The Dance of Light and Shadow of the Cinematographer: a conversation with Kim Miles

Journey of a Cinematographer

Speaker 1 0:04

Welcome to the Heart of Show business . I am your host , alexia Melochi . I believe in great storytelling and that every successful artist has a deep desire to express something from the heart to create a ripple effect in our society . Emotion and entertainment are closely tied together . My guests and I want to give you insider access to how the film , television and music industry works . We will cover Dreams Come True , the Road , life's Travel , journey , beginnings and a lot of insight and inspiration in between . I am a successful film and television entrepreneur who came to America as a teenager to pursue my show business dreams . Are you ready for some unfiltered real talk with entertainment visionaries from all over the world ? Then let's roll sound and action the Heart of Show business podcast . And here goes another episode on my new season of 2024 . I have with me a cinematographer who is actually also an Emmy nominee . His name is C Kim Miles . I should be putting the name C right , because that's what it says on your screen and it says on IMDb , so I'm going to go by the IMDb creds .

Speaker 1 1:27

So I have C Kim Miles with me , who is an incredible cinematographer with an amazing body of work . He certainly is not a newbie to the business . We are having an amazing discussion . Of course , the Emmy nomination that he has just gotten is on the Michael J Fox movie called Still , which is really documentary . So that's going to be a fascinating take on the use of cinematography for that medium . But then he's also done so many episodes of yellow jackets , of Home Before Dark project , blue book . He's worked with the greats like Robert Zemecki . I mean , this guy has been everywhere , so you know it's been on Arrow , he's done movies , he's done TV shows . I can't wait to explain to my audience really how important a cinematographer is . So welcome to my show , kim .

Speaker 2 2:22

Oh , thank you so much . It's great to be here . That's quite an intro you had . That's awesome .

Speaker 1 2:28

Try to sprinkle it with some fun and pizzazz , as they say .

Speaker 2 2:32

It's great , sounds pretty good .

Speaker 1 2:34

Yeah , yeah . So I have to say the first thing that I I looked at your IMDb and I'm like wait a minute , he was born in Malaysia . You're from Malaysia .

Speaker 2 2:45

Yeah , my , my dad moved there from the Midwest of the US back in the early 1950s and met my mom , and I was born there in the early 1970s , and here we are , grew up there and moved to Canada when I was 17 , 18 , 17 .

Speaker 1 3:01

Yeah , that's interesting . So you're like a true immigrant story . You are , you know , because obviously I'm Italian , so I came here when I was a teenager , so you're the true immigrant story . Okay , did you feel ? Did you feel like a foreigner ever here , or not ?

Speaker 2 3:23

Really you know my because my dad was American . I didn't really . We all was sort of had a household that was very aligned not aligned , I don't want to say aligned to be an American household by any means he's . My dad was more , more Malaysian than most Malaysians is how people used to joke about him . But no , no , no real . You know there's a lot of Malaysians are very progressive society and very modern , very contemporary . So cosmopolitan , I think , is the word I want . So no , it wasn't a huge struggle . A little bit , you know . When I first got here I was young , I was 17, . I was on my own . My parents were both back in Malaysia . I came here to go to school by myself .

Speaker 2 4:06

So there was a little bit of you know culturally , getting to know the ins and outs of Canadian culture because it's a little different than American culture . But generally enough it was pretty smooth sailing .

Speaker 1 4:17

Oh , that's great . And let me ask you something , though , is do you feel that your culture has contributed to your artistic inclinations , or what I mean ? Did you just love movies when you were a kid ? Like , how did you wake up one day and say I am going to be a cinematographer or I'm going to work in the business ? So maybe you wanted to do something better or different than cinematography . Do this , please .

Speaker 2 4:44

I well , when I was growing up , my best friend in school was a fellow named Justin Wooden and Justin was . We were best buddies from when we were three years old all the way through school right up until the end of high school . We were both graduating . His parents owned a production company in Malaysia and they shot TV commercials . His dad was had come to the business from being a still photographer before that and realized that the commercial industry was a lot more lucrative than than doing stills . So they established themselves as one of the first kind of larger production companies in Malaysia .

