Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Thank you for buddy, it's such
Speaker 1: a pleasure to have you. Yes, thanks thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a retreat. It is so good to
Speaker 1: see you. It's been far too long. We talk about
Speaker 1: you all the time, and we miss you so much.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the accolades. It's I really miss you, guys.
Speaker 1: I gotta say, nothing's been since. It's true. It's really
Speaker 1: kidding that that unfortunately, well I'm for unfortunately. That comes
Speaker 1: up in the show quite a bit. In the podcast
Speaker 1: quite a bit we talk about how we none of
Speaker 1: us really seem to have matched the experience that we
Speaker 1: had whilst we were on the show, which is a shame,
Speaker 1: but I guess a good thing at the same time
Speaker 1: makes it unique. Well, without further ado, welcome back to
Speaker 1: return to the Shadows. We have on our show today,
Speaker 1: a very very special guest, someone who is near and
Speaker 1: dear to both of us and probably has seen far
Speaker 1: too much of our faces. Welcome our a camera operator,
Speaker 1: Drew Potter. Thank you very much and never too much
Speaker 1: gott to say. You don't just know how to make
Speaker 1: it all work. There's a lot of fun working with you.
Speaker 1: It was that's very sweet. Before we dive into the
Speaker 1: sort of deepest stuff, why don't you tell us a
Speaker 1: little about who you are and what your job was
Speaker 1: on the show. I'm Drew Potter. I'm I was the
Speaker 1: a camera operator on that series from season two and
Speaker 1: season three in the season finale as well. It's been
Speaker 1: twenty five years as a camera operator, but also dabbling
Speaker 1: in other things. Once I get a little boored, I
Speaker 1: take to move on and change it up for a
Speaker 1: little while, and then I usually come back to operating
Speaker 1: because that's my first passion. Amazing, So how did you
Speaker 1: become a camera operator? What got you into this line
Speaker 1: of work, How did you get started? What was the
Speaker 1: original inspiration? I just I saw Star Wars when I
Speaker 1: was when I was sixteen, and it just blew me
Speaker 1: out of the water, and it was kind of visual
Speaker 1: effects I was attracted to. But ultimately I live in
Speaker 1: Canada and there are no big visual effects houses here
Speaker 1: where it was all about. It was an all in
Speaker 1: the US and there was just that wasn't really in
Speaker 1: the cards. And moved to the US and started that.
Speaker 1: But I was still fascinated with the camera and my
Speaker 1: dad had given me his camera stills camera. I shually
Speaker 1: shoot a lot of little stills when I was just
Speaker 1: a kid, and then I got a superhero camera when
Speaker 1: I was a little around the sixteen year age there are,
Speaker 1: and played with that and editing and putting music to
Speaker 1: it and just having some fun with some friends, being
Speaker 1: little stories, a little vignettes. And then it just I
Speaker 1: was in school and I was taking sort of a
Speaker 1: lot of math and science and I was going to
Speaker 1: be you know, a chiropractor or a pharmacist or something
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, something sensible and practical and you know, reliable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the parent pleasers, Yes, parent pleasers. That's right. And then
Speaker 1: the eleventh hour, it was, you know, I'm kind of
Speaker 1: interested in this film thing. There there there any film schools around,
Speaker 1: and we're talking to the guidance counselor about it. But
Speaker 1: we got like two weeks left to get applications in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's still time. And he threw me a couple of
Speaker 1: schools that had did it. Yeah, And I just dropped
Speaker 1: you the last second, and I told my parents what
Speaker 1: I was doing it. Uh, well, we support you whatever
Speaker 1: you do, you know, I think your parents to do that.
Speaker 1: I feel like, unfortunately, I think actually now like in
Speaker 1: the last of five years, it's become much more common
Speaker 1: for that to be the parents' reaction because it's so
Speaker 1: visual that you can see people succeeding in it. But
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, my parents were very supportive as well,
Speaker 1: but my school teachers definitely weren't of my career choice.
Speaker 1: There's very a lot more trepidous of the concept of
Speaker 1: me going out on a women and trying this. So
Speaker 1: it's it's really nice day that your parents supported you
Speaker 1: through that. Hm. You know, it's a If it wasn't
Speaker 1: for their support, I wouldn't have been I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: made it, that's for sure, because you need that kind
Speaker 1: of help, funding, accommodation, helping for tuition on things like that.
Speaker 1: So and then I just kind of kept my focus
Speaker 1: at getting into camera and being a camera operator, perhaps
Speaker 1: possibly a director photography one day. It was sort of
Speaker 1: the real goal. And once I finished college, I started
Speaker 1: working at an animation post production house UM where we
Speaker 1: did a lot of graphics and maps and charts and
Speaker 1: credits from movies. So I kind of got the back
Speaker 1: end of it first and then dealt with a lab
Speaker 1: and there was a problem and it was just a
Speaker 1: small house. It was just two or three of us there,
Speaker 1: the boss and me and out of the guy. And
Speaker 1: that was a couple of years ago for my pa years.
Speaker 1: That's sort of what it was. I was get into
Speaker 1: it and getting more involved with understanding how to get
Speaker 1: into a union or become a trainee. There's trainee's programs
Speaker 1: for the camera departments and whatnot. So I sort of
Speaker 1: joined as a trainee and then slow just started migrating
Speaker 1: my way through the system. UM twenty for two years,
Speaker 1: second system for four, a focus puller for five, and
Speaker 1: then he came in a camera operator. It was just
Speaker 1: sort of and the opportunities were just sort of unfolded
Speaker 1: themselves at the break time. Just I just took the up,
Speaker 1: just took a chance as you can, as you have to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I was. I was just at breakfast this
Speaker 1: morning with a producer friend of mine who did Vampire
Speaker 1: Academy with us all those years ago, Dpack and he
Speaker 1: was he was talking about he's he's such a go
Speaker 1: get or entrepreneur, has his fingers and so many pies
Speaker 1: at any time, and said, how do you keep yourself
Speaker 1: focused with all of this? And he says, you gotta
Speaker 1: take every opportunity that's in front of you. You know,
Speaker 1: you get one of these, you get one life. If
Speaker 1: you're lucky you lived at eighty. The first ten years
Speaker 1: you can't really do anything. The last ten years you
Speaker 1: probably won't be able to do anything. So you've got
Speaker 1: sixty years, sixty years to get something that you enjoy.
Speaker 1: And the three of us can all say that we've
Speaker 1: been very lucky, and we do something that we enjoy
Speaker 1: every day. We've got to take those opportunities. You've got
Speaker 1: to take as many and as often as you can
Speaker 1: before I mean, unless they break you. But I think
Speaker 1: any of us have been Maybe we've been closed a
Speaker 1: couple of times, those long, long evenings, long fridays to
Speaker 1: turn into Saturday mornings. But still we're still powering through.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely. Well that's that's the fun of it. And
Speaker 1: then I guess basically I did. It was camera operating
Speaker 1: for a while, and then I had an opportunity on
Speaker 1: a TV series I worked on to do directing. So
Speaker 1: I got into directing world for I guess about seven years.
