

He would read to me.

I would read to him.

He would give me his ideas.

I would give him mine.

We would challenge each other.

And there was a lot of stuff that got straightened out and understood.

And I made extensive notes.

on the facing page and of the script.

And I knew very much what it was we needed to do.

and we were off and running.

We ended up with those four days.

It was like you had a complete plan from beginning to end to make that movie and we knew each day what we needed to get done to be in the movie and if we started to get long because they wouldn't let us go over 12 hours a day.

We started to get long on a day.

We knew we could cut this or that.

We knew the script backwards.

In fact, after making the kind of notes I made, I almost never opened the script because I had it in my head.

What was it about so much of the movie, to me, works because of the

confluence of the cinematography, the production design, the costuming, right?

It evokes such a specific tone.

When you read it the first time, right?

And it's all in your imagination and it's all on the page.

Frank, the six-foot-tall bunny rabbit, the philosophy of time travel.

How do these things hit you with no visuals to accompany them?

There were visuals.

Richard drew a picture of what Frank should look like.

And April Ferry, the costume designer, wonderful woman.

And Alec Hammond, the production designer, and I both, all three of us said, Richard, you can't do this.

This doesn't look like

a friendly rabbit.

And he said, this is what I want.

And it was exactly on screen.

And the three of us, in fact, I, from that point on, I never questioned his judgment because he was absolutely right.

It has become an icon of that movie.

And in fact, I don't know if you've been to the Motion Picture Museum, but there is the full bunny suit.

on display up on the second floor there.

And so he was right.

And I just, I gained faith in him and on a level that was far beyond his years he's a wonderful director and we did two other movies together after that every one of them was a joy creatively so there we were and it problems needed to be solved okay

Richard wanted to shoot a widescreen anamorphic widescreen with anamorphic lenses

and I thought that was a great idea I thought stylistically it would really work because for several reasons.

But the producer, the executive producer,

who I happened to know because his brother was a TV director who I had worked with, so I knew the family, called me up and said,

You got to tell him he can't use anamorphic lenses.

They're much more expensive and it takes a lot more light.

And you can't tell him you can't do it.

I said, wait a minute, hang on a second.

I said,

Kodak

has a new film stock

that is almost twice as fast as anything that they've ever hit.

I said, if we use that film stock,

that would eat up the light deficit.

And I said, furthermore, we're in a practical location.

And with anamorphic, I won't see the ceilings and we can light from there.

I said, that will save me a lot of time on the setups, and

so it will save us money.

And he said, okay, all right.

First of all, that was total bullshit about the lenses.

And I had never seen this film stock before.

I'd never exposed any of it before.

So I didn't know if it was going to work or not.

But in fact, I'm used to very high speed films.

In my still photography, I shoot everything a very high-speed film.

And in those days, now it's all digital, of course.

But it was, and that film stock worked out great for me.

It was the only film ever shot entirely on that film stock.

But it's very tricky if you don't know how to shoot high-speed films.

It can get very grainy, it can get very contrasty, but it was right up my alley, so I was okay with it.

But total bullshit.

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But speaking of contrast, one of the things I think that works so well with the movie is the amount of, like, it's a very contrasty look that with again the costuming the black and white of the uniforms and then obviously the production design the darkness of the walls it's that the characters really pop but also there's all this contrast half the movie takes place in the middle of the night half the movie takes place in the middle of the bright sunny day and it feels so unique compared to especially a lot of stuffy today feels flat in comparison.

So I'm curious, how did you go about, okay, I'm going to have these scenes that are extremely bright.

We have fades to white in the movie, but then you also have fades to black and these extremely dark scenes.

Like, how do you approach that creatively?

That film stock had a tonal range that fit the whole idea that Richard and I had about the darkness of the teenage years.

And I was allowed to create a look that I could carry through the entire film.

Emotionally, it felt right to be able to use less light and to to create a contrasty environment that that that helped tell the story.

It was very integral to the story.

And I had a fabulous operator, Dave Kamides, who you know well,

and did SteadyCam as well.

And we were able to really create some movement.

Richard liked to do long takes and

complicated movements and tell the story that way.

And I liked

to light and compose to those kinds of things.

There were moments when, first of all, Richard,

you know how the camera does a couple of turns, right?

Sure.

Yeah, it rotates 360 degrees at one point on its axis.

Richard wanted to do that a lot more.

Got it.

And I convinced him that would have become a conceit and save it for a couple of moments where in fact it would be

useful and help tell the story without taking the audience out of it.

And we did.

We only used it I think twice at that point one

time getting out of the bus

and then when he is leaving the house from the party and has his visual hallucination.

But so things like that.

Richard was flexible in those kinds of ways.

And so he listened to me in ways, and I listened to him in ways that

it was very, it was like, I like to say brothers as opposed to grandfather.

And so

when we started, he was only 23 years old.

He had a birthday in there somewhere, became 24.

But here I was, whatever age I was at the time.

And

we just came together and were a team and had a lot of fun creatively.

And

we got to the point where we could argue about whether the camera should be here.

or here.

It was that specific and that much fun together to really explore this whole thing.

And he was very prepared.

He knew what he wanted.

People have said to me over the years, you must have done most of the directing.

And

uh-uh.

Richard was ready

and knew what he wanted and drove that ship.

And we really wailed together.

There were other things that happened.

For instance,

the opening in the school.

Yes, let's talk about that sequence, actually, because my understanding is you talked Richard out of a different version of that.

Very famous, head over heels, tears for fears, coming out of the school bus.

We meet everybody at the school.

It's an incredible sequence.

Can you tell us how you, what Richard's original intent was and how you talked him into doing something a little more manageable?

I let him talk himself out of it.

Here's what happened.

It was another phone call from the executive producer.

You can't let him do this.

This is going going to ruin the day.

He won't be able to make it.

He wanted to do from the bus into the school, around the back, and back into the school, all in one shot.

A woner.

Market.

A wonner.

And

I knew that we didn't have the resources to do that.

But

the producer

again challenged me.

He said, you've got to tell him no.

My job as a DP is not to tell a director no, it's It's to tell him how or why

we should avoid that.

So I said to the producer, all right, let's have a rehearsal at the school on a Saturday.

Let's bring the camera operator, David, and let's go and let Richard and I work it out.

So we got there, and it was Loyola School east of Hollywood.

And I was sitting there waiting outside,

leaning up against my car.

And

Richard got there and said, okay, let's go in.

And I said, no, Richard, do me a favor.

You go in with Dave

and start working out the shot.

And I'll come in a little while.

I said,

and as I did that, I handed him a stopwatch.

And

20 minutes later, he came out and said,

okay, five shots.

Because it's going to be a 20-minute shot.

Well,

I knew that he had music

that he had to fit, and it couldn't have worked the way he wanted to.

So we broke it down into five shots.

The first one coming out of the bus and rotating as the kids came out and

going up the stairs.

That was like...

That took five hands to operate that shot.

No, remember, this was before the days of remote heads.

So it really was was a complicated physical shot, but it worked out.

And then the other thing Richard wanted to do was he wanted to ramp the speed, which is something that prior to the time we were working, you would have had to do that in post-production.

But Panavision had just come out with a system that could hook up to the aperture and the speed and keep the exposure consistent as you ramped up and down the speed.

So we got that and I was able to do all of those live

in camera and it worked out really well.

Every one of those in that shot in the hallway, every one of those was done live.

I think there was one of Beth, the teacher.

It was one that we added in post-production.

Got it.

Yeah.

So just for our audience to understand, so you're switching from 24 to 48 frames per second, for example, so that those moments, when everything's played at 24 frames per second, the high-speed moments will play as slow motion.

Yeah, yeah.

So we've talked about some of the more challenging shots in the movie.

Let me rephrase that.