Speaker 2 5:20

It's a place called Peter Robinson Studios , and what they would do at the time this was in the 1980s and at the time the Malaysian broadcast regulator required that any commercials to be aired in Malaysia had to be shot in Malaysia , or 92% or something had to be shot in Malaysia with Malaysian talent and because Malaysia was the only market in all of Southeast Asia that had those laws , people like Mercedes Benz or Proctor and Gamble that like to shoot regional jobs for an entire region would come to Malaysia because they would have to . They knew they had to shoot a Malaysian version , so they would just bring all of it to Malaysia . So it was a really lucrative business for a while because you would get to shoot the Malaysian , singaporean , thai , vietnamese , indonesian , philippine , all the different versions of the commercials we would shoot in Malaysia because we could , we had to . So that was kind of the break in to the business for me , shooting commercials . And I was a grip like Justin and I started as grips at the bottom of the food Well , I don't want to say the bottom of the food chain . Grips always take a real beating for being the bottom of the food chain . They're not the bottom of the food chain , but it was an entry level job for me and for Justin and I was always interested in still photography and Justin's dad had said , look , you know , we're thinking of resurrecting the still photography side of things . So if you go to school and , do you know , get a degree in still photography , then maybe when you come back we can , we can put you in charge of the still photography side .

Speaker 2 7:00

So I went to Canada , canada , and did still photography at university , but I would go back in the summer and be a camera assistant and work on on set and and I think that the the the motion picture side of it became much more interesting to me than the still side of it , you know , and certainly it's a lot less Not to sound lazy , but it's a lot less competitive than still photography . Ask any commercial photographer how hard it is to get recognized and how hard it is to get a foothold in the industry and they'll tell you . You know how they spent their whole life trying to get . You know , trying to get enough work to survive . So as a cinematographer there's a little bit more leeway . I think there's a better chance of getting work because it's a smaller community .

Speaker 2 7:44

So I never intended originally to be . I don't know if I ever intended for this to be a career . You know , back in the early days it was just something that I did to make some money in the summertime . But it kind of gets into your blood and gets into your under your skin a little bit . And my , I got married in to my wife Joanna in Canada and in 1996 , I think it was I was just kind of loaf , not loafing around , but I was doing other jobs here in Canada and Justin , my friend , had now started his own production company and he called and he said what are you doing right now ?

Speaker 2 8:21

And I said I don't know , you know nothing really . And he said why don't you come , come work with me , come work for me and my company and we'll , and we'll get your feet under you again . So Joanna and I thought well , you know , there's something really going on in Canada . Why don't we go on an adventure and go to Malaysia ? So we packed up all our things and moved to Malaysia and found out that Justin maybe wasn't quite as prepared as we thought to bring on employees , but anyway , it kind of forced me to get to know the market again and get back into the industry in Malaysia .

Speaker 2 8:57

And I met a Canadian director that lived there named Jerry McKenna , and I remember we knew him because we were friends with his daughter and Jerry was a director who worked in commercials and he had come from the agency side of things . And Jerry , we got to know him because we found out with his daughter . So you know , at barbecues , at family dinners , we would chat with Jerry . And then one day Jerry called and he said you're going to come and shoot a commercial for me . I don't know anything about shooting , I'm a camera assistant . I don't know anything about shooting . He said well , it's too late , I've already booked you with the agency , it's already approved you , so you better start reading , or something , before next week . So I kind of ended up getting plunged into it with both feet by Jerry , to whom I owe everything between him and Justin , and everything that I've ever done is because of them . And one thing led to another . He and I went to Vietnam and we shot the first commercials that ever aired in Vietnam . One was for tied laundry soap and one was for head and shoulders , and it ended up shooting at the time like 30 or 40 commercials all through Southeast Asia and Indonesia and Malaysia , in Vietnam and stuff .

Speaker 2 10:20

And then the stock market started to collapse in 1998 . There was a problem with the stock exchange in Bangkok and everything had dragged on all the economies and the first thing people stopped doing is making commercials because they don't want to spend the money . So we thought , well , maybe it's time to move back to Canada and explore what's going on there . But we came back here . This is 1998 . And I couldn't find any work here , because I was 25 years old , I'd shot a few dozen commercials , but because the business here is the way it is , everyone said , no , you're too young to be a DP . You can't be a DP , you're 25 . Dps are 50 . And I was like , but I've shot all this stuff and they said , no , it doesn't matter .

Speaker 2 11:02

We don't know if that could be anybody's stuff that you just put on a videotape . So I ended up having to . I stumbled into a job gaffing a movie in Victoria and I thought this is a great way of stealing ideas from other DPs , so learning their lighting tricks and all that . So I started doing that and gaffed not that many , like six or eight movies , I think , over the period of about five or six years , and then got a break with a company in Vancouver to shoot these really low budget movies of the week , lifetime movies and stuff like that . And that was the .

Speaker 2 11:37

You know , everything leads to another thing and it just gets bigger and bigger . And I figured , you know , if I just make the best of it and you know , instead of shooting another lifetime movie , if I could shoot the lifetime movie so that it looks like a bigger movie and always make it , you know , make it feel a bit bigger than it deserves to be or better than it's budgeted to be . Then people start to notice right , and luckily for me , that proved to be true . And , you know , one thing led to another and here we are .