Speaker 1: I did about thirty two, about forty hours of television,
Speaker 1: and then realized it was not my forte. It was
Speaker 1: just too stressful, a lot of anxiety associated with it,
Speaker 1: a lot of politics, and I was just I and
Speaker 1: I actually left the business after twenty five years of
Speaker 1: being involved and did completely different for like five or
Speaker 1: six years, and then Shadow Hunters was my main return
Speaker 1: back to full time work. Wow. So interesting. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that. I didn't know that about directing. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like straight from your mouth, but also sort of subconsciously,
Speaker 1: I think, kind of new because it's very You were
Speaker 1: always very good at translating for some of the directors
Speaker 1: who couldn't necessarily articulate exactly what they were saying. You know,
Speaker 1: it's private moments with you and I where it's like,
Speaker 1: this is what they're asking for, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I got it. Thank God, Otherwise I wouldn't known. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's something I always appreciated so much about you
Speaker 1: and about Glenn as well as and all of the
Speaker 1: camera teams on Shadow Hunters, is that we had such
Speaker 1: a rapport between actors and camera department. And I fully
Speaker 1: credit you guys for teaching me how to make television
Speaker 1: on the technical side, because I didn't know what I
Speaker 1: was doing when we first started this show, and at
Speaker 1: least you know how to make a TV show technically
Speaker 1: and how to help and be a participant in the
Speaker 1: camera situation of it all. And you all were so
Speaker 1: kind to take the time to plain things to us
Speaker 1: and to translate and to to allow us to work
Speaker 1: together instead of that sort of wall that sometimes exists
Speaker 1: between the cast and the camera. I've always been in
Speaker 1: the impression that if if the performers understand what we're
Speaker 1: doing and and and then they can resonate to that,
Speaker 1: they can they can be Okay, I'm over here. This
Speaker 1: is what we should be. It shouldn't be I'm not
Speaker 1: in the shadow over here, I'm in the light. Always
Speaker 1: see that now, all these little things and the marketing
Speaker 1: floor is sometimes important and sometimes not so important, And
Speaker 1: and you just have to let them know that so
Speaker 1: they can have a little less very pointed. We literally
Speaker 1: said days ago, yeah, like two days ago, we were
Speaker 1: talking about how like the most recent TV show I did,
Speaker 1: I'd be camera operator. Patrick used to give me a
Speaker 1: lot of shit. He would look at me. We're in
Speaker 1: New York, and you look at me and go, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you see that mark on the floor. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: a fucking suggestion that's where your feet should be, and
Speaker 1: I'd look down as like three feet behind me and
Speaker 1: I'm like a dude, sorry, oh wow, because you just
Speaker 1: can't get it because doing other things, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's complicated to be on that side of the camera.
Speaker 1: And there's no doubt about that. That's why behind the
Speaker 1: camera yeah yes, and no doubt you were do an
Speaker 1: amazing job in front of the camera as well. I
Speaker 1: think the interesting thing is who was it? It was
Speaker 1: either you or Glenn who was talking about an actor
Speaker 1: from like the Fourties who used to do They would
Speaker 1: do a look. So like we as actors and camera
Speaker 1: few people within the industry, you can always tell when
Speaker 1: an actor walks in and has a little look down
Speaker 1: to know exactly where your toes need to stop, because
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's a type moment, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: You just have a little and it's a mark check
Speaker 1: like that that actor just did a mark check. They
Speaker 1: haven't look and that's the landing right where they need to.
Speaker 1: Lads who made that thing, Tracy, Yeah, come in and
Speaker 1: he would do the pensive like look. It would always
Speaker 1: start a seeings like I'm thinking about something. Something's going on,
Speaker 1: would spot his mark and then go straight to it. Yea,
Speaker 1: he worked, He worked in this part of his thing. Brilliant. Hey,
Speaker 1: whatever works. If you can hit your mark and make
Speaker 1: it work, it's brilliant. I think. Yeah, but that's you know.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things also that I appreciated so
Speaker 1: much of about the show is that we all got
Speaker 1: to be such a symbiotic system. After a while, the
Speaker 1: directors started to would come into the situation, most of
Speaker 1: them at least, and see that and sort of trust
Speaker 1: you guys to kind of, yeah, play jazz a little
Speaker 1: bit with some of the shots and with us and
Speaker 1: find those moments that you know, you can set up
Speaker 1: a camera in a point and try and catch a moment,
Speaker 1: but if you see something because you know the way
Speaker 1: we moved through a space and you kind of can
Speaker 1: predict the way that we're going to go about a scene.
Speaker 1: After watching us for so long, you catch things that
Speaker 1: other people wouldn't because we're kind of all on the
Speaker 1: same wavelength as it were. And I think that added
Speaker 1: so much to the show. And there were so many
Speaker 1: moments watching the show back that I remember, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that wasn't that wasn't. How it was planned, that was
Speaker 1: just Drew being creative and it added so much. And
Speaker 1: that's directors well, and having being a director and being
Speaker 1: parachuted into different sets, different shows, you appreciate the cruise
Speaker 1: input because it just makes you, the director, look better,
Speaker 1: and that makes the actors feel more comfortable because they're
Speaker 1: there's environment and I'm not the guy coming in to
Speaker 1: change everything all of a sudden and uh, and then
Speaker 1: what's going on here? And it's trying to keep trying
Speaker 1: to keep it consistent with the other episodes, and you're
Speaker 1: always looking for help from the director photography for sure,
Speaker 1: but it does it becomes this as Cats saying, you know,
Speaker 1: you we fall into this space and we were very
Speaker 1: lucky on Shadow Hunters. Maybe this I think probably the
Speaker 1: large reason why we haven't found this again is that symbiosis,
Speaker 1: that level of fluidity that we had on a set
Speaker 1: where we did all sort of get on or at
Speaker 1: least at the very least understand each other or understand
Speaker 1: the motivations behind whatever it is. I think having that that,
Speaker 1: that ability to flow through whatever the day is, no
Speaker 1: matter how hard it is, by relying on the people
Speaker 1: that we trust, is so important and so fundamental and
Speaker 1: something that we found on or I don't want to
Speaker 1: take words out of anyone's mouths, but I think we
Speaker 1: can also we found something like that on Shadow Hunters,
Speaker 1: which is really quite special. Definitely yeah, and speaking to that. So,
Speaker 1: how did you end up in our shadow family? Well?
Speaker 1: Probably to this world. Uh. Well, Mike McMurray, the director photography,
Speaker 1: uh was aware that I was leaving my other concept
Speaker 1: of seven years, which was I'm ready to come back
Speaker 1: to work now because I head of getting phone calls
Speaker 1: from people saying, you know, we missed you where you've been?
Speaker 1: And I would start doing dailies on different shows just
Speaker 1: see camera in the back, and it's uh, I kind
Speaker 1: of started remembering, this is what I love? Is this
Speaker 1: coming right back to me very quickly, which is why
Speaker 1: my direction to begin with. So eventually Mike cut win
Speaker 1: that I was, you know, back, you know, doing dailies
Speaker 1: and a round and and then he I mean I
Speaker 1: just shut down what I had done in April, and
Speaker 1: I mean like literally three weeks later, he gave me
Speaker 1: a phone call and says, I'm doing this fantasy show
Speaker 1: in August. Do you want to do it with me?
Speaker 1: Back the old team back together again, and of course
Speaker 1: I'd be delighted to and the next thing that was
Speaker 1: the next thing. It was, you know, forty episodes over
Speaker 1: two years of you were for No had no idea,
Speaker 1: and I had finally got a hold of what the
Speaker 1: show was called, and I could I tracked it down
Speaker 1: on the internet and I could watch a few episodes
Speaker 1: and start to understand what it was about. And but
Speaker 1: you know, the idea was it was going to be
Speaker 1: not that show, yes, but darker and more adult because
Speaker 1: adults were watching it, not the kids that I was
Speaker 1: really meant for in the beginning. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, where
Speaker 1: the you thought? Heinsi'n to say so when I have
Speaker 1: to say it was a it was a slam when
Speaker 1: I came in because I think working with Matt Hastings,
Speaker 1: with an American gentleman that came up to directing him
Speaker 1: just show runner and he did the first a few
Speaker 1: episodes it kind of give us the look and that
Speaker 1: was my things, Well, what's the style of this show?
Speaker 1: What's what's the look? I know you're changing it up,
Speaker 1: but and Mike was said, well, we just we haven't
Speaker 1: really talked about that. We didn't think you should be
Speaker 1: talking about that. He had no idea, No, it was
Speaker 1: just this organic thing about about how to shoot it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was gonna be long lens cinematography. Okay, I understood
Speaker 1: that part of it. But you know what else, and
Speaker 1: you know, well, that's gonna be low. Of course it's
Speaker 1: going to be low. It's huge, dramatic, and it's it's
Speaker 1: fun as action. So but Matt basically had his ideas
Speaker 1: and I think he sort of imbued on me the
Speaker 1: first week of what he was thinking the show should be,
Speaker 1: and it was him sort of training us to understand
Speaker 1: where you can go and push the limits. He was
Speaker 1: looking for something more stylized than than just traditional TV
Speaker 1: where everybody's center punched and they do their line to
Speaker 1: you walk away. He wanted something that had a flare
Speaker 1: to it in a way. Don't don't don't take all
Speaker 1: the rules of composition. This is me interpreting now going back.