Some of the shots that I would assume are more challenging, like the entrance to the school and some of the SETI cam work.

Is there this podcast is called What Went Wrong?

Because we want to impress upon our audience just how hard it is to make a movie, any movie.

It's such a hard process.

What is there?

Are there any beats, moments, shots, things in this movie that would surprise us just like, oh, wow, that took some time or this took some troubleshooting?

You know, we have the jet engine, obviously, falling into Donnie's room, stuff like that.

I'm wondering if there's anything more mundane that we might not expect.

We had two people on the show with us, people in production, who had an attitude that I don't think they wanted this to succeed?

And

it turned out it was the

production manager and the assistant director.

Interesting.

They weren't DGA.

This was not a DGA movie.

And

just

made it as difficult as possible all the way through.

So between myself and Richard, we did all of that ourselves.

And

it was an added burden that we didn't need.

Those things happen.

The way I describe it

is that you make a budget for a movie.

And in that budget, there is below the line and above the line.

But there are lines.

This line is a DP.

This line is an assistant director.

There's always an asshole line in the budget.

And some movies are over budget and assholes, and some movies are under budget and assholes, but there's always a department.

We had those difficulties, but we overcame them.

And we just, whatever wasn't done, we did ourselves, even in post-production.

I tend to become very involved all the way through a project, even to post-production, very much so in post-production, because I don't want to lose what I did by someone not doing something that

should be done in post-production.

I was carrying reels of film to the Telecenti, from the lab to the Telecenti.

I was doing it all physically myself because by that time I was involved and attached to Richard that I wanted this movie to succeed.

So speaking of the all-hands on deck quality with a movie like this, you've got an incredibly game, I would imagine, and talented, but inexperienced cast in this instance.

A lot of these people would obviously go on Maggie Gyllenhall, director in her own right.

You've got Jenna Malone, who I know was experienced at the time, and then Jake Gyllenhall, who's a newcomer.

So I guess, first question, when you first joined on, was Jason Schwartzman still attached as the lead, or had it moved over to Jason Shall?

Jay had moved over.

Okay, got it.

Great.

Now, can you share any, just your experience working with, I know you have like your Drew Barrymores, who's been working for 30 years at this point, or your Noah Wiley, who done TV with Dave, for example, but you have so many like young, fresh faces.

What's that like?

You're doing these long takes, you know what I mean?

Complicated blocking.

How are you, as the DP, kind of triangulating with Richard and these

actors to get what you guys need in the small amount of time that you have?

I love actors, they are magical people,

And

I tend to be as

helpful,

fatherly, informative as I can, especially to someone who's never done it before.

And you run into that.

It's great to work with someone with that kind of experience.

Wonderful.

But when you get somebody who's never done it before,

They need special care and handling.

And it's paid off in ways of goodwill that I really appreciate and I'll never forget.

I've had

one very

famous actress that we ran into at a party, was the Emmys, and she was there.

She was up for an Emmy, and she started talking to my wife, and I was off doing something else.

And she told my wife, she said,

your husband taught me how to do, how to act in front of a camera.

She said, I had been a model.

I'd never done any acting.

This isn't a major movie.

And

she

claimed that I was the one that really made her comfortable and helped her understand working in front of a camera.

And that's worth gold.

It's just to be able to do that for somebody.

And I've done that for a number of first-timers.

And so that to me is just

an opportunity.

And on a question like this,

just a rote question: like, how many takes are you guys getting the opportunity to do?

You know what I mean?

With a shoot at this speed?

Not many.

Yeah.

No, no Kubrick on this one.

Just moving along quickly.

No, but everybody, everybody now that Jake, listen, Jake

may have been inexperienced, but he had worked before.

And he was, he was just so cooperative and so involved in the project that it was a joy to be with him.

And

the scenes

between him and Maggie were magical because they had their brother and sister.

How could it not be?

It was just great.

I think we were very fortunate to get Jake.

Yeah, no, it's an amazing dynamic.

My wife and I re-watched the movie last night, and she has an older brother, and I have a younger sister, two younger sisters.

And we were just like, yeah, you can instantly tell it's real.

The moment, and but even the whole family dynamic, Holmes Osborne is fantastic.

Mary McDonald's amazing as the mother.

Like, there, it's such a wonderful family unit.

You really believe it when you watch it.

Yeah, it's so well done.

We have a couple more questions.

First of all, I have to ask about my favorite shot in the whole movie.

It's one of my favorite shots of all time.

And it is the first time Donnie leaves the house.

It is you're pushing towards the closed front door.

You

shut it, tilt up to the chandelier, tilt down, and the door closes, but we never see Donnie leave.

Who came up with that?

That is one of the most elegant shots.

It was the way we saw shooting day

in the daytime.

Really?

We couldn't shoot outdoors.

We had a little black tent.

There was nothing out there.

I love it.

So in order to do that, we foreshadowed the chandelier.

Yes.

Just by tipping up, tipping down as the door is shut.

And also the fact that nobody notices Donnie leave.

It's such a great moment of visual storytelling.

I still remember 15-year-old Chris watching that shot thinking, oh my God, that was.

And then to the last rewatch last night.

It's such a good

storytelling.

And I love that it was a solve.

You were solving for something that you couldn't get around.

And yet it led to a moment of creativity that is amazing.

It really is.

And I can't tell you whether I came up with it or Richard came up with it.

I think we both did at the same time.

And it was just one of those, that was one of those examples of how much we shared on this movie.

Well, let's talk a little bit about just the post-production and then the release of the film.

And my understanding from what I've read is that you guys did shoot a few different versions of the ending or unending of the movie.

Is that true?

Or is it more that like they kind of experimented with different versions in post?

To this day, Richard and I argue about whether

it was him flashing his life before he died or whether it was really time travel.

And I couldn't tell you.

I don't know if he could either.

But in fact, there wasn't a whole lot of experimentation.

We came back and did those shots where you pan and tilt down through all the various characters as they were waking up to it.

And I think that might have been an addendum.

But for the most part,

we made it work

with what we had.

It wasn't complicated in that sense.

It was just, there were a couple things Richard tried in editorial, but not that it wasn't a big, crazy thing.

Oh, we have to try this, we have to try that.

I really don't even remember too much discussion about it.

It was just a thing that had to be

had to be put together and we needed an ending.

So we were able to shoot that additional footage going through each on the very, I think it was the very last day we actually came back and did that a little bit of work.

It was, again, it was the material was there to experiment.

Okay, so the movie premieres at Sundance,

doesn't sell for a little while,

New Market, Christopher Nolan, movie releases, the timing, like 9-11, it's terrible.

But then

it finds this amazing second life on DVD and VHS.

So

when do you, as the cinematographer, start to get a sense, wait a second.

this movie's finding the audience it always should have found in theaters.

When did that start to become, because now, like you said, Frank Suit, second floor of the Academy Museum, like this movie's in the zeitgeist

and continues to be in the zeitgeist, more so than a ton of other films.

It's one of the most important sci-fi movies of the last 25 years.

So when do you start to get a sense, wait a second, maybe it didn't make the big splash at the box office, but this thing has wormed its way into the public consciousness?

You know, I stayed with it.

Like I said, I was carrying cans of film from the laboratory to the telecenter and just sitting in there and supervising the color because it was so specific so i had my eye on it the whole time and did whatever i could do to help promote it the producers didn't know really

what to do with it they couldn't they didn't know what kind of movie it was They had no idea.

They tried to market it as a Halloween movie.

How stupid was that?

I know.

They released it in October trying to sell that element of it.

And then

while that was going on, Richard was writing Southland Tales, which is one of my favorite.

I had wonderful time making that movie with Richard.

The three times we've worked together were some of the best I've had in my career.

And, you know, I work with Ridley.

I work with this one.

I work with that one.