Speaker 2 12:06

What a great answer to your question .

Speaker 1 12:08

Yeah , no , I love it . It's a great story because I think it's also the testimony . I feel everyone is always chasing their destiny , but I believe that when you let go , the destiny finds you , and this is really the testimony of it all . I never thought I was going to be , you know , in the film business . I loved movies . I used to , you know , watch happy days and go see the films in the open air theaters . He never really hit me that it was going to be working there .

Speaker 1 12:43

And then , a little bit like you , I was in high school and then I had basically a friend of my mom who says you want to make some extra money ? And I was like , oh , like , doing what , I speak six languages and I still do fluently . And so he says you know , there's this Italian guy and he's he doesn't speak a word of English . We're talking a lot earlier than you did . We're talking 1986 . And he's like you want to make some money during , like , spring break . There's this thing called the American film market and you know he doesn't speak a word of .

Speaker 1 13:13

English , just shadow him and go around and watch movies with him and just translate with him what you're watching on the screen . And also , like the deals he's going to be buying films . I'm like , what the hell is that buying films ? Like I thought there is studios , you know the release film . I didn't know that it was like independent movies . And so show business found me because , lo and behold , I got thrown into this thing to make like an extra 50 bucks a day so that I could , you know , pay money after I graduate . And then here I am , you know , 30 years .

Speaker 2 13:47

There was a lot of money back then , right , I mean like my first , you know , when we were grips it was 50 ring it a day , which is like now like 10 bucks a day , but it was . It was like , wow , they'll pay us to do this . You know exactly .

Speaker 1 14:00

Exactly .

Speaker 2 14:00

Exactly .

Speaker 1 14:01

I love how your your , your destiny basically , you know sought you out and as things progressed , you know , I liked the way that you started thinking well , that's very entrepreneurial of you . If I can make a lifetime movie and make you look at more expensive , that means that I'm going to get the bigger gigs to pay more money . So I I read about you on IMDBS to how you got your relationship going with Roberts and Macky and this is fascinating . Oh yes , I read a blank like a random email , like hey , I'm a cinematographer , I'd love to work with you . And he just responded . Or am I butchering completely ?

Speaker 2 14:39

No , that's it , that's , that's no . Actually , um , actually no , the the I was , I was at work , I was working on a , uh , a CW show called flash at the time , and uh , I got a call from my agent one night and uh , it was kind of late , it was like six or seven in the evening and he said I don't know what's going on , but Robert Zemeckis

Unexpected Movie Offer From Robert Zemeckis

Speaker 2 14:58

is off . His call to see if you're interested in doing a movie with him . And I was like , what are you like , robert Zemeckis ? Like , come on . And he said no , it's legit , I checked it out , it goes , it's the right phone number , Everything . And I said , yeah , I , you know , cause if you'd , if you'd asked me at any point in my life to pick a director to work with , it would be Bob , because his work has always spoken to me . It's always been . You know , romancing the stone was the first VHS tape we ever bought in Malaysia , so his work has always been , you know , part of my DNA in so many ways .

Speaker 2 15:31

So so , anyway , um , uh , my agent said at the time said , um , so look , don't , you know , first of all , don't quit your job . Yet you know he goes , I'll let them know that you're interested . But he goes don't quit your job . This is going to everyone's going to be up for this , this gig . So , um , you know it's nice to be on the radar , but if I haven't heard from them in two weeks , I'll I'll check in and find out where we're at . I said okay , great . And then about an hour later he called back and he said they want , they want you to read a script tonight and take a meeting tomorrow morning . I was like what ? And I said I can't . You know , we've got a huge bunch of work to do tonight . I can't do it tonight . So , anyway . So I got on the phone with , with , uh , not with Jack Ratke , but with um , um , with , uh , with Steve , um , oh , my goodness . Uh , I'm drawing a complete blank . This is my Alzheimer's kicking in . I swear I have Alzheimer's .

Speaker 1 16:20

Don't worry , steve , steve , well , it's good , I'll call him Stevie .

Speaker 2 16:26

So I get on the phone with him and he says I don't know if you know who Steve's darkie . And he says I don't know if you know who I am or or what this is all about . But , uh , but you know , don't feel obligated , just you know I'm going to pitch you a movie and if you think it's too crazy , just say it's too crazy . And and you know it's , it's all good , like the no hard feelings . And I said , honestly , steve , there's nothing that you could pitch me that I would say was too crazy right now . I would do anything with you guys , right , I mean no questions .