Speaker 1: Don't take all the rules of composition and make it work.
Speaker 1: Push it. And I just embraced that because I was
Speaker 1: just kind of having done operating for so long. Everybody
Speaker 1: went to so perfect in terms of television in the
Speaker 1: center slightly off, I guess, start pushing the sides, I
Speaker 1: guess start trimming into eyebrows for close ups that had
Speaker 1: you a certain amount of energy to it because the
Speaker 1: shots is not quite right. But yeah, but the scene
Speaker 1: is heightened, and it seemed to add to it visually
Speaker 1: what was what was going on? And uh, and the
Speaker 1: cutting was so quick that you never really got to
Speaker 1: hang on a shot that was maybe uncomfortable for some
Speaker 1: people to watch for a while, but somewhere else right now,
Speaker 1: let's discuss that a little more, because you and I
Speaker 1: had one particular problem in general, there was one shot
Speaker 1: that I couldn't get through that I really struggled with
Speaker 1: at any point. And there's it's very common in TV,
Speaker 1: especially young adult TV. It's called a slow pushing, and
Speaker 1: it happens at the end. It happens at the end
Speaker 1: of like a scene where something fucking dramatic has happened
Speaker 1: or whatever. And it would give me a look like
Speaker 1: we're going to do the slow pushing, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: my best and the camera normally on the dolly like
Speaker 1: cuts this entire giant piece of kit with three men
Speaker 1: on it, all of whom you trust, all of whom
Speaker 1: you want to impress, you know, they're a part of
Speaker 1: our team. Starts slowly making its way towards your face,
Speaker 1: and you have to just hold whatever it was wherever
Speaker 1: you were looking and this, you know, two tons of
Speaker 1: equipment is sort of coming towards you slowly, slowly, And
Speaker 1: I still do this day struggle with it. I get
Speaker 1: over it. It is, Yeah. I think it's because it's daunting.
Speaker 1: I think it's there's a lot of like pressure with
Speaker 1: with get. I don't know, I don't know, but because
Speaker 1: you know you had anywhere else, that's the moment it's okay,
Speaker 1: we're here, this is it. Yeah, this is it, and yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah absolutely because the customhere else there'll be white charge,
Speaker 1: there's other places to go, but this moment is right here,
Speaker 1: right now. Yea. So they just always remember they would
Speaker 1: have to do them in series. For you, Tom, We're
Speaker 1: gonna do it and then go back and do this podcast.
Speaker 1: The more we've realized that Tom's not a very professional actor,
Speaker 1: I think I destroyed my career by doing this podcast.
Speaker 1: I don't really recall you missing marks all the time
Speaker 1: you talk about it, but I don't really recall that
Speaker 1: that's being really that's because you guys are good at
Speaker 1: your job. That's what it is like. If I was
Speaker 1: out of focus, you'd pull out or someone would would
Speaker 1: trim the focus a little to would be on that. Yeah. Mark,
Speaker 1: Mark was so on top of it and he's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna fix this. It is okay now he's
Speaker 1: a focused, fabulous yeah. And then coming into shadow Hunters
Speaker 1: as it's a new thing for me. Even the camera
Speaker 1: team were people that I well, Mark was my trainee,
Speaker 1: but may before you came Focused about or years ago,
Speaker 1: so I knew Mark, but most of the team I
Speaker 1: did not know that Mike had been working with for
Speaker 1: the last I guess seven or eight years on different shows.
Speaker 1: So I'm like this new guy to them and they're
Speaker 1: all new to me, and uh, it was. It was.
Speaker 1: That first week was really rough. I do remember that
Speaker 1: day four, driving into that big boat on that August
Speaker 1: hot day and Mike. If it wasn't for being surrounded
Speaker 1: by friends, because I didn't know everybody on some level,
Speaker 1: even the Dolly gripped him, we went way back. I
Speaker 1: probably would have quit because it was so it was
Speaker 1: just such a wall. It was. I wasn't up to
Speaker 1: that speed. I having left another show, I haven't done anything,
Speaker 1: you know, the year past. It was just a different
Speaker 1: invite completely and they're bang slammed into this fourteen hour
Speaker 1: days community. Just it was just a real handful. It
Speaker 1: took a little while to get up to speed, and
Speaker 1: we threw you in at the deep end as well.
Speaker 1: We didn't throw you in with like a nice warm
Speaker 1: up episode where everyone was just on the beach fucking
Speaker 1: chilling out, like we threw you into an episode. It
Speaker 1: like jump on the top of a container ship. There's
Speaker 1: going to be an alarm that happens every now and then.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows what that means. So everyone just evacuate and
Speaker 1: then we're back on the ship and everybody remember And
Speaker 1: it turned out to be the phone ringing. It's so
Speaker 1: loud in the engine room that they had to that's
Speaker 1: how loud the phone has to be. It was just
Speaker 1: like even for as it was chaos, and we had
Speaker 1: each other to rely and we worked with each other
Speaker 1: for a year. So kudos to you because we again
Speaker 1: we've spoken about this in relation to actors more. It's daunting.
Speaker 1: Coming in halfway through something where people have set themselves
Speaker 1: up is really daunting, and then coming into be such
Speaker 1: an integral piece of our storytelling process is even more daunting.
Speaker 1: So hats off to you because because that's really it's
Speaker 1: really something, it's really an achievement you should feel very
Speaker 1: proud of. Well, thank you, thank you. That's a and
Speaker 1: that's part of the reason why we wanted to have
Speaker 1: Glenn around on b camera because it gave some sort
Speaker 1: of continuity in the camera department from season one to
Speaker 1: season two. And he's a very talented gentleman and Mike
Speaker 1: has worked with him in the past, so it just
Speaker 1: seemed like a perfect fit to have Glenn, you know,
Speaker 1: continue to be there and be our our continuity and
Speaker 1: ask him questions when we were sort of stumped on
Speaker 1: something and you would clarify for us. It really was
Speaker 1: amazing to watch all of you work together and just
Speaker 1: the sort of collaboration and sharing of information and sort
Speaker 1: of everyone's artistic opinions and choices, but still trying to
Speaker 1: keep the consistency of the show. It taught me a lot.
Speaker 1: And just observing our crew work together and the collaboration
Speaker 1: and the sort of symbiosis that we all found it
Speaker 1: it really it taught me a great deal. So thank
Speaker 1: you for that. That's great. Well, you're most welcome. It
Speaker 1: was a pleasure, truly. Yeah, you sort of took the
Speaker 1: weds out of my mouth and little Couch is great.
Speaker 1: The way you guys yelled with each other, especially A
Speaker 1: and B camera, was really special. I've been on shows
Speaker 1: where that hasn't been the case, and that's been a
Speaker 1: little like because I feel like on set what people
Speaker 1: don't know sometimes is there is a lot of eggshell treading.
Speaker 1: No matter which department you're in, there's a lot of it.
Speaker 1: There's always someone above you, and there's always someone where.
Speaker 1: Very often on set you're like, we need to be
Speaker 1: a little cautious around this person or this person. You
Speaker 1: don't want to upset this person, you don't want to
Speaker 1: mess up this or do whatever. And I think that
Speaker 1: dissipated fairly quickly on our show, which is nice. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm just speaking for myself, Drew, I don't know about yourself,
Speaker 1: but it felt very It felt like every day we
Speaker 1: brushed away some more of those eggshells to the point
Speaker 1: where we got to this like we would we were
Speaker 1: a team. This is a full team, Like nobody is
Speaker 1: more important than anybody else. Nobody was looking up or
Speaker 1: down at anybody, and we had this this sort of
Speaker 1: unit together. Yeah. I felt about the third episode we
Speaker 1: were we were in the hospital. Third episode, I think
Speaker 1: we were. Yeah, we were just kind jelling at that point.