Done some, I worked with Mel Brooks.

My God, that was most,

it was like a dream come true.

But Richard has a very important place in my heart.

It's wonderful when you can find those collaborative relationships that stick with you.

Yeah, and we could step right back into it today

and be right there.

We're all the diehard Kelly fans, I include myself, are waiting for whatever that next thing is going to be.

So we look forward to seeing it whenever you guys get.

I have to tell you, he has written

several brilliant scripts.

Brilliant.

I mean, extraordinary scripts, and we're waiting to hope that something comes through.

Yeah, it's always just that the luck of the universe, as we learned, we discussed all the different ways in which this movie had to get bounced around and the Drew Berrymore of it all to get off the ground.

Just getting that green light is, sure, you got to have a great script, but that's only half the equation.

Steven, is there anything that anything about the making of the movie or anything we didn't cover that you'd like to tell us before we let you go?

We've kept you for too long.

There were a few moments that were improvised that became shots in the movie that I like to think of as the intuition is cranking at full speed.

Richard and I both have ideas, and sometimes we would just look at each other and say, Okay, let's do it.

The

physical effects crew, a man named Robbie Knott, who's no longer with us, unfortunately, was responsible for dropping the engine through the roof.

And that was done physically in a small set that was built for that in a warehouse in the valley.

And

He measured a couple inches too short to get the whole rig into the warehouse.

So he needed a couple hours to just modify his rig so that he could do that, which he was able to do.

But in the meantime,

we were outside in the parking lot, and Richard and I looked over, and there was two hotel towers that had neon around the top of it.

We looked at it, and it was this weird color, and it was near the Burbank airport, and planes would go through that shot.

And we looked at each other and I told my guys to go grab a camera and bring it over.

And we shot that shot of the weird color

of a purple coming off of the holiday.

It was Holiday Inn.

And there it is.

It's in the scene.

It's a perfect interstitial shot that

you can't plan for.

just there and it was the right color.

It was weird, weirdness.

And stuff like that was happening quite consistently throughout the product production everybody would tell richard stuff richard you can't have a jet engine fall off an airplane that just doesn't happen while we were shooting there was a la times headline jet engine falls off into the pacific i think i i think i read that one yeah i know and richard had that sense of uh prescient sense that he comes up with stuff all the time look at how much in south entails entails this weird science.

Oh, we covered it for the podcast.

And I was, my whole point, we covered it a few years ago, right at the beginning of the pandemic.

And I was like, it predicted Bism, the rise of MA, like the pornification of everything.

It was so ahead of, it was way too far ahead of its time.

Way too ahead.

And

I show it now in my class.

And they're amazed.

So when was this made?

Yeah.

No, it's true.

And it's, it's i love that it's such a big swing and donny darko is such a big swing movie i think one of the things that makes donny darko have its staying power is that it's so grounded in all these human emotions and you guys shot it in a way like you said everything was around the emotions of the movie what's going to support the emotions of the relationships the emotions of these characters And to me, that's why it's, yes, it has an amazing sci-fi hook.

But what makes you stay is you recognize all these people from your own life and you want to watch them deal with this weird thing.

We all deal with the unconscious.

And if that's not part of the movie,

if you don't think that through in terms of what is the effect

on the audience, then you're missing an opportunity to tell a story.

Steven Poster is an instructor at the Art Center College of Design.

His credits are far too numerous to list here, but some of my favorites include Dead and Buried, Strange Brew, Southland Tales, and of course, Donnie Darko.

All right, guys, stick around.

After the break, we are going to talk to camera operator Dave Comides about just how hard it was to pull off that head-over-heels sequence, even after Kelly had agreed to break it up into five parts.

Thanks for sticking around guys and let's dive in with friend of the pod, Dave Comides.

Dave Kamides has been a local 600 camera steady cam op for 30 plus years.

He's received two primetime Emmy Awards, the Society of Camera Operator of the Year nomination in 2014 for his work on St.

Vincent and he won that award in 2023 for his work on the TV show Ozark.

Dave is also a podcaster and the creator of a fantastic resource called The Op.

The Op is a podcast and website and series of videos dedicated to teaching the art and craft of camera operating.

But we brought Dave back to talk about one of the earlier films in his filmography, Donnie Darko.

Dave, thanks for being here.

Ah, you kidding me?

It's so, so good to be back.

And my favorite podcast, hands down, that also happens to be about the film industry, that I get that right.

And it's pretty close.

And also, by the way, I mean, to talk about Donnie Darko.

So when you asked me, yeah, thank you.

Thank you for including me.

I appreciate it.

Of course.

So you were the steady cam operator on Donny Darko, a film that has had an enduring legacy, maybe a surprising legacy for folks who crewed on the film.

So before we get into the movie itself, can you give us a brief snapshot as to where you are in your career when Donny Darko comes your way?

So I had to look it up, but I think Donnie Darko was like, was like 2000, maybe we shot it or maybe 1999 it seemed like it seems like it was in the spring like in March or April something and it was a short film

and so I was the a camera study camera operator and I had just come off of the TV I was like 29 30 I had just come off of the TV show ER that I had done for three years

so

and and this I was it's funny because when you said we're going to talk about it I sort of look back and I realized this kind of was my first substantial feature as a an A-camera operator.

So it was kind of cool.

Yeah.

And it has a special place in my heart for a lot of reasons.

Yeah.

Well, speaking of ER, was there an existing relationship then with Noah Wiley,

who obviously plays Donnie's teacher in the film, one of his underrated, I would argue, feature film roles.

Yeah, I mean, he's not in it a lot, but he kind of nails it.

There's no question about it.

Yeah, Noah and I knew each other.

And when I saw it, I was like, oh my gosh, Noah Wiley's in here.

And it was kind of neat.

It was also one of the first times, I think, where I was on something else and I knew one of the actors really well from something else and suddenly you see each other and you don't expect it.

And it was, yeah, it was, it was, like I said, there was a lot of great stuff about that movie.

Now,

something that I don't know if, you know, a mainstream audience appreciates is that it's not just, you know, a cast that has to like the script or, you know, read the script and jump onto a movie.

It's not just the studio that green lights it.

Like, you want your crew to like your script and want to make the movie with you and hopefully understand the film.

So you get this script for Donny Darko.

It's a trippy, you know, dense final product.

I can only imagine what it felt like.

So walk us through the process of reading that script for the first time.

So it's really funny that you asked that because that's one of the things that I kind of remember was, you know, when you get asked to do a script or even a TV show like a pilot, they send you the script

and you sort of like, well, this was back when we used paper.

I I don't know if we have to explain paper to everybody, but,

and, you know, you're holding it and you open it up and you're sort of like, you're a little afraid because you're like, oh, please don't be like horrible or something I find really offensive.

And I remember sitting, I remember I was in the living room.

I sat on the couch and I opened it up and I read it.

And I literally, I think I called up Stephen Poster, our cinematographer, and I was like, I have to do this movie.

This is so good.

And just, like,

I mean, and it's kind of as, and I think, again, it's a long time ago, but I think that what you see is what I read.

I vaguely remember there was something slightly different in the end.

There was a there was something in the end in the script where he actually drives the car off of like the cliff and he goes up in the air, but I don't think we shot that or something.

I don't remember.

There was something different.

Do you know about you know what I'm talking about?

I do.

I'm actually trying to track down that copy of the script, but my understanding is that he actually

like causes the plane crash by effectively flying?

That's what it is.

No, that's exactly what it is.

And yeah, he causes the, so it's even more,

it's more than him accepting his fate.

It's more, it's him creating the fate.

Well, he sort of does that anyway now.

Right.

He kind of becomes the superhero to cause his own death

at the end of the film.

Yeah.

But, and, and I remember it working so well.

So maybe we didn't shoot for budgetary reasons.