Speaker 2 16:52

So anyway , it turns out that Bob's kids , um , his younger kids , were big fans of the flash , the TV show , and he had seen , he'd interviewed a bunch of people to do welcome to Marlin and he had it wasn't really connecting with anybody . And then he noticed my work on this show that his kids were watching , and uh , and he called Steve Starkie and said hey , steve , let's track this guy down and see what he's doing . So that's how that kind of came about . Yeah , it's a total fairy tale .

Speaker 1 17:27

It is a fairy tale that's such an amazing story and . I mean , of course , I'm curious , had you actually read the script ? Or when you got on the call , you had not even read the script ? No , they sent it that night .

Speaker 2 17:40

Yeah , they sent it that night . The phone call was at 11 the next morning and I got up at five o'clock , I think , and read the script I'm gonna .

Pitching Cinematography and Collaborative Vision

Speaker 1 17:51

So how does a cinematographer pitch himself or herself ? Because there's also women DPs , god bless them . I mean , we want to be inclusive . So how does a cinematographer pitch themselves after reading a script ? I mean , do you have to say how you would shoot it ? Like , are you getting technical on camera lenses or are you getting on the story , or are you making the director feel comfortable that you got his or her back ? Like , how do you pitch yourself ?

Speaker 2 18:20

Oh , that's interesting . I try not to get technical . I've discovered over the years that you can get a pretty good sense of what the director's background is when you first have a conversation with them , and some of them want to talk about technical stuff right away . Some of them want to talk about story . Some of them go I don't know what it looks like . Some of them say you tell me what it looks like . And others say I have a lookbook that I want you to look at and they send you a lookbook and you kind of go through what you know , get an idea of what's already in their mind .

Speaker 2 18:55

I kind of like a hybrid of all of that . Like I , like directors that have a vision of what they want but that are also collaborative and willing to listen to ideas and to share ideas about ideas back and forth . It's less sort of inspiring to work with someone that has a very specific idea . This is what I want to do . I'm not deviating from it , like that would be , creatively , I think , a really tough haul for me to not really have any ownership over what the movie looks like . So , yeah , the first interview is usually about story and about you know , tell me how this makes you feel , tell me what emotions you're feeling and what do you have in mind for bringing those emotions to the screen and that sort of thing . If I like the script , I'm usually pretty excited and it's hard to shut me up at that first interview . But I've very rarely ever come to an interview with a lookbook . Some people come in with all this stuff that they've looked up and prepared and they like to dazzle everybody with a very detailed and thorough visual analysis of the movie , which is great and I applaud that . But I like to have a conversation with the director first rather than coming and saying this is how I think it should look . I'd rather let that evolve , because you get so much more value and so much more maturity , I think , in the look of a film and have an evolution of the conceptual side of it , you know , rather than one person just driving the bus and then , as we go along , then it becomes a little bit more about okay , let's look at different lenses , let's test anamorphics , or let's test these lenses that we can detune so that they look nostalgic , or let's , you know , look at how these ones flare . You know , how do these flares make you feel about ? You know , emotionally , are these nostalgic enough ? Or that kind of thing , and kind of discover the look of it with the director at the same time , and then you get .

Speaker 2 21:04

That's when you get , when you're both in the room , that's when you get those ideas , that blossom that you never would have thought of on your own , you know . So , as much of a collaborative process as possible is always more interesting to me than just , you know , coming in completely prepared , and you know , I think I find it more interesting that way . So , yeah , in meetings I'm generally in the first meeting I'll . You know , I like to think that my resume has enough diversity and the types of films that are done that it kind of speaks to the fact that I try to adapt the photography to the particular story that we're telling rather than having a look that you know that people want . So yeah , you know , and if a director is willing to trust that our relationship will develop into something that's really cool , then I think you know them are on the same page and it all works out .

Speaker 1 22:02

That's such a great answer In Bex . Of course you know I have to answer . I'm having one of those days it's raining in LA people and we're all flooding , but anyway I have to ask you those . So you know how it is with actors that once they start going on a certain level , they will only do say that they start working with studio movies . That will only do . Studio movies are not going to go back down to sort of their roots , right .

Speaker 1 22:28

So your last two pieces of work obviously the Michael J Fox doc I'm sure it wasn't a cheap doc to produce and to make you know and then , of course , brother Son , the series for Netflix , which I'm sure this is an interesting thing because it gets you back to your , you know , asian roots . There were not cheap things to do , right , and I do want to know about the Brother Son . But before I get to that , would you go back to something hardcore indie ? I mean , somebody were to tell you listen , kim , I'm not doing necessarily a Lifetime movie , but I'm doing a low budget film and it's really , really great and I think you would be . Would you be open to that or you're just like no , I have a cashier .