Speaker 1: I know Mike had reservations about my performance because it
Speaker 1: was a little rusty, and I remember I was talking
Speaker 1: about it like around episode seven where he was reflecting
Speaker 1: back and he was really ill one day, but you know,
Speaker 1: hanging in there by the monitors, and I just kind
Speaker 1: of took over and because he wasn't there to do anything.
Speaker 1: I mean, so it's just a gaffer myself, and he says,
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, oh, thank god Drew was back, because
Speaker 1: I wasn't really kicking over in the beginning. I was
Speaker 1: just trying to feel it all out and just kind
Speaker 1: of a sense of what the show was about and
Speaker 1: not doing the thing that I that he liked. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're obviously so talented, and the people at home obviously
Speaker 1: recognized that as well, because whether you see it or
Speaker 1: you don't see it. In fact, almost if you don't
Speaker 1: see it, it's better if you're seeing something and you go,
Speaker 1: oh that was cool, or it sent shivers up your spine.
Speaker 1: Nine times out of ten. That was camera work that
Speaker 1: made that happen because it was it's an angle or
Speaker 1: a fragrance that you've seen on the screen, which is
Speaker 1: which is you know, so fundamental to what we do. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's so nice. God, can you I like imagine,
Speaker 1: I haven't been in my career long enough, but this
Speaker 1: this is the dream, right is to have people who
Speaker 1: you work around, who who so in love with what
Speaker 1: you do that they want to keep bringing you back.
Speaker 1: M hmm. That's true. Wonderful thing too, is it's I
Speaker 1: know we all are you know, camera thunder, camera thunders
Speaker 1: about the picture because it's a movie. But you know
Speaker 1: there's so much more that goes into what is at
Speaker 1: the end. You know, I was reviewing someone I haven't
Speaker 1: really watched shoutow Henderson. We've worked on it to just
Speaker 1: see the show cut and oh why did you use
Speaker 1: that shot? And you know, criticize it like that. We
Speaker 1: think the same thing about our own performance as Droe.
Speaker 1: It's fine, we're like, oh that shot, why Catherine, why
Speaker 1: did you make that face? I don't know. Somewhere for
Speaker 1: some reason, the editors seem to think they work that's
Speaker 1: why it's in there. He picks, the gold stuff, the
Speaker 1: gold nuggets, and uh, I guess I was for watching
Speaker 1: the show more as a fan now than as a
Speaker 1: technician because so much time had he lapsed and and
Speaker 1: and the visual effects were just astounding, and hey, yes
Speaker 1: they were, and that was a big part of the
Speaker 1: show as well, very heavy, heavy visual effects. I sort
Speaker 1: of jumped in, you know, like my season three premiere,
Speaker 1: season mid season and leaving and then the season finale,
Speaker 1: the kind of thing to the startup of the last movie,
Speaker 1: the last episode and that whole ring of fire and
Speaker 1: the demons and that. Yeah, I mean I were just
Speaker 1: standing there on this as that's what we're doing, and
Speaker 1: I mean the fire in the flame and everything's going
Speaker 1: and the camera's going around and I just remember doing
Speaker 1: that shot where everybody's a different height and somehow I
Speaker 1: got to land on everybody before I got they're down here.
Speaker 1: I get okay, we're up down here, and then they're
Speaker 1: back up for here and then back. Just had to
Speaker 1: really keep that in my head. Yeah, why didn't we
Speaker 1: fix that work? I was such an easy that's not
Speaker 1: even like a technical We put everyone on apple boxes,
Speaker 1: raise everyone up to Matt tight and it's because they
Speaker 1: didn't notice. Because Drew's so talented, he just fixed it
Speaker 1: before anyone into the shot and nobody knew you noticed
Speaker 1: it at all. And you know, you want to keep
Speaker 1: the actors heightst because that's part of who they are too.
Speaker 1: We know Emeralds a little true and then yeah, than
Speaker 1: Matt and we put up to die his height. Well
Speaker 1: everybody funny, Yeah, free for all. Yeah, it would just
Speaker 1: not be it would not feel right, It'd be something off.
Speaker 1: We're not sure what it is. But it's weird about
Speaker 1: that shot, and you don't want to viewer out of it,
Speaker 1: you know that way. Yeah, well that's you know, it's
Speaker 1: not dance again that we all learn to do as
Speaker 1: we're working together for so long. And speaking of that's
Speaker 1: something Domini talk a lot obviously about the fight scenes
Speaker 1: on the show and what it took to film those
Speaker 1: and from our perspective, but you you were so amazing
Speaker 1: during every fight scene. You've done something I've never seen
Speaker 1: another camera operator. Do You had an apple box on
Speaker 1: wheels that you would put the handhook camera on your
Speaker 1: shoulder and just be able to run around on a
Speaker 1: lower level and be so mobile and so agile to
Speaker 1: be able to get around us and catch these little moments.
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like it, So talk to us
Speaker 1: a little bit about that, and do you like shooting
Speaker 1: fight scenes? Is it fun for you? Is it stressful?
Speaker 1: What's what's your experience with that, and sort of your
Speaker 1: point of view at times? It's all those things because
Speaker 1: I do watch the rehearsal very closely to kind of
Speaker 1: get a sense. Said, you know, the timing of how
Speaker 1: many how many hits punches? Well, we had swords and stuff,
Speaker 1: so extra room required at times to just doing this thing.
Speaker 1: And I know the stunt people and the actors are
Speaker 1: well aware of us, but sometimes you can lose that moment,
Speaker 1: but I still want to be safe. But it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a bit frightening, but I kind of depend on
Speaker 1: the director. You kind of know what the style is
Speaker 1: going to be. You're gonna have your wide shot and
Speaker 1: it would always can be moving, but the low applebox thing,
Speaker 1: A lot of times I would just go in there
Speaker 1: and sit with no movement for a couple of shots.
Speaker 1: And then it was tim My dolly Grip who came
Speaker 1: up with this idea of just putting it on in
Speaker 1: some castors and uh, you know the old butt dolly,
Speaker 1: and and off I went, you know, on a little
Speaker 1: pad and it was just he didn't have to push
Speaker 1: me around. He would pull me, I guess, or he
Speaker 1: would help assist back. It be really mobile on my
Speaker 1: own to a certain degree, and it just kept that
Speaker 1: fluidity and a lot of times the shot was bad
Speaker 1: getting in it, it it didn't matter to me because you're
Speaker 1: gonna go somewhere else and uh and almost being at
Speaker 1: that moment if it works. Yeah, So I did end
Speaker 1: u kemping out of the wave of the swords because
Speaker 1: they were high and I was kind of down low,
Speaker 1: so I kind of yeah, and they were very tall.
Speaker 1: Brave job there, because again I don't think people realize.
Speaker 1: I mean, you have your your second peripheral vision, but
Speaker 1: very often that's closed, right, so you can see through
Speaker 1: the viewfinder unless you've got the screen. But then if
Speaker 1: you have the screen, you're looking down at the screen
Speaker 1: and not up necessarily at the action you're trying of mind,
Speaker 1: you know these pieces and there are these big heavy
Speaker 1: swords and we've spoken about it, you know, the warm days,
Speaker 1: the tippers bendy so you can't stab anyone, but the
Speaker 1: edges of it are heart. If you get hit by them,
Speaker 1: they suck, They really suck. And then the cold days
Speaker 1: that tip froze and it was it was sharp. It
Speaker 1: ended up being very shard. Yeah, it was. It was
Speaker 1: just a dull, dulled blade, yes, exactly. And an improvement
Speaker 1: from first season from the swords, I have to say,
Speaker 1: no kidding, yeah, huge improvement. We just spoke to to
Speaker 1: John Locations Management and he has my sword, my one
Speaker 1: that I used on the show, like still with the dates.