I don't know what it was.

But, and I don't think anybody misses it.

But I, it's just, I just remember like, first of all, it was like, what is this?

But also, like, the dialogue.

I remember very specifically and i was so happy i was so happy when we shot it and it worked the same way i just remember um uh uh well i can't think of her her her name but um

uh maggie and jake being at the table and that line like how exactly do you suck a fuck yeah how exactly does one suck a fuck

i remember reading it and laughing out loud because it's like it's what you know it's what adolescent teen brother and sisters say to each other and that whole, that whole opening, I think it's pretty close.

It's like the second scene of the movie or something like that, where they're sitting and just like Holmes Osborne, the father, like laughing when they say inappropriate things.

It's just everybody nailed it in that movie.

And, you know, I mean, and I do remember reading it in like, sparkle motion.

What is that?

Yeah.

Sparkle.

So it was.

It was great.

It was really great.

Well, like, a lot of what you're speaking to is the tone of the movie, right?

Like, it very much captures kind of that ennui of being a teenage boy, which you were not, not, you were saying you're 29, 30 years old.

You're not too far from that period of your life.

And I'll just, I'll just let you know that like, I had not matured tremendously past that anyway.

So maybe like body-wise, I was a little past it, but mentally I was still there.

So that's probably why I liked it.

But Richard Kelly was even younger.

25.

Right.

When you shot it as the director.

So can you walk me through the process?

So Stephen Poster, cinematographer, is obviously a little older and much more established than Richard Kelly making his first feature film.

I read in an interview that Stephen was a little skeptical of Kelly until they sat down and he says that Kelly was able to walk him through shot by shot, like, this is how I see the movie in my head.

I can tell you every single beat and camera position.

Was that your experience working with Kelly as well?

100%.

I was.

Look, I wasn't skeptical of him because by the time I got in there, you know, and we got on set, Stephen had been working with him.

So Stephen was obviously like, no, no, he knows what he's doing.

but he's 25 years old.

It's definitely his first feature.

I think it was probably his first, I don't know if he'd done a short or something or whatever, but he came out of film school.

I think he wrote this in film school or something, but he

knew every beat of that movie.

And the bigger thing is, because I've worked with directors who know every beat of a movie and are, and, and he was basically like, it's not that he wasn't, I'm not going to say he wasn't open, like he, he listened.

But if we wanted to change something that was important to him, he just said, nope, we're doing it this way, and I don't care.

And I know how it works.

And so, what I was going to say was he knew every beat of that movie, but he was right.

And

that's really rare.

I remember being very impressed with him on a lot of levels.

And he was kind of like this sort of quiet, awkward, you know, he was a little geeky.

And

from what I, you know, I didn't know at the time, but now I know that apparently, like, he said, if you want this made, I'm directing it, or else it's not getting made.

Like he pulled a Sylvester Stone in Rocky, you know, and

he just knew it all.

And the other thing that I remember that impressed me was like all those drawings of donny's and that are all over the place or his drawings he would sit and like like doodle on set and whatever it was kind of amazing but he was really great and um

he yeah he just knew the movie i don't know how to how else to say it than that he really and and and we would do things even that you know i might go i really i think this is better but then you'd do it and and you'd usually go no like this is this makes sense you know and and a couple of things i can't remember what but there were a couple things i thought well that's not going to work and then i saw the cut and i was like nope he was right.

You know, so I got to give credit where credit is due.

He was on the money.

And when you say Stephen Poster was a little older, I don't know for a fact, but I think maybe Stephen was, he was probably in his 60s or close to that at that time.

So, you know, he's twice his age.

I'm a couple of years older, but I'm sort of established.

So

either he was surrounded with or he surrounded himself with, you know, people who knew what they were doing.

But I'm sure that that was probably,

I'm sure on a level when he started out anyway, he would have been rather with people who didn't, who wouldn't have fought him on things, you know, going, we should do this or we should do that.

But he, he persevered and thank, thankfully he did, which is why that movie is so good.

Speaking of knowing what he wants and then your role in the movie, I forgot how much steady cam work this movie has in it.

I mean, especially for an indie film, because it's not just walk and talks, right?

You know, you've got Donnie walking with Jenna Malone down the street and you're going to capture those scenes.

But the entire opening of the film, for example, right, you're following Donnie down

the Carpathian Ridge soundtrack is playing, and I'm just guessing Angeles National Forest somewhere, like over on the tube.

At like four in the morning, and we're like, why aren't we here?

Four in the morning.

And then, but then every character introduction that follows with the family, all steady cam, every introduction at the school, the kind of

music video, Tears for Fears sequence, which we'll get to, the wormhole scene where he's following the people, you know, as the wormholes extruding from their chests.

So

talk to us about this because this has to be an, in my opinion, an unusually heavy amount of steady cam work for an indie film.

And the style, it's not like this is very exact steady cam work.

It's very exact.

I will say, I hadn't seen the movie in a while.

And when I knew we were going to do this, I was like, I should probably watch it again because maybe I don't remember it.

And I was actually, I will say non-egotistically, I was actually very proud of the work I did in that because, and I remember it was very exacting.

it was very specific

I don't know if I agree that it's that much more than other films I think that that though the stuff that we did sort of stands out more than in other films like other films it's like I don't really think about that but some of this is really specific

I do remember I will say the hardest shot that I did on the film which is one of the hardest shots I've ever done in my life um was not on Steady Cam.

It was at the party scene when Donnie walks in and then start,

he's like feeling, you know, I think it's just before he sees the,

whatever you call them, arrows or the,

I don't remember what he calls them.

Yeah.

And it turns 360 degrees.

And we have this thing called it, it's called a panitate, and it's basically a big circle and the camera sits nodally.

So it's, it's, you know, it's pivoting on the center of the lens in the center of that.

And it gets, I think electronically, it turns 360 degrees, which doesn't seem like a big deal, but you're on a fluid head.

So like a regular tripod that anybody might have, you know, most people know what a tripod with a camera on it is like these days.

So, you're basically just, you want it to go up, you push it, you push the lever, you know, the handle down, and it tilts up, and it tilts down.

But halfway through, suddenly up is down, and down is up.

So, you have to decide when to, and we did that shot so many times, and it sped up in the film.

They actually speed it up.

And

when we actually did it, it was slow, so it was a long shot.

So, it was, I mean, we must have done it nine or 10 times and we finally got one.

And I think as I recall, they were like, maybe you should try it again.

I was like, no, we got it.

Like, let's just move on.

Because it was such a, it was so screwy.

And I tried not looking at it.

I tried looking at the camera.

I tried all these things.

It was really hard to do.

But, you know, that's, that's.

You get handed these things and you have to do them.

It's a cool shot, though.

I like it.

And then, you know, there was, there was another one, which wasn't as hard, but, but when you first are at the school and it comes out of the bus with the tears for fears, and it's sideways.

So he had a lot of things like that that were really, they were just unique.

They were cool little things.

I don't think that I totally understood them at the time.

I mean, the circle one, when he's going into that mode, I understood.

But the other ones, I was like, really?

But then they just add to the flavor of the whole thing.

Now, did you guys have any conception of the music when you were filming the movie?

Okay.

Well, we didn't.

I didn't, I should say.

I think Richards is the kind of guy who, if he had known or he had, you know, maybe he might have played it for it for us so there's a lot of music in here that feels

in a vacuum dated to me and yet when i watch the movie timeless it's perfect i mean the the the um what's what's the cover at the end when uh mad world tears from mad world i mean right that that cover is so unbelievable and and honestly i that's another thing that struck me this time when i watched it like when when it's going through it works so it's edited so perfectly.

I mean, I do remember obviously it was very sort of like, we're going to come in this.

And, you know, you can tell it's like, and we're going to like come into the, you know, the bed spread.