Speaker 1 23:11

Okay , good to know .

Speaker 2 23:13

No , absolutely In fact I did .

Tales From the Film Industry

Speaker 2 23:15

During the , during the strikes this last summer , I had a phone call from a Canadian director , friend of mine , with whom I'd made a made a movie I hate to say it 18 years ago and and she called and she said I've got a movie that's entirely Canadian , with an entirely Canadian cast , with Canadian writers , and we're not in violation of of any of the contracts . We have no pre-sale to anybody , we just have a Canadian distribution deal . And I said great , let's go do it . So it was a little , you know , I don't know how much money to have five million bucks or something , but it was a little .

Speaker 2 23:54

Canadian indie that we shot over 15 days or something up on the Sunshine Coast , which is just to the northwest of Vancouver in the summer , is beautiful and what was great about it was that that's the kind of movie that I don't get to make anymore and and I say that because , not because I choose not to make them , but I end up committing to a , you know , to a studio picture and the thing eats up , you know , nine or 10 months of your life and it's hard to Indies don't work on that same schedule . You can't . You know , an indie won't come along and say , hey , two years from now , we want you to , you know , we want you to make this movie .

Speaker 1 24:32

They're more like hey , we finally got our money last week .

Speaker 2 24:34

Now we want to , you know , now we want to make our film . So I felt like I was missing a lot of those and and and . To me , the most interesting , the most interesting projects are ones that really mean something to somebody . You know and I say that because you know , having done TV for a long time and and you get a little bit jaded , you know , because it's such a heavy schedule . You know , doing a Warner Brothers a 23 episode run on a Warner Brothers show , it takes a lot out of you and after a while it takes a lot out of everyone , not just the shooting crew but the writers and everybody . And by the end of the season everybody's pretty beat up and everybody's just , you know , they just want to get the show done so they can move on to the , to the hiatus and put their feet up for a couple weeks . So you , you start to get really disillusioned with the whole thing . You're just doing it because it's a job and you're just doing it because you have to finish these episodes before the end of the season . So when a script comes along that clearly means something to the writer or means something to the director , that's really compelling to me and it really kind of allows me to sort of shed all that , that disillusion that I have .

Speaker 2 25:48

You know , working long hours on hard shows and sort of refreshes my , my , my joy and enthusiasm for the industry .

Speaker 2 26:00

And then , of course , the counterpoint to that is that when Bob Zemeckis came along with his movie , that was the biggest studio picture I'd ever done and it should have been you know the opposite of what I'm saying , but it was .

Speaker 2 26:11

It clearly meant something to Bob . And all of a sudden I came out of this TV world , into this , into this feature film , and everybody in the room , everybody that was involved in the show , was trying to make the best movie they could and everybody was trying to make the same movie . And it was so nice to to be able to look around and think , wow , you know when , when you get to this level in Hollywood , it really is like you imagined it . You know , when you first started out it's like I'm going to make movies , we're going to tell stories , okay , and then you know your career gets in the way of that . But then at the end of the day it really is like that . You know , at the Bob the Mac is Steven Spielberg kind of level you know it's so it was . It was a huge rejuvenation for me in the business , so I'm a lot happier since I've done that .

Speaker 1 27:00

That is so great and he speaks to us about your sense of artistry . I feel the same way . Sometimes I use my cashier as a producer as an excuse to say no to things that I'm not really passionate about . It comes really handy right Because you have a luxury to say no and you can say well , you know I'm at this level now not to be significant and therefore you know I don't think you can afford me . But it gives me great joy sometimes when I get to say yes to even things of people that really they can't afford me .

Speaker 1 27:32

But because , like you said , there's something particular about the story , about the journey of that writer , of that creator that you're like . No , I really have to help them out , I'm going to just make it work . Because there is magic , I think , both , like you said , in the studio level , where you're going gosh anything I want I can have because they can afford it . So you come and say I want this set up and , like Kim , in five minutes you're going to have that . And then there is also the good part of when you're working on a shoestring budget , where you have to think how can I make this work with nothing and still tell the story and I think it's a very exciting way to be able to afford yourself to fluctuate between the two mediums you know .

Speaker 2 28:18

I think , yeah , I think it's almost a spiritual like you have to stay . You know , I know people that have gone on to , for example , gone on to Marvel giant Marvel superhero movies and you know the paychecks are great and the you know the star power is amazing , but at the end of the day , you're just part of the machine that's building these giant movies that all kind of look alike and are all part of the same formula over and over again . And yeah , and it's so much more interesting to me to tell I mean it can behind you . I mean , how many movies started with nothing that went to Cannes and launched careers and got people noticed , not because they're big studio films , but because they were passionate and because they were stories that somebody wanted to tell . Yeah , it's so important and once in a while you get one that's a story that somebody wants to tell and they have money , which is really great .