Speaker 1: It was like on his wall behind me. It was like, no, way,
Speaker 1: that's awesome. Yeah, it's amazing. You at great keep saying
Speaker 1: that's nice. Yeah, So are there any what was there
Speaker 1: the sort of a two part question, what was your
Speaker 1: favorite seat of Shadow Hunters to shoot and what was
Speaker 1: the most difficult if you can think of one. Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I just I was struggling with that question.
Speaker 1: I saw it um favorite scenes. I just I don't
Speaker 1: have a specific scene that's favorite. I just I preferred
Speaker 1: shooting in the institute because there was a lot of
Speaker 1: room and there and we could do a lot of
Speaker 1: different things in there and still have the same kind
Speaker 1: of background and still environment, but still make feel it
Speaker 1: was different I liked Magus's apartment as well because the
Speaker 1: rooms in the rooms in the rooms, and there was
Speaker 1: depth there and you had a lot of fun with
Speaker 1: that too. So I can't really say, per se there
Speaker 1: was a scene that's memorable, because they just were. They
Speaker 1: were all fun in their own way and they were
Speaker 1: all unique in their own way. I guess the biggest
Speaker 1: logistical thing that we had to do, and I don't
Speaker 1: think it made the movie. I don't think the scene
Speaker 1: got in there. And I was trying to look for
Speaker 1: that yesterday, but it was. We were in the Institute Arboretum,
Speaker 1: which is actually a location. It was Alan Gardens with
Speaker 1: a big dome greenhouse and all the plants were inside.
Speaker 1: Usually's dead a winter outside inside you know, the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: and very humid and warm in there. And the director
Speaker 1: wanted to have a high angle shot. And when you
Speaker 1: look up in this dome, you see, oh yeah, there
Speaker 1: is a platform up there, but you know it looks
Speaker 1: you know, it's this plywood on you know, suspended from
Speaker 1: the ceiling. And to get up there is wow. I
Speaker 1: got to scale the wall with a with a ladder
Speaker 1: attached to it, and uh, and you have to you're
Speaker 1: working at heights permit or anything over ten feet, and
Speaker 1: that was thirty thirty five feet in the air. So well, Mark,
Speaker 1: my sister and I would have had our tickets, so
Speaker 1: certainly we could get up there and get the shot
Speaker 1: for him. And that took us about twenty minutes or
Speaker 1: so just to get climb up there, with safety harnesses
Speaker 1: and doing your ringing and attaching as we went along.
Speaker 1: And then the guys go up there from meeting. It's
Speaker 1: all the time. It's no big deal. There's a heating
Speaker 1: unit or condition you know there they have to get
Speaker 1: access to. So when we finally made our way up
Speaker 1: there and and I was like, well, I'm exhausted now
Speaker 1: just climbing the whole thing. Now we got to drop
Speaker 1: a rope down that we brought up with us so
Speaker 1: they could hook up the gear equipment and we can
Speaker 1: lift it up to us and uh, and then get
Speaker 1: the shot. You trypod because I'm looking down, don't want
Speaker 1: to hand hold it and fear if I drop it.
Speaker 1: And get it all up there and get it set
Speaker 1: and you clear out the sketches of the frame and uh,
Speaker 1: and then the scene went on. But I don't recall
Speaker 1: ever seeing that done. I just remember seeing an image
Speaker 1: in the viewfinder. No. Yeah, and that kind of work
Speaker 1: never really seems you know, no one ever knows because
Speaker 1: I never see it, right, I mean that right, atto
Speaker 1: effort to get there for a scene that just didn't
Speaker 1: make the cut because it didn't advance a story, it
Speaker 1: didn't have time for it. Goodn't It's gracious. I mean
Speaker 1: there's so many moments like that though, that you you
Speaker 1: really are in the trenches with us, morning, noon and night.
Speaker 1: In the we just watched re watched the episode with
Speaker 1: all of the fluff flying through the air dra that
Speaker 1: was horrible. Yeah. I just always think about every time
Speaker 1: I show up a set and our entire camera crews
Speaker 1: in you know, has met suits and masks because they
Speaker 1: have to be in the thick of it with us,
Speaker 1: and we're all going, huh, but we were very good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sure this is going to be okay. But again, it
Speaker 1: was so amazing to be able to have someone like
Speaker 1: you in the trenches with us because we can always
Speaker 1: count on you to get the shot and we know
Speaker 1: you'll make it worth our while even if we're in
Speaker 1: the worst of conditions. Yeah, it was tough in there.
Speaker 1: I think the only person I had an advantage for
Speaker 1: for being on set was was Alan because he had
Speaker 1: had a full mask on and he was sort of
Speaker 1: tied up there and there was nothing to him and
Speaker 1: we were all like just coughing up puts peoples at
Speaker 1: lunch time. It was this. You just said, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was coughing them up for like three days. I was
Speaker 1: blowing them out of my nose for like three days.
Speaker 1: It was absolutely horrendous. Never again. Yeah, I remember marketing
Speaker 1: up the camera at the end of the night and
Speaker 1: it was just endless, a little vacuum in the air
Speaker 1: and it was just coming under all the crabs. I
Speaker 1: didn't know it had you could get stuff in there. Oh,
Speaker 1: it was as bad as sad, it seemed to be.
Speaker 1: I was just about to say, it's like sad you
Speaker 1: go to the beach with your backpack one time. That
Speaker 1: sand is never leaving your backpack, no matter what it seem.
Speaker 1: But that's an interesting point. So you're talking about Mark
Speaker 1: cleaning up the camera again. I think we've mentioned this
Speaker 1: on the podcast before, but I think it's important to
Speaker 1: know with you drew yourself for audience members out there,
Speaker 1: these guys, you know, we do the fight scene stuff,
Speaker 1: and you got that must have been a tough day,
Speaker 1: and they ask us about it very often it conventions
Speaker 1: and whatever. You know, is that a hard day or whatever?
Speaker 1: And you go, yeah, to an extent, you know, you do.
Speaker 1: You do the emotional stuff that takes some stuff out
Speaker 1: of you, do the physical stuff that takes some stuff
Speaker 1: out of you. You got to remember that Drew and
Speaker 1: his team got there an hour before us, and they
Speaker 1: don't leave till an hour after us. But for the
Speaker 1: audience out there, it's very important to remember that these
Speaker 1: guys do this incredible job and they're carrying around what
Speaker 1: is your camera way twenty five pounds? No, it's approached
Speaker 1: that the in the mid forties, that camera was probably
Speaker 1: actually at times close to fifty depending what kind of
Speaker 1: lens was on there at lens Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can
Speaker 1: you say these guys were in the trenches, They were
Speaker 1: really in the trenches. They worked harder than we did.
Speaker 1: They continue to work harder than we do always. They
Speaker 1: really are and I've used this phrase before, I know
Speaker 1: I have. I don't want to sound like a broken record,
Speaker 1: but I will. They really are the unspoken heroes of
Speaker 1: our industry. Like nothing gets done without them, and we
Speaker 1: get far too much credit for doing what we do.
Speaker 1: When Drew and his team and John and his team,
Speaker 1: and Glenn and his team and everyone behind the scenes
Speaker 1: put this together, we're just literally the tip of the
Speaker 1: iceberg that can be seen. It's true. But we're there
Speaker 1: to make you look good. That's our job, and that's
Speaker 1: why they have to work so hard. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's hard work, man, it's hard work. Yeah. But you
Speaker 1: guys rehearse those fights scenes like I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: week before you know, getting it worked out, getting it down.
Speaker 1: That's still time and effort in shape. Yeah. On good episodes,
Speaker 1: we have a week. Some episodes we have an hour.
Speaker 1: So yeah, exactly. Okay, what's that move again? That was
Speaker 1: one again. Actually we've spoken about that about that day,
Speaker 1: but you not being here, and I feel like we
Speaker 1: should revisit it with you. Here is the fight scene
Speaker 1: on the rooftop with the angel and all the lightning
Speaker 1: is one that we can't and I had to rehearse
Speaker 1: that day as they changed everything and they changed the
Speaker 1: flooring of the snary, so we had to rerehearse the
Speaker 1: whole thing that day, and the one on the rooftop
Speaker 1: where I'm the demon. Yeah, where you trying to kill me? Where?