And we'll come out of the bed spread because usually they tell you that.

But the, the,

the speed of all that works so well with that song.

And that song is so haunting.

It's just like, it's one of, it's a phenomenal sequence.

Absolutely.

So speaking of a sequence like that, or just in general, you said that, you know, Richard knew what he wanted.

When you guys were going through your process, like, what's the dynamic between you, Steven Poster, and Richard Kelly as you're, for example, blocking these sequences?

Like, you've got a complex sequence where you're moving through the school, characters are wiping, you know, you're going to have to do a whip pan at the end, let's say, to get the sparkle motion crew.

Walk us through kind of like how you interact with the director and the director of photography to kind of bring that all to life.

I do remember that Richard was very specific about what he wanted.

And, you know,

when I'm working with any director who's specific about what they want, my job is to give them what they want.

But at the same time, especially if I'm in Steady Cam, you know, which maybe

they don't know Steady Cam as well as I do, just because I do it all the time.

You know, as I'm doing things, I'm going to go up and go, hey, you know, I have the ability to try this or I have the ability to try that.

And

he was not, I don't know how to say this.

He was not open to that.

But if it wasn't serving the shot that he was thought was important, he would say, you know, thank you so much, but whatever.

So, you know, generally speaking, though, and I think this is the way it worked, it's like they've thought it out ahead of time and

come up with an idea.

And then we get on set and they kind of, we, you know, we rehearse and we watch it and whatever.

And then I go, so, you know, what are you thinking?

And then they, they walk me through it.

And then I'll usually, I'll usually take that and kind of finesse it and offer them some version if it's not exact or whatever.

And then offer opportunities.

That's what I always call them is like ways to make them better.

I don't remember anything specific being different about that.

But

on a larger level, I will say this.

I always feel like my job is to take what I've been given as an operator and make it better.

Um, and if I've done that, then I've done my job.

Now, if it works perfectly well, like some of this did, my job is then just to execute it.

And I'm fine with that.

That's great.

You know, that's, that's just what it is.

I do remember he was, he was kind of exacting.

Um

about frames that he wanted and he would come on, you know, more than most directors, because I think on whatever level, I think he saw the movie, like we talked about and and i think he really you know he's like i said he's an artist so my guess is he probably did actually see the movie and he was big in the movies so um that was one of the other things i do remember is like we talked about movies a lot that was kind of fun um because we you know we're sort of relatively the same age and we had the passion passion for movies so it was that was a lot of fun um but um yeah usually it's it's on every different on every movie it's a little different but it's it's it's a little bit of a three-way you know back and forth of sort of tweaking things and then I'll be totally honest, as an operator, you go in and there are things that you do that you don't ask about and you just sort of do because you like it.

And if someone doesn't like it, they'll tell you.

But otherwise you're like, yes, that's better.

So that's I wish I had a bigger answer for you for that, but I don't remember anything specific.

I do just remember he knew what he wanted.

And

he and or Steven, because they had obviously, like I said, worked on it ahead of time, were pretty good by the time we got there with knowing what it was.

I don't remember any sequences that he was just like, I don't know how this is going to work.

He always had, you know, an idea of it.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

You guys were relative to the cast,

like the actual older vets, I feel like involved because this is like a very young, up-and-coming cast.

Obviously, you've got like Seth Rogan has a bit part, you know what I mean, in this movie.

Obviously, Jake Jillenhall has become one of the biggest actors in the world.

Jenna Malone, his sister Maggie is like a director in her own right now, obviously.

I mean, like Drew Barrymore and Noah Wiley were the old old people, you know, in this movie, in a sense, outside of the, you know, the parents and grandma death.

So what was it, you know, I feel like as a camera operator, your relationship is so tethered to the actors, right?

We're like, you're trying to nail it on every take just in case they're nailing it on that take.

So what's that relationship between you and like a pretty young cast in this movie?

Yeah, I can tell you a couple things about that.

I mean, if I recall, Jake was 19.

I think

so.

And

I know because

I was trying to shoot a short that he actually was really excited about.

I don't know whatever happened to it.

But I dropped it off at his place and he was like,

I knocked on the door and like three people came to the door and were like, yeah.

And I was like,

does Jake Joe and Hall live here?

And they're like, yeah,

his room's in the back, but he's not there.

And I was like, oh, well, this.

And they're like, yeah, you can just throw it on his bed.

So I like, I like walked through the house and like through the bathroom into the kitchen in this house in Hollywood, you know, somewhere that's not very impressive.

And he's got this this little room.

I mean, he was just like a, he was like a kid, right?

Very much.

And he was a lot of fun to work with.

He,

I think, had had,

you know,

past his years, a fair amount of experience.

So like he kind of knew what was going on.

He would ask things and whatever, but he really was very camera aware.

I mean, he, and he's from a family, you know, I think his dad's a director, maybe, or producer or something like that, or screenwriter, his mom's a screenwriter, but anyway, the whole family.

Maggie was, was, I don't think she had as much, but she was super smart, and you could tell that she was going places, so, like, and you know, she's not in a tremendous amount of the movie, but actually,

watching it, I remembered like how funny the moments with her are.

I just love the moments that she's in.

And for some reason, the one that kills me is that one where she's walking up at the beginning, and Holmes Osborne, her dad, just hits her with the leaf blower, with the leaf blower, and you can see on her face, like, what the hell are you doing?

It's great, but um, uh, Jenna, um, Jenna was also really, really great, but I'll tell you one thing that was, I mean, there's that

steady camp shot that I did with the whip pens and the speed ramps and whatever, which I can tell you about, which was a whole thing.

But I remember very specifically in that, and you've never seen Jenna before, so when you introduce your character, and

the way that you see her first is, you know, you're over her shoulder into the mirror on the locker.

And so when we started rehearsing that, and this is just one of those things that an older actor would probably know,

I couldn't find her in the mirror, and she's moving and I'm moving, and she's moving, and I'm moving.

And that's why I went, Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Jenna, yeah, I said, I you can't find me in the mirror, I have to find you in the mirror.

And she goes, Really?

And I said, Yeah, because if you find me in the mirror, then that means that I see you, and I can't see you, so that means I'm going to go here.

So you're going faster.

And before you know it, I've run into the lockers.

And she goes, Oh, and I said, So she goes, What should I do?

And I said, Just look off to the side of the mirror and just sort of move it at a pace that you would, and just know that I can see you.

And she goes, Oh, okay.

So it was one of those, you know, like little moments.

And I remember very specifically after she closes the door, she stops for a second in the locker and she looks up.

And I remember we did the first rehearsal and Steven Poster came over and he said, Hey, Dave, yeah, yeah.

Can you do me a favor?

When Jenna closes the

locker door, can you have her look up at her key light there?

Because it's the first time we see her and I want to get some light on her face.

And I looked at him and I was like, why would she look up at the key light?

And he goes, because I want the light on her face.

And he walks away, which is a very DP thing to say.

And I was like, okay, so, hey Jenna and and I do what I usually do is she's like yeah hey when you close the locker is there any reason like you would sort of look up down the hall before you walk I mean I it's the best I could come up with and she goes you mean at the pipes

sure I was like yeah sort of at the pipes like and she goes I don't think so and I remember thinking like going through my mind and thinking like she's like 16 or whatever she is just tell her and I went you see that light up there Jenna and she said yeah and I said when you close that locker if you look up there it's going to look really nice on your face and and it's gonna kind of be cool and she goes oh i could totally do that yeah exactly whereas you know

someone else might might be like my character would never look up you know and she was just like yeah that's great and then uh and then because you mentioned him seth rogan

so i i i should have done the math on it but had seth done freaks and greet Freaks and Geeks yet?

And it wasn't out?

I think maybe it wasn't out yet.

I think that's it.