Speaker 1 29:14

Oh my goodness , so true about that . So obviously you had two different types of work that you've done recently . Tell me a little bit what it was like to work on a doc obviously with somebody like Michael J Fox who is a legend and , by antithesis , what it was like to do something you know that is Asian storytelling , which is a celebration of your roots . So you kind of got to do both very , very almost at the same time .

Speaker 1 29:40

Tell me a little bit about it , yeah , but OK , so telling them for each one what was it like to have that experience .

Speaker 2 29:49

Well , the , the . It's funny , you know , we talked about things everything happening for a reason the Michael J Fox . I don't usually do documentaries In fact I can't remember the last documentary that I did but I just finished a movie in Winnipeg with Drew Locke , one of the producers , and Drew said , hey , I've got this Apple TV thing in Vancouver . You really should have a look and maybe meet , meet with Davis , the director , and you know , see what you think . And so we got back to Vancouver and I met with with Davis , google , and I directed it and and it's , it's , it's Michael J Fox . So he's , he grew up down the road from from where we are and he you know Bob Zemeckis launched his career to .

Speaker 2 30:33

So it's just so many things right , so many coincidences right . So I was like , yeah , I have to do this , this show . And that there were two other cinematographers on it . There's Julia Liu and Claire Popkin , who had already shot all the interview footage with Michael and already shot all the a lot of the B roll stuff you know the life with Michael and that sort of thing . So I was just brought on to do all the reenactment stuff , all the Michael growing up as a young boy , all that stuff that was more scripted , more more narrative stuff . That wasn't the documentary side of it and it was . So they'd already put a cut together and so they need to look at the cut . And you know , we had the story boards to reference and it was really interesting to see how it had been cut together and how they discovered kind of a new way of telling the story with , with the editorial process , using archive footage and using the interview sequences in a way that I'd never seen before . So it was super exciting . And and , dave , this is a very , very well prepared director , so he had storyboards for every beat of it which , as we talked about earlier , for me at first was like that's a little bit of a red flag because it's . I'm glad that he has a vision , but do we really have to shoot exactly like each of these frames , like , can we discuss it and , you know , maybe bounce some idea ? And it turned out that , yeah , he wanted to talk about everything . So we did and came up with new ideas , different ideas and , you know , and still captured the spirit of what he wanted and got to put it on the screen . So it was .

Speaker 2 32:06

And then to meet Michael J Fox Well , I should say I should praise that differently . I never met him . He never actually came up to Vancouver . He was supposed to , but things got in the way and he ended up staying . But but to try to do a little bit of work , to to help tell his story and help immortalize who he is , you know , as if he needs anything from me , but you know , to be able to pitch in a little bit and help with such a human story was , was like a real honor . You know , all or every one of our crew was like I would be here if we were working for free . Like this is like I would do anything for Michael Fox . So , yeah , so that was a really cool experience .

Speaker 1 32:49

Wow , what a beautiful story . And then , yeah , brother , son , you go from one thing to the other . So , brother son , Netflix and not Netflix .

Speaker 2 32:59

Yeah . So brother son came about when Kevin Tancheron , who was the producing director on that show and also was directing five episodes , he called . He and I had done way back when , about 10 years ago , had done a YouTube web series based on the Mortal Kombat video game franchise . So we've done that together , got to know each other there , and then he had come and directed some episodes of Flash and some episodes of Arrow . So we'd kind of kept bumping into each other over the years and then he called and he said hey , we've got this , this Asian kind of centric show set in LA . Do you want to come and shoot it ? And I was like , absolutely , you know , this is , this is . Come on , we don't get to tell Asian stories and it would be great to to be able to contribute to that too . And plus , I never worked in LA , so that was something that was exciting too , yeah , and so off I went and we got through the you know all the immigration paperwork and the union paperwork , got it all approved and came down and that show made it a very strong point to try to almost well I shouldn't say exclusively higher Asian crew , but we had a heavy emphasis on making sure that a lot of our crew is Asian and it turned out kind of funny because it's amazing how hard it is to find an Asian camera operator in LA that wasn't already booked on something . There's only a handful and they're all super great at their jobs and nobody was available .