Speaker 1: Because that one we had a time crunch. Yeah, everyone
Speaker 1: was given new information. We were under a time crunch.
Speaker 1: And the credit for the both of those scenes goes
Speaker 1: to you and Glenn and your teams because I remembered
Speaker 1: that you had two tracking dollies at the same time,
Speaker 1: so you were trying to avoid each other whilst carrying
Speaker 1: the action as well while stealing with this consistent strobing
Speaker 1: light that just blinded everybody. It was a nightmare. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well I remember in the other scene, the one where
Speaker 1: You're trying to kill me was like directing that episode?
Speaker 1: Or was he first ad? I can't remember. It was
Speaker 1: his first ad, so I just remember still it coming
Speaker 1: up to all four of us, you, Me, Glenn, and
Speaker 1: Dom and going okay, guys. Um. For the audience, I
Speaker 1: don't want to interrupt, but for the listening audience back home,
Speaker 1: I just want to acknowledge that Kat very briefly forgot
Speaker 1: my name. Really did not pause. I was completely forgetting
Speaker 1: who I was. It was only four years. It's totally fine.
Speaker 1: Don't chase dump, Chase dump, which one do I choose?
Speaker 1: But anyway, they him up to the four of us
Speaker 1: and said, we don't have any of the coverag yet,
Speaker 1: and we have eight minutes and that's all the time
Speaker 1: that we have. And this was, you know, a two
Speaker 1: three minute fight scene, and they just said, are you
Speaker 1: guys okay to just roll through it a few times,
Speaker 1: and we all just sort of looked at each other
Speaker 1: and went okay. And you two had handheld cameras and
Speaker 1: again trying to avoid each other, trying to avoid the action,
Speaker 1: and Domino just duking it out over and over and
Speaker 1: over again. And I was so worried about how it
Speaker 1: was going to cut together one of my favorite fight
Speaker 1: scenes that was cut together on the show. It turned
Speaker 1: out so beautifully and it would not have been possible
Speaker 1: without you two. So season two events, I think that
Speaker 1: was season three, because yeah, that was the hour. I
Speaker 1: just season three see a lot of it. I wanted to.
Speaker 1: I was playing back some of the episodes. I would
Speaker 1: jog my memory as to, you know, what had happened
Speaker 1: and behind the scenes stories, and I'm just I was
Speaker 1: pulling a blank. So yeah, I know I shot that.
Speaker 1: I recognized the style. Yeah, it happens to me all
Speaker 1: the time. Happens to. I've done rewatches where I'm watching
Speaker 1: an episode and go, it looks like me, But I
Speaker 1: don't really remember being there, remember doing any of this stuff. No,
Speaker 1: there's full scenes where I go, I don't remember this
Speaker 1: scene existing, let alone. I have no memories of shooting it.
Speaker 1: I don't was I there was this? Is there a clone?
Speaker 1: I don't know anymore. I think it has to be
Speaker 1: to do with these like these fourteen now a days
Speaker 1: that we fairly regularly pulled for two and a half
Speaker 1: three years, where there's only so much information you can
Speaker 1: take in and store. It has to be that has
Speaker 1: to be the case. You know. There was so many
Speaker 1: times times we were running on empty um and just
Speaker 1: you know, powered through because it's what we all love
Speaker 1: to do. But I am attributing it to that and
Speaker 1: not the drinking I do. It's real life, you know.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what you do every day in real life.
Speaker 1: You know, even you see a photograph, you go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember taking that picture. It's just you just don't
Speaker 1: recall that kind of detail. You can't remember the moments
Speaker 1: where you get the feeling more than the actual event. Yea,
Speaker 1: I remember all of the cold days. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: that much. The outdoor cold days, I remember those. Oh
Speaker 1: but the best thing that ever was building that alleyway
Speaker 1: inside for the winter so we didn't have to be outside.
Speaker 1: I thought that was like a genius move. Thank goodness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think good as Matt Hastings didn't like being cold
Speaker 1: because it changed a lot of things. It sure did.
Speaker 1: And that's that's stage. That's that was impressive. I have
Speaker 1: to say the indoor look of it was really impressive.
Speaker 1: And there was a lot of logistics getting around that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they most of them were like functioning storefronts you
Speaker 1: could go inside and like they were all we played
Speaker 1: game on the show, whether it was a set or
Speaker 1: on location. And I want to say that this is
Speaker 1: one of the ones that people won't there's no way.
Speaker 1: There's no way you would know because we had a
Speaker 1: block either side of this, Like, there's no way you
Speaker 1: would know that this wasn't just a street in Toronto somewhere,
Speaker 1: and it had sure looks. I believed it could be
Speaker 1: in the Chinatown that we used a lot and uh
Speaker 1: and then just a residential neighborhood. And I don't know
Speaker 1: the third look. I don't think we re got to
Speaker 1: which was supposed to be more of a downtown business environment, urban,
Speaker 1: more urban, I guess, but we never got to that
Speaker 1: look of it. But that was the plan to do that.
Speaker 1: If it was, we Wow, that's amazing, and that's that's
Speaker 1: stayed there for quite a while afterwards, and there was
Speaker 1: nothing too about, you know, after everything had been torn
Speaker 1: down and I went back to that stage and do
Speaker 1: another show, it was no, you didn't, did you really? Yes?
Speaker 1: It was like right after Designated Survivor took over, our
Speaker 1: stages did. So the Oval office was now where the
Speaker 1: Institute was. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And we sort of kept
Speaker 1: on that side at this in stage one we had
Speaker 1: two stages there, but Stage two still had the old
Speaker 1: Shadow Hunters sets were still standing because there was no
Speaker 1: need to move in there right away. They slowly kind
Speaker 1: of eroded them, like I think Magnus's apartment finally got
Speaker 1: crushed away, but then I found parts of his parts
Speaker 1: of his apartment showing up in the design of the
Speaker 1: uh the next step, you know, the brick wall and
Speaker 1: the brick textures, and there the beautiful thing about recycling,
Speaker 1: because usually we're so wasteful in the film business that
Speaker 1: we could actually just get Tom to do reuse parts
Speaker 1: of the previous sets and blended into this new environment.
Speaker 1: But I have to say, being in the Oval office
Speaker 1: and being in that stage and was I hearing the
Speaker 1: echoes of your voices or is that just my headpline
Speaker 1: chicks on me or it was just really haunting and
Speaker 1: a little unsettling for the first little while. I'm sure. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of speaking of these sets that sort of stuck
Speaker 1: in our memory, do you have any favorite sort of
Speaker 1: behind the scenes moments or is there anything that sort
Speaker 1: of sticks out to you as like this was fun
Speaker 1: and I enjoyed this day or this moment or this
Speaker 1: whatever it was. Well, the fun thing that we had
Speaker 1: was really nothing to do with the show in terms
Speaker 1: of being It was Halloween in twenty sixteen, and we
Speaker 1: just sort of decided to get dressed up, and I
Speaker 1: had this idea, why don't we just sort of be,
Speaker 1: you know, dressed up like a Star Trek Crew me
Speaker 1: like Dolly Gripp and my focus poll are also got
Speaker 1: the same page, and I ordered the costumes or the
Speaker 1: shirts anyways online about a month before and I just
Speaker 1: left them in a box on the camera trucks. If
Speaker 1: no one's going to bother. This unknown to me was
Speaker 1: that beat camera. Glen spotted that box and opened it
Speaker 1: and realized, well, wait a second. These guys that got
Speaker 1: Star Trek costume. So they had this idea that they
Speaker 1: were going to be the bad guys of Star Trenning,
Speaker 1: and they you know, found online the rap Glenn made
Speaker 1: the best rap, the best Cohn Union sing you know.
Speaker 1: Ever was a parallel to the movie. The thing is
Speaker 1: he'd never watched a Star track. He didn't really know
Speaker 1: anything about it, and uh but he you know, saw
Speaker 1: a picture and he could emulate that. And then the cure.