When you filmed, I don't think it had been released yet.

Well, when we filmed, he was absolutely not Seth Rogan.

And the reality is after after Freaks and Geeks, he wasn't even really Seth Rogan.

But it was just like, and he has, you know, what is he in three scenes and he's background for the rest of it.

But he hung out on set.

I remember him being there all the time.

And he would pepper my, my first AC is a guy named Norman, who by then had been in the business for 25 years, just an old school.

And he would come up and ask us questions all the time.

And I remember Norman going, that kid's going to be something someday.

I'm like, Seth, like the background kid?

And he's like, yeah, watch.

He's going to do something someday.

And, you know, there you go um but uh but yeah they were you know as an operator i i and maybe this is putting too big a thing on it but i've always felt like one of my jobs as an a camera operator is like to create sort of a safe space for the actors and and sort of keep some things at bay like there are certain things that you know don't need to get in their heads if they have something or whatever and i think with kids it's even a little more so because you know you want to talk to them about blocking and about this and about that but again when you have something like well for instance seth who probably didn't know much at that time, you got someone like Jake who really did, you want to be careful about not going, you know, making them feel like they don't know what they're doing.

And so you sort of soft pedal some of this stuff.

And, but I do remember there was a lot of like questions and conversations and whatever, which I always like because it's like they're interested, you know, and you're interested in what they're doing.

I also remember Jenna Malone.

either had or was just about to sue for emancipation from her parents because and and i said really and and and and that's one of those things where you're like, oh, is that a bad situation or whatever?

And she was like, well, no, it's just because the way my career is going, I really want to be able to make my own decisions.

And I've already bought, she told me she had already like purchased the rights to books that she thought would be great characters for her when she was older.

And I was like, you're more mature than I ever will be.

She was, yeah, she was fantastic.

Yeah, they were all, they were all really great.

There wasn't a bad bunch.

And then you got, of course, Drew Barrimore, who's been around since they were, you know, younger than them.

And Noah Wiley, who's the same age as me.

And yeah, but then also, you know, one of the big things for me, I was like, wow, I'm working with Mary McDonald.

Like, Mary McDonald was in dances with wolves.

And I remember talking to her about it.

And she told me that she had learned Lakota.

And I said, Really, can you say anything to Lakota?

And she rattled something off.

It was that was really cool.

But again, she was totally cool and just happy to be there and very much supportive of the younger cast.

And it was just, it was a great experience.

It really was.

Well, let's talk about the speed ramps and the whip fans and that whole sequence.

So, you know, just maybe

any nuggets from that we will take, but also what's that, you know, process like?

Obviously, you're...

you're going to be tight on time and money.

It's an indie film.

It's a very complicated sequence.

It's got at least four discrete portions, right?

Like Like outside the bus, into the hallway, out in the courtyard, the sparkle motion dance, and then into the classroom where we end with the introduction of, or Donnie comes in, and you know, Jenna Malone sits next to him.

By the way,

it's worth noting the other thing that I realized, I watched this and I was like, wow, this movie would not play today.

No, exactly.

Yeah, that teacher would be fired immediately.

There's some sketchy stuff in there.

And actually, when I, and I, and I had this visceral granted, I haven't seen it for a while, and I'm a dad and

my girls are older,

but I'd forgotten when she says, take the seat next to the boy who you think is the cutest.

And I'm like, HR right now, exactly.

And I mean, there are other things that the kids say that's like, whoa, it just plays a little differently.

But yeah, so that whole sequence was,

I want to say we shot most of it on the same day, I think.

It seems like it.

But, you know, coming out of the bus,

I was just on a dolly and it was a head, a lambda head that sort of hangs down, and you can go sideways with it.

So that was pretty simple because you started sideways, and then as it came, we just went on the track and moved over.

And that was pretty simple.

And then, I mean, the big one was

then in the hallway.

And the way that that works, we're shooting film.

So nowadays, you would shoot it on digital, right?

And then you would just shoot a pass on digital.

You do all the moves and whatever.

And then they'd take it into post and they would like perfectly go, okay, we want to ramp at this point, we want to ramp at this point.

But back then then with film, you were actually physically ramping.

It was, and for anybody who doesn't know, when we say ramping, you're going from 24 frames per second, which is, which is normal speed, to, I think it went to 48 frames per second, which is, which is, you know, twice as slow because there's more film going through and it plays back at 24 frames per second.

So Norman, my assistant, and to this day, I don't know how someone does this, but he's pulling focus with one hand.

And then in his other hand, he has a box with a little button, and it has a huge cable going to the steady cam, which has its own problems because I'm not only trying to do moves, but I'm trying to do whips.

And the steady cam doesn't want to be encumbered by something.

It has to be perfectly balanced, and I'm completely encumbered by something.

So, that was its own thing.

And then, what's happening is as we're, as I'm about to whip, so it takes a split second for the speed to change because when he pushes that button, two things are happening.

One is the speed is changing from 24 to 48, or at times from 48 back to 24.

But because it's going faster and or slower, depending on which way you're going, the light needs to change coming into the lens, the amount of light coming in the lens.

So it's either doubling or halving, right?

Exactly.

So it's actually connected to a motor back then

that literally changed the aperture at the same speed that the film speed is changing.

And it's really quite incredible because you don't see any effect other than the slow motion.

So that was how they came up with it.

So we started rehearsing it.

And basically, what had to happen, and these kids, you know, were great because they didn't pay attention to it.

You know, I'm pushing in and I go, whip.

And, and, or I think actually, no, I'm sorry, I'm pushing in and I would go ramp.

And Norman would hit the button.

And then I would do the next part and I would go ramp.

But he also has to physically be very close.

And I'm turning my body usually 180 degrees or something like that.

And he would have to stay physically close to me because otherwise the cable would pull me.

And he's pulling focused and he's ramping and everything.

And,

you know, you do it a bunch, but the reality reality is you don't know if it worked because you know i'm saying ramp at exactly the moment that i want it to happen which may be right or maybe not because i'm thinking about 12 other things he's hopefully hitting it at the same point but invariably there's some you know there's some flex in there so the thing about it was you didn't know until the next day when daily showed up whether it worked or not and i would also point out as you pointed out so well there's no music with it which i'm sure when we saw it we were probably like

but then suddenly suddenly you put the music on it and it's like oh this is kind of brilliant you know and if he's pulling focus at the same time anytime you open that aperture up right and your depth of field gets cut way down oh yeah

exactly and he's calibrating to like which depth of field you know what I mean am I am I pulling on right now yeah and and for anybody who is in the business now you also have to keep in mind he wasn't looking at a monitor and and sure my monitor was there but I guarantee you he wasn't looking at the monitor my monitor while he's pulling focus while he's I mean you know and actually now that I think about it, the way the focus, I don't remember how this worked, the way the focus worked was he had to hold the focus,

the remote follow focus with one hand and turn the knob with another.

So he must have had the other thing on top of that one.

I mean, it's, it's, I don't understand how it worked, but it's all, it's, it's a testament to how good Norman is and was.

He's not working anymore, but, but.

that that works as well as it did.

And if you look at it, like I, every time I look at that, it drives me nuts because as I land those frames, you know, there's some wobble, which is from that stupid cable, which you just can't overcome.

But it's better than it should be.

I will say that.

I think it looks fantastic.

I mean, today

they would have, you know, you could like warp it or whatever to hide the wobble.

But I there's wobble in it.

There's wobble in some of the best Spielberg, you know, wide dolly shots, and he doesn't remove it.

You know what I mean?

Like, yep, I don't disagree with it.

There's actually that.