Speaker 2 34:39

But it was nice and we got to talk about , like there's themes in the show in Brothers Sun that we thought at the time really resonated with an Asian audience . Things like , you know , it doesn't matter what kind of a triad gangster not serial killer , but gangster assassin you are , when you're in front of your mother and your mother says shut up , you shut up . You know , when mom says it's time to eat , it's time to eat , right , take off your shoes , you know . So all those things we thought oh , these are Asian audiences are going to love these . But then once the show aired , we found that every , pretty much every culture has those same , those same drugs , right With when mom says , do this , you do that right . So it was interesting to see how all those things that we thought were uniquely Asian actually translated , you know , to everyone . And then of course , the you know , the martial arts aspect of it was fantastic .

Speaker 2 35:41

And about about a month after I got there , kevin said oh , by the way , michelle Yo signed to play Mama's son .

Speaker 2 35:47

And I was like Michelle Yo , like she's from like a town not far from where my mom was born in Malaysia , right , she's our Queen of Cinema in Malaysia , wow .

Speaker 2 35:57

So to work with her was fantastic , you know , and it ended up , towards the end of the show , we'd gotten to know each other a little bit , and some of my best memories of that show were were going to the grocery store , you know , driving out to the San Gabriel Valley to go to the Philippine market I forget what it's called and getting all these groceries and then driving to Michelle's place and cooking like making home cooked , you know , comfort food and later . So it was just such a fantastic experience and so great to be able to bond with , with all those folks you know , super great cast . They were really young , really like I don't want to say yet to be discovered , but very early in their careers cast , you know and to have for them , to have someone like Michelle take them under her wing and say , hey , let's just , let's make this and let's make you guys , you know , into something right . So it was super fun and I'm so excited that it's that it's been so well received by people , because it was a lot of fun to make .

Speaker 1 36:53

What a magical experience and I actually think sorry about that

The Importance of Storytelling in Entertainment

Speaker 1 36:57

. I actually think that the the part that I think is the most interesting you're saying is about you know what we think it's typically like Asian culture . When you said it's really an immigrant thing in so many ways , I mean there is a reason why my big fat Greek wedding I'm half Greek , by the way , so I can relate to that why was so successful . You could see every ethnicity literally relating to that . You know mom and dad and find yourself a nice boy or a nice girl and the family dynamics . I think anybody can relate . And you know who .

Speaker 1 37:30

You know the people that were got behind that movie at the time when nobody said who's who cares .

Speaker 1 37:35

You know about , who knows Neyvara Dallos or what this is about . But you know it's one of the surprise hits and so I love what you just said . So , in closing , because this has been just such a fascinating conversation with , but I want us to close it with with a bit of a positive and hopeful note , which is , as we know , being an artist in Hollywood and in the world , because obviously you're not in Hollywood right now , but being an artist in the entertainment industry , which , which is global people , is not just Hollywood . It's a challenge , right ? We've just come out of a pandemic , then we had a strike , then we had all those things , and sometimes it's easy to lose hope , to lose your way , to lose your confidence , and I'm sure you've had your moments , you know , maybe because of you know finances , maybe because of lack of creativity , needing to work . Whatever the reason is , you know we've all been in dark places and mental health has been a big issue , as we all know in the last five years , right ?

Speaker 1 38:35

So what ? Where do you go to Like , where do you go to mentally to dig yourself out of a funky day , a hopeless day , whatever that is ? Where do you go ?

Speaker 2 38:46

I , you know it's interesting . I well , first of all it's way too late for me to even consider doing anything else , because I've been in this business for 35 years now and it's I have no skills that I don't think I could make a cappuccino for somebody . So so I'm hopelessly trapped in the business and that's just sort of my life I'm . I'm lucky enough that that I've gotten to the point before all of this nonsense happened with the pandemic and strikes . I'm lucky enough that I'd gotten to a point in my career where where I could kind of weather that you know , at least financially , you know get through it creatively . Creatively , it's a different , you know different story for sure I think you know it's . For me it's always been the movie business has always been the one that survives adversity , it's all you know . In times of war , in times of of depression , it's always the thing that can provide an escape for people . So maybe it's selfish to say , hey , we work in an industry that that can weather tough times and even dare I say it , even profit from those tough times , but it's an important industry , you know .

Speaker 2 40:02

I remember when , when , when 9 , 11 happened , you know , and there was all this footage of these firefighters running up the stairs with these you know holes and like , and I remember thinking to myself what am I doing with my life ?

Speaker 2 40:14

And you know making movies when there's people that are putting their lives on the line every day ? You know , to help other people and to make a difference , right and anyway . So it wasn't long after that , that relative of ours was diagnosed with leukemia and it was rapid onset and they were confined to , you know , to the , to the . It came on really , really quickly , like it started with a , with a headache or something , and ended in a helicopter ride to the , to the hospital , and it's a horrible diagnosis . That same day , and and they were confined to one of those isolation plastic chambers where nobody could contact . You know , you couldn't make physical contact with them , but anyway , a few weeks had gone by and they were finally able to take visitors that we went by to say hi and and and they said you know , hey , I watched one of your movies the other day .