Speaker 1: His focus puller was a gourn and Nicole, the second assistant,
Speaker 1: she was a cling on and the Donny grip was
Speaker 1: spot from the Mere universe. And he did and he
Speaker 1: was scrowing this goatee in and I said a little
Speaker 1: changing the look is, oh yeah, just something different. I'm trying.
Speaker 1: You know. This kept it oblivious to me as to
Speaker 1: what was going on. And then on the on the day,
Speaker 1: unfortunately there was a Splinter second unit, so those guys
Speaker 1: were pushed off. They always did the second unit of
Speaker 1: Splinter stuff, so they weren't really on set, which was
Speaker 1: the plan was sort of be the robbery A and
Speaker 1: B camera, the good guys and the bad guys and
Speaker 1: throwing appropriate insults back and forth to each other just
Speaker 1: for fun. But this since that didn't work, we were
Speaker 1: shooting in the institute office environment. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was actually Alex's office or something else, because we
Speaker 1: tend to redress it for different areas of Ala hunting Um.
Speaker 1: And they came over in the march, and there's video
Speaker 1: of them coming to our stage from their stage and
Speaker 1: they're playing the classic you know, Star Trek theme from
Speaker 1: the fight sequence and and uh, that's in the background
Speaker 1: as the four of them sort of make their way
Speaker 1: into the set. And then when they came in, it
Speaker 1: was just Mayhem and and Glenn spiding off lines from
Speaker 1: the movie. And I said, how did you know that
Speaker 1: was curigating the lines? I just said, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: very shakesperience moment, just you know, like like Carl Moltabon
Speaker 1: would have done. It was just shocking, and I was
Speaker 1: we were just selling shock and see like it was
Speaker 1: going bananas. He says, everybody, get out of here. We're
Speaker 1: behind you know, just like so much. We got to work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was Kad and Matt were on that set
Speaker 1: at that moment there and then uh oh and the
Speaker 1: boom operator he just came into Halloween two. He came
Speaker 1: into the news the updated Star Trek spot with a
Speaker 1: different tunic and he was the boom guy. Beats like
Speaker 1: six foot two and they had the ears on and
Speaker 1: really convincing a look for it. And then I think
Speaker 1: at one point we all got together got a big
Speaker 1: shot with Cat and Matt there as well. Perfect it was.
Speaker 1: That was a very memorable moment. And I have video
Speaker 1: from different angles and you know, from pictures of us
Speaker 1: sitting there with with on the dolly and dollars and
Speaker 1: arrow tunics and you know, NCC went seven went on
Speaker 1: the side of the Dolly to make it look like
Speaker 1: as the Enterprise and we was kind of playing ump
Speaker 1: with it for the day like that. So that was
Speaker 1: sort of a highlight that I really do embalace. It
Speaker 1: was a very I mean we've touched on this already,
Speaker 1: but it was a very light set in general. It
Speaker 1: was a very it was a very playful set. Even
Speaker 1: was it Mike McMurray who had fun shirt Fridays yep,
Speaker 1: Friday Fridays. Yeah, and they were, and they that was
Speaker 1: sort of became a thing and would we even we
Speaker 1: would We were excited to see people showing up because
Speaker 1: it has this levity to it that makes everything you know,
Speaker 1: it's not all nobody's dying here, like we're making a
Speaker 1: TV show. We should be enjoying ourselves, who we should
Speaker 1: be having fun. Yes, I was always amazed at how
Speaker 1: the two of you you could be laughing and joking
Speaker 1: and women and the slap was in and they're crying
Speaker 1: and weeping, and just like, how do you do that?
Speaker 1: I just turn that on like that? And then the
Speaker 1: crippling debt from the years of being an actor. I
Speaker 1: just think about that and immediately, you know, some some
Speaker 1: light trauma and just yeah, use it, just some light trauma. No,
Speaker 1: but it's a lot of it. And Dom and I
Speaker 1: talk about this so much on the show, but so
Speaker 1: much of the ability to do that comes from having
Speaker 1: a crew that creates that environment and allows for that.
Speaker 1: And once again, it's credit to you and Glenn and
Speaker 1: your crews for being able to set things up and
Speaker 1: be there and be there to catch the moment without
Speaker 1: taking us out of the moment. And that's such a
Speaker 1: skill that I don't think a lot of people realize
Speaker 1: is so important to shows like this that have such
Speaker 1: emotional ups and downs, and a lot of it too
Speaker 1: was Mike is a well humored gentleman, you know, and
Speaker 1: he likes to have fun. And it kind of starts there.
Speaker 1: If you're if you're, if you're talking to photography is
Speaker 1: a little more formal and a little bit more precise
Speaker 1: and a little more you know, or traditional, then you
Speaker 1: may have not had much fun, but you know it
Speaker 1: came from you guys too, because when you're together, it
Speaker 1: is just you're you're in social mode pretty much. And
Speaker 1: then and then and then it becomes as soon as
Speaker 1: it's signed to rehearse, were now around the work mode,
Speaker 1: and he's got used to hitting that switch that sometimes
Speaker 1: a daily would come in and then clowning around and
Speaker 1: be pretty just like a second, the role in the
Speaker 1: camera slates and he's not quite there yet, you know, Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm good enough. Yeah, because it Yeah, you're right, that's
Speaker 1: such an interesting thing that we I have to separate
Speaker 1: that from my real life every now and then, Like
Speaker 1: I was just at my body Grant's wedding over New
Speaker 1: Years and he's an ad um or used to be
Speaker 1: an ad now lives in the Dominican Republic. And he
Speaker 1: used to do this thing you used to drive me mental.
Speaker 1: And he would do something when we were out drinking together.
Speaker 1: He would do this thing where he would go, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and just for a second, my brain goes well as
Speaker 1: someone called for us, what's going on? And then I go,
Speaker 1: I'm at a pub, like I know that this isn't
Speaker 1: what's happening right now. But he would just pretend to
Speaker 1: talk into a radio and I'd be like, nobody's talking,
Speaker 1: nobody's talking right now. But it does. It sort of
Speaker 1: becomes this like semi semi instinctual part of your existence
Speaker 1: where you're like, oh, something's happening. You hear a crop
Speaker 1: of ball go off, and you go, am I supposed
Speaker 1: to be there, like if you snap into work mode. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was even doing it over the holidays. I was
Speaker 1: home and my you know, my grandma was like, hey,
Speaker 1: can you mix up the mashed potatoes? And I went
Speaker 1: yet copy that I went wrong. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: just okay, she I don't know she did. She didn't
Speaker 1: take a fense thay goodness, but well, I mean fifty
Speaker 1: five episodes and you know, two seasons with you, so
Speaker 1: it was what forty forty forty two episodes or something
Speaker 1: and two seasons. You know, when it all came to
Speaker 1: an end, we had the opportunity to do the movie
Speaker 1: the last two episodes where we had a bit more
Speaker 1: freedom because there was no there was no network notes,
Speaker 1: there was no you know, we kind of had free rain.
Speaker 1: So was that what was that like for you? Did
Speaker 1: you feel as you had a bit more freedom when
Speaker 1: we were doing that and you could try some things
Speaker 1: or well, you know, and it was Todd directing, so
Speaker 1: it was someone new to understand what he was looking for.
Speaker 1: But I guess I guess it took us four weeks
Speaker 1: to shoot that or close to it and three and
Speaker 1: a half weeks or something. But Todd certainly he knew
Speaker 1: the style of the show. You know, he was when
Speaker 1: the producers that were in the cutting room and and
Speaker 1: and at one point as I got into day, well
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter because we were not going to
Speaker 1: be on that shot that long because the cutting pattern,
Speaker 1: he goes, oh, that's that's my fault. I set that up.
Speaker 1: It was you. And then I'm finding and decided, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the cutting pattern was driven by Todd and and
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, there's there's some nice shots
Speaker 1: in there. You could have hung on that for maybe
Speaker 1: a moment or too longer, you know, that's all. You know,
Speaker 1: every you would see every single shot that we did
Speaker 1: for a scene. It just wouldn't be there that long.