It's a whole nother thing, but there's something that I feel some of these highly stabilized shots now sort of don't have any soul i agree they sort of lose something to me so it kind of drives me nuts but the thing that i really like about that shot which i've always loved is at the end when you're in slow-mo and you're pushing past the one kid and they're doing the coach yeah exactly and it it pushes past them and you know and then the principal walks around the corner it's like it it's almost the perfect handoff and and i will i will take credit on the level that i set it up with the timing and i talked to the principal about the timing because there's a way that you talk to people about timing that hopefully has to do with story rather than other things.

But he just, it's all on him.

He nailed it.

And the thing is,

when you're pushing past them on a steady cam shot, the last thing you want to do is hesitate because you don't want anybody to think about the camera.

So you're like, I'm just going to keep going and hope, oh, God, there he is.

And it just works so nicely.

And then the one out in the yard.

There's some ramps in there, but it's not as, I mean, you know, that was a little simpler.

That's almost a walk and talk, really, but it works.

But again, it just works so nicely with the music and the style.

And the sparkle motion is, you know, what it is.

Well, you mentioned, you mentioned the introduction of the principle, which is a great point because

it is a story moment, right?

What you're saying is this guy.

ultimately he's got a stick up his ass but he's a coward right he's not going to tell these kids not to do something which becomes a story point later in the movie as he's failing to discipline donnie right?

Between

Beth, what's her name's character, whose name is escaping me.

But that's such a good point, which is, and I think people don't fully appreciate this, like every member of the crew is attempting to further the story through their contributions to the frame.

Right.

Absolutely.

And that's exactly what you're doing in that situation.

You're saying you have an opportunity here for our audience in the 36, 48 frames this guy's on camera to have a pretty good understanding of who he is.

And that's invaluable.

And it's amazing because I don't know if that was discussed or not, or he pulled it and I don't know where that came from,

but it is one of those things that if you don't recognize what you're saying, which I guarantee you, a lot of people don't analyze it to that extent.

They're just watching the movie.

There's nothing lost.

Exactly.

But there's an Easter egg in there that he added that just adds layers.

And to me, those are the best films where you watch it and there's something more and and there's something more and and you know you mentioned something that made me think i actually i i teach operating now to younger operators and one of the things that i talk about which i've sort of mentally termed myself over the years for me is when i'm putting a shot together the first two things that i think about as i'm as i'm figuring out the shot and you know working out the details and whatever I think about assassins and opportunities.

So right off the bat, I think about assassins.

And that's literally, is there something that's going to kill me?

Like, is there a hole in the floor I'm going to fall in?

I got to take care of those and whatever.

Or is there a cable?

And then visually, like, is there a mirror?

Is there glass?

Or, you know, is there something that's going to not allow me to accomplish the shot well?

And then once I've gotten past those and I'm like, all right, I'm safe.

I'm going to make it through this alive.

I can do the shot.

Then it's opportunities.

Like,

what do I see that can make this, can come up with those layers?

I mean, his is different because it's an acting, but how do I keep on adding those layers and making the shot better?

And the thing is, every time you put down the rig or every time you get off the dolly,

if you're going again, you're thinking, how can this be better?

And

the reality is, someone asked me once, like, have you ever done a shot where you got off and you're like, I nailed that?

And I was like, wow, that sounds fantastic.

No, usually on the way home, I'm going, oh, I can't believe I didn't think of that.

Don't even talk.

The way home is

you could end a day thinking like, that was the best day ever.

And by the time you get home, you're like, today sucked ass.

This was bullshit.

I've had a couple of days.

Just like, I get it.

I don't know your experience, but just the couple movies I have done, trust me, I like end of day, everyone's high-fiving.

I go home and I'm like, you fucking idiot.

You forgot.

I was like, why are you crying exactly when you come home?

And I'm like, when I get in the car, I'm not.

But no, but I think it's because, look, it's because you're passionate about filmmaking and you want it to.

And I'm not even, in the rest of my life, I am not a perfectionist on any level.

And I wouldn't even say as a filmmaker, I'm a perfectionist, but I just want to tell the story as well as it can be told.

And

even when you can't find anything else, you're racking your brain.

You're like, what am I missing?

Like, there's something better here.

And I was talking to someone yesterday, a student about it, and he was asking about process and whatever.

And I said,

which I know sounds really highfalutin because process is usually for actors, but I think we all have our processes.

And I said, look, when I set a dolly shot and I put the camera there, I'll usually step back and at some point I'll ask myself, and I actually will ask myself this mentally, why did I put the camera there?

And if I can't answer that question pretty quickly, it means that I didn't think about it and there might be a better opportunity.

So, you know, I think you're constantly sort of trying to make it better is what it is.

And

to your point of his note and the rest of the crew, I work a lot with a guy named Tommy Shalami, who created the West Wing and Parenthood and you name it, amazing director.

And he once said to me, look,

I don't want to work with 100 technicians.

I want to work with 100 filmmakers and storytellers.

And that's like wardrobe storyteller, makeup storyteller, AC storyteller.

Like, that's who you want to work with, right?

And then everybody's building.

It's great

when it happens.

Yeah.

Well, let's talk a little bit about when a film wraps, right?

It has this extended life that most of the crew is no longer involved with, right?

You move on to your next steady cam job, makeup moves on, costume moves on.

Maybe an actor comes in for ADR, you know, the producer is obviously involved.

But it's this weird thing where, like, you know, the director and other people continue to live with it and the heartbreak of it for a long time.

And then maybe you get invited to like a premiere or something like that.

And Donny Darko, as we'll discuss in this episode, has had kind of an unusual trajectory in its post-production and then distribution life.

What was it like for you, a crew member, you know, at a remove watching this movie?

I know it premiered at Sundance and then eventually was released, but then found this new life through DVD and kind of formed its own subculture.

Can you just talk to us about what that was like as your relationship to the film evolved?

Yeah, I mean, I remember it came out, and I went to see it with the four other people in the theater who saw it or something.

Because I mean, if you look at the numbers, it was a bomb.

I mean, it really didn't do well at all.

Because, like, I don't think they knew how to market it, probably.

And I don't, not to anybody's, you know, how do you market this movie?

What is it?

Whatever.

And thank God it came after, you know, I guess when it came out, maybe DVDs were a thing or video or whatever.

But because if it had been long before that, it was, we, we wouldn't know about it probably.

It'd just be this thing.

But then it's, I don't know how, you probably know better than I do.

Somehow it started gaining steam.

And to this point, I mean, I've worked on, I've been doing this 35 years.

I've worked on a lot of things and a lot of big things.

And Donny Darko gets me more street cred than almost anything.

Granted, it's with sort of a certain age group generally, but it's kind of surprising the number of people.

I remember they gave me a crutzy, we had a crutzy shirt that was just a Donnie Darko in small letters, and there was a picture of the rabbit on there, a little drawing, which I think Richard might have made.

And every once in a while, I'll wear it, and people on the street would be like, Donny Darko, did you work on Donnie Darko?

Because I'm in California and you see those things.

And it's kind of amazing.

And the other thing I will tell you is

on the last day,

It was really sweet.

Jake came up to Norman and I and he goes, hey, guys,

when you get home, just make sure to look in your backpack because I put something in your backpack.

But don't tell anybody because I didn't have enough for everybody.

And we're like, oh, okay.

And, you know, I don't know.

I don't know what I was thinking, but whatever.

So I get home and it's a Haynes white t-shirt, like a Haynes white t-shirt.

And he had taken with a black Sharpie.

And remember, he's 19 years old.

He'd take it with a black Sharpie and he had just written the number of the date and the time from the movie on it.

And there was a little note that said, thank you so much or something like that.

And I had it in the bottom of my drawer for years.

And I mean, I'll, nothing against Jake, but it didn't look very,

it was, it looked like what you think it looked like, but it was the sweetest thing.

It was like so lovely that he did that.

And I remember I ran into this young woman years ago who just was like bonkers about the movie.

And I remembered I had it.