Speaker 1 41:07

And I was like oh , you know did you did you enjoy it ?

Speaker 2 41:09

She said , yeah , you know , for for two hours I got to forget everything you know and just watch a story and leave my circumstance behind . You know and I think that that resonate with me you know now it's what we do is important , and that's kind of what I claim to , I think , sometimes , and also that you know everything , everything seems to happen for a reason . You know , you can always look back on at least and maybe it's just my own naivety , or maybe I'm just lucky , I don't know , but I can always look back on things that that I thought at the time were a disappointment and I wish they'd gone another way . But I've always been able to look at those and go well , if that hadn't happened , then that next thing wouldn't have happened , and then that wouldn't have happened and then I wouldn't be here . So it's it's . Yeah , I don't know , maybe it's like I say , maybe it's naivety , but it's . It's . Everything seems to happen for a reason and as long as you just keep doing the best that you can and and Stay true to what your Intentions are , you know , like for me it's storytelling , as long as I stick to the story .

Speaker 2 42:22

You know , when we have a really bad day on set and things are going haywire . At the end of the day you can go look what do we have , what is the story point we have to tell right now , and you can forget about all that other stuff and just focus on that , and it always brings everything back into focus . So , yeah , I think it's just just stay true to yourself and stay focused and and just remind yourself that it might be shitty but things are probably gonna get better . You know , no matter how bad they are , and and these days especially fine . You know the industry in Vancouver employs 50,000 people and millions in LA .

Speaker 2 42:58

There's Hundreds of thousands of other people going through the same thing . Reach out to someone , have a . You know , go have a coffee , go talk about it , go go complain to each other for two hours about how much you hate the business , but at least you're talking about it and and and doing something and Thinking about it , rather than sitting at home and and dwelling on all the things that you think are wrong . It's always better than you think it is , so , and and it's always better when you have company and when you have someone else that you can have a conversation with that's going through the same things , that that would be my advice to anyone that's having a Hard time of things .

Speaker 1 43:35

What a beautiful , beautiful ending to this podcast . And I have to say , you are exactly the reason why I love bringing People who have been in the business Long enough . It's kind of the unsung heroes , you know , because you know people are so celebrity driven , they're like oh , I want to hear the story , the superstar and this is . But , truly , the people who are making the magic happen are the people behind the scenes . You know , the producers , the cinematographers , the production designers , of course , the actors and the directors and all of that . There's nothing to say against them . But I , what I love about this business is that I want people to know that there's so many wonderful , wonderful humans who are doing it for the right reasons and and you represent that , kim .

Speaker 1 44:25

So it's been such a joy to have you on my show , honestly , and , and , and your wisdom nuggets . I bet you are gonna be way more important than some . You know , oscar winner , emmy winner I've had a few of those two and they've been wonderful . I choose my guests very carefully because of you know the value that they bring , and you definitely brought it in this episode , both on a technical level , you know , giving us a glimpse on the life of the cinematographer , but also as an artist , and , and , and somebody who wants to Make humanity better in its own way . Right , and there's definitely , like you said , there is , value in storytelling . I think , yeah , storytelling is the cheapest therapy that there is .

Speaker 2 45:10

Yeah , you know , like , like , look at , like , what do you know ? When somebody says caveman , what do you think of ? Oh , the drawings on the wall , what those ? Those are the stories Sitting around a fire , like human beings are storytellers and it's , it's super important . Yeah , I love that . I love that .

Speaker 1 45:24

Thank you for coming on my show and to all of you listeners out there . If you wanted to become a cinematographer in your life , well , now you know what that means and what it's like . But also if you want to get , into the business .

Speaker 1 45:37

So you want to know more ? Please share , subscribe , review . Again , I stated for the hundredth time I make no money on this podcast , but I do bring it because , like Kim , I love Storytelling and I love making people feel connected in some way to whatever their dream , purpose , vision . If it's not show business , maybe you want to be a doctor . You're probably gonna get some life lessons out of this . So thank you , kim , for coming on my show and you all share , subscribe , rate , review and and have a beautiful Evening day , whatever , wherever you are in the world . The heart of show business over and out . Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the heart of show business . If you enjoyed it , please share it with a friend . You can also subscribe , rate and review the show on your favorite podcast player . If you have any questions or comments or feedback for us , you can reach me directly at the heart of showbusinesscom .