So I grabbed it out and I was like, here.

And she goes, what is this?

And I said, Jake made this party, blah, blah, blah.

Wow.

She was out of her mind for it.

It was kind of like she couldn't believe it.

That's an amazing piece of memorabilia.

Like the caption to the end of the world drawn by jake chill and hall i should have saved it to be honest but i don't know that i i don't think i would have appreciated it as much as she i have my memories and she has that you know but yeah i run into people all the time who want to hear about it and actually um i i one of the things that i do for film schools and stuff like that is i have a seminar called the art of visual storytelling where i show a bunch of shots from my career and i break down how I work with the director, how I work with the actors, how you know, that kind of thing.

And Donnie Darko's on there, and I'm very old school about it.

I just open up a file and there's a bunch of things on there.

And if I'm running out of time and I don't do the Donny Darko one, invariably people are like, Aren't you going to do the Donny Darko?

They don't even know what it is, they don't care.

But

yeah, it was,

it was really, it was really a great, you know, and there were so many great things in there.

Like, I mean, just the name of the book that she's holding, attitudinal beliefs, and the whole like love, hate, lying thing.

It's like, what is that?

But, but it's also like, I love the fact

one of the things that I took from the movie this time that I hadn't before was this fact that like really

all of the, all of the adults, with the exception of maybe Drew and Noah on a level, I guess, but have these very like

simple answers to all the big problems that the teens are dealing with.

And the teens are all like, no, they're like, these are like massive things going on.

And I sort of, that really resonated with me.

You know, and then, by the way, and the whole, the Patrick Swayze of it all, like that whole thing.

I mean, it's just,

it's just crazy.

There was so much great stuff in there.

That was so much fun.

It was, it was fantastic.

I remember when we went into the,

you know, it was like a firebox for where they're going to burn his house.

I think it's his house or his, was it his basement or whatever?

And there was, there was that painting of him.

And I remember thinking, like, oh, I really want it.

I want to take that.

And then it was like, is it going to burn up?

But I will tell you that one of the sequences that I remember very, very well was

we had a stage in Burbank where we had Donnie's room built and we were going to drop the jet engine onto his room.

Right.

So the jet engine is outside.

And I don't know if you've ever stood next to a jet engine, but it's like four times as big as you are.

I mean, it's massive.

And we had, you know, six cameras or nine cameras or something like that.

And Stephen and I and Richard are talking about where they're going to be.

And because it's going to drop and we don't really know what's going to happen, for the most part, they have to be like, you know, they have to be put down and drilled down and wired and covered.

And, you know, because you have to, number one, you don't want to hurt the cameras, but also you want to make sure they don't get destroyed so you have the film because you're only going to drop this once.

And we spent the whole day doing it.

And, um, and it's like, okay, so you know, and everybody's all excited, like, oh, we're going to bring it in.

And it's down on the ground and it's connected to chains on like a forklift or something that, but something much bigger than that, obviously, because it has to pick it up in the air.

And it picks it up in the air and it's driving forward really closely.

And I remember Norman was standing behind me and he goes, that's not going to fit.

And I turned to him and I go, be quiet.

He goes, that's not going to fit.

And I go, shut up, Norman.

And sure enough, it like slowly comes and it goes, ding.

And they hadn't accounted for the fact that you have to get it high enough off the ground to get it in the doors and it couldn't fit through the door.

So they sent us home and they had to put it down and like roll it through the doors and pick it back up.

And then we shot it the next morning.

Of course.

You know, best laid plans.

Someone didn't think of one part of it.

But anyway, I remember when that happened, it was pretty cool.

And then, unfortunately, not that you'd use that many shots, but like, there's only one shot of, you know,

there's only kind of like one wide of the room getting smashed.

Exactly.

Right.

But, you know, it is what it is.

I think to some people, and to me, a little bit,

Richard Kelly's almost like a Harper Lee-esque, you know, character.

Like, he had this one amazing contribution to the medium.

And I'm, I personally have a soft spot for South Own Tales and the box myself, but

exactly.

I'm curious, like, did you guys, you know, really cross paths ever again after this?

No, but I'll tell you, I have a theory about that.

Sure.

And I don't know if there's any truth to it, but,

well, first of all, I'll say this, and I think you'll probably agree with this.

He had one more unbelievable movie in him that got made than most people do.

Yes, exactly.

So there's no 99.9% of people.

And even people who are making a ton of movies don't make something like this.

So like he somehow, that one movie that worked on every level and he knew how to do it and he could get it made was the one he got made yeah um i suspect

that at 25 being on a set surrounded by veteran people who know what they're doing and him telling no you don't understand this i understand it

I suspect that something got in his mind that that is, that he was an auteur,

like Kubrick, you know, and that, that, he, that he did know better.

And I think on this movie, it was absolutely right.

But to me, if you watch those other movies, someone needed to step in and change some things because there's a lot that doesn't work.

And, you know, it's clear from his career.

I know he actually, from what I understand, he makes a lot of money ghostwriting and cleaning, script doctoring.

So he's done well.

But

something is in there where.

He had this one movie.

And look, I can't blame him.

He must have thought like, well, I did it once.

I can do it again.

but he just couldn't, he just couldn't pull it off again.

And as you know, from your experience, I'm sure this is a collaborative art form.

I mean, again, going back to Tommy Shalami, one of my favorite things about him is he will know exactly what he wants.

It works perfectly.

Everything is great.

He'll get on set and he'll look at it and he'll go, you have a better idea, don't you?

No, I don't know, you know, and he'll go with it if he thinks it's a better idea.

He has no ego about it.

So that's my guess.

I don't know if you think that there's any value to that.

Yeah, you know, I don't know Richard Kelly beyond what I've learned researching this podcast, and I can only hope to one day make a movie or have the privilege of making a movie as good as Donnie Darko.

But it does seem like the reason this movie was ultimately so successful creatively is because it was created through a combination of the specificity that Kelly knew he needed and wanted and that clarity of vision, but also the gentle guidance of very wonderful and experienced collaborators from April Ferry to Stephen Poster to Alec Hammond, Drew Barrymore, Sean McKittrick.

And I think that's what makes film so powerful is that it is

maybe an individual's idea brought to life through the artistry.

and facilitation of many, many, many craftspeople around them.

And with that, Dave, we're going to bring this interview to a close, but I would be remiss if we didn't tell the people where they can find more about you and SteadyCam operating and camera operating.

So please plug what you've got going.

I would be more than happy to, and thank you for doing that.

I have a podcast called The Op, like Operator, but The Op, which is on Apple and Spotify and you name it.

And it's, yes, it is about camera operating, but actually it's really more about storytelling because I talk to camera operators, I talk to directors, I talk to

the one coming out on, what is it, Thursday is with Matthew Reese, the actor from the Americans, and you know, script supervisors and you name it, um, about filmmaking and about uh, you know, storytelling in general.

And it's, it's a lot of fun.

And then there's a website, a companion website called theop.io, which has a ton of stuff on it.

If people are really into filmmaking in the process, there's part of that that's called the breakdown.

And that's where amazing camera operators show shots they've done and just dissect everything that went into them.

And I still learned a ton when I watch them.

And then, you know, if you want to figure out how to spell my name, my website's davecomides.com, and that's that has my reel on it.

You can see the work I've done.

But the whole op website and podcast are sort of my way of giving back to the people

for the people who helped me along the way.

And I'm trying to pass it on to the next generation.

And it's fun.

Thanks again to Steven Poster and Dave Comides for lending us their time, knowledge, and expertise in our exploration of Donnie Darko.

If you guys haven't yet listened, check out our episodes on Donnie Darko and Southland Tales.

Eventually, we will get to The Box, Richard Kelly's third film.

We will see you on Monday for Ben Hur, and until then, go watch some movies.