Speaker 1: It's true, it was quick. Well, you know, part of
Speaker 1: that is the efficiency of the crew. We were able
Speaker 1: to get so many shots. They probably it would depend
Speaker 1: on the director. You're absolutely right. It would fully depend
Speaker 1: on wiving so nice like the pok what are they
Speaker 1: going to do? Fire us? Like the show's who gets
Speaker 1: We talk about this more honestly, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they would entirely depend on the director, and very often,
Speaker 1: very often you guys again, you guys are in the
Speaker 1: first ad team. Like if the director came in and
Speaker 1: we were like, this is slowing us down. This is
Speaker 1: a real problem like that, you know, because for those
Speaker 1: out there who don't know, if you have to add
Speaker 1: an additional day to filming TV or a movie, it
Speaker 1: costs a fortune. It costs them a fortune to do.
Speaker 1: It costs so much money. You have to have all
Speaker 1: of the equipment, all of the crew, everyone comes in.
Speaker 1: If you're on location, god forbid, you have to get
Speaker 1: that location for another day. It costs an absolute fortune
Speaker 1: and an additional day might be one scene. All you
Speaker 1: need to get is one scene, but you have to
Speaker 1: get everyone in for that day. It is an absolute nightmare.
Speaker 1: So when you do have directors who come in who
Speaker 1: slow everything down. We do have looks sort of between
Speaker 1: the internal, internal sort of core group where you're like,
Speaker 1: we know what we're doing. It like, we're going to
Speaker 1: get this done because we've got to we've got to
Speaker 1: power through things, and the crew around you fix that problem,
Speaker 1: you know. I remember an instance we were in the
Speaker 1: alleyway and it was like the last moment, there's only
Speaker 1: like minutes left to do, you know, Dom's coverage. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: as the room turned around, now and all we have
Speaker 1: are these white shots is what we're planning to do,
Speaker 1: and we're handheld at the time, and I think it's
Speaker 1: sort of the aftermath of the fight sequence, and it was, well,
Speaker 1: we don't got to the white shots. All we have,
Speaker 1: I know, on the other side, we have all these
Speaker 1: close ups and you want to match when you're cutting
Speaker 1: just for the power of the emotion. So I just
Speaker 1: walk over to don it goes. So you know, when
Speaker 1: this thing when they say cut, just keep going because
Speaker 1: I'm going to run in and just get closer to
Speaker 1: you to get your close up. And that's what we did,
Speaker 1: and let's end. It's in the movie. It's yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. We need we need heroes like that on set,
Speaker 1: no kidding, like that's because without that, not even just
Speaker 1: like it takes so much of the impact out of
Speaker 1: the scene, but it kind of takes the scene away
Speaker 1: from the rest of the show as well, So it
Speaker 1: takes it actually steals a huge amount seemingly a fairly
Speaker 1: small mistake. But yeah, it's people like you who fix
Speaker 1: things like that. And so we talked. We talked about
Speaker 1: this with Glenn and then with John yesterday. So much
Speaker 1: of what being on set is is quick problem solving,
Speaker 1: being able to see an issue and go, we can
Speaker 1: fix this quickly. I actually think that's so much of
Speaker 1: what it is. It's like, Okay, here's the objective. How
Speaker 1: do we get there quickly and efficiently with everything with
Speaker 1: every thousand notes ticked as well? Yeah, yeah, and then
Speaker 1: when we're not the young for a tick two yeah,
Speaker 1: got it. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, But that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's the beauty of working together for so long is
Speaker 1: being able to dance with that and adjust to those
Speaker 1: things and roll with those punches and know that whatever
Speaker 1: we do get it'll work somehow. Um. But that's you know.
Speaker 1: Those are some of my favorite memories of of doing
Speaker 1: those final two episodes is having that family so solidified.
Speaker 1: And it was such a bittersweet moment. It was it
Speaker 1: wasn't it was closure to because at the end of
Speaker 1: the third season we all thought we were coming back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and then then when I heard it was
Speaker 1: not coming back, it was like I didn't get to
Speaker 1: say goodbye to anybody. It was just like, so long,
Speaker 1: We'll see you soon. That was sort of the idea
Speaker 1: of it. And because we storylines were ready for season four,
Speaker 1: We're rules. Matt and I were off spending off season
Speaker 1: three money. We were traveling around Europe. We got a
Speaker 1: phone call like, oh shit, maybe we should cut a
Speaker 1: couple of dates off this tool. They're going to be
Speaker 1: unemployed soon. M It's so true. But that's so it
Speaker 1: was nice to come back and have that closure. And
Speaker 1: I guess the scene that really resonates was when I
Speaker 1: did not photograph. I was sort of by the monitors watching,
Speaker 1: and it was a steadicamp scene and the two of
Speaker 1: you were doing your last dance and that whole dialogue
Speaker 1: and how that played and and and for the fans,
Speaker 1: there's there's no real music on set when you're doing that.
Speaker 1: There's like this what they call it a beat track,
Speaker 1: but the beat track is like a really low frequency
Speaker 1: fun fun don't that you're dancing too, that you can
Speaker 1: you can record because the microphone just doesn't actually pick
Speaker 1: up that frequency, so you're not damaging the soundtrack. Usually
Speaker 1: it's back in the day, it was you play the
Speaker 1: music for a few bars and then you drop the
Speaker 1: music microphones on and everybody keeps moving to the same vibe. Well,
Speaker 1: now we can keep beat going. I didn't know that
Speaker 1: it's interesting the mic just pick it up. I know.
Speaker 1: I was always impressed with that. So you got this
Speaker 1: low kind of thing that I can hear, and the
Speaker 1: camera's slowly revolving around you as a city cameras working
Speaker 1: its way around for the story, and just watching that
Speaker 1: whole scene unravel it was. It was rather emotional just
Speaker 1: being at the monitors watching it, and I remember because
Speaker 1: I wasn't really working, I was just you know, enjoying
Speaker 1: the scene. Walk that sound interesting thing as well, you
Speaker 1: got you got to see so much of what got
Speaker 1: filmed for us. What what is quite interesting as a
Speaker 1: fan watching it back is there are scenes that we
Speaker 1: were in, We read them, we know vaguely what happens
Speaker 1: in them, but getting to see, like Harry and Matt's
Speaker 1: take on how this like this love connection is happening
Speaker 1: when we weren't there, especially getting to see Harry had
Speaker 1: such freedom to play with this physicality, getting to see
Speaker 1: what Harry did on the day, because you know Harry
Speaker 1: would walk in and go, oh, this is an interesting prop.
Speaker 1: Can I have this at the beginning? Or can I
Speaker 1: do this at the beginning? It's always something new, So
Speaker 1: that was a really interesting thing for us. But I
Speaker 1: agree with you that the ending one it is this
Speaker 1: bitter sweet thing to film because when you when you
Speaker 1: know you're approaching the end, everything is the last one
Speaker 1: of something. Everything is that everyone is the last time
Speaker 1: we're seeing something or seeing a person, or going into
Speaker 1: a room or seeing a set or you know, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. But we also sort of had the kind
Speaker 1: of the bonus of our rap party was directly after
Speaker 1: filming that so slowly sort of people were closing things down,
Speaker 1: closing departments down, getting things done whatever, and then trays
Speaker 1: of champagne were making their way out whilst Kat and
Speaker 1: I were dancing like it's a fucking save us some
Speaker 1: because it we'll be there very soon. Yeah, I'm crying
Speaker 1: right now, I'm gone. It was. It was a very sweet,
Speaker 1: like I remember the I remember Silk standing everyone up
Speaker 1: at the end and that being the and ladies and
Speaker 1: gentlemen that's it for shadow Hunters, and it being just
Speaker 1: the most like brutal, but we were all arm in arms.
Speaker 1: I think Emerald has a really good video of it.
Speaker 1: We were all arm and arts of it. Yeah, two
Speaker 1: hundred of us, like all together, like fuck, look at
Speaker 1: what we achieved. Man. Four years of everyone trying to
Speaker 1: achieve one goal all together, four years of no real arguments,
Speaker 1: nobody really fell out with each other. We just had
Speaker 1: this time that we'll always live in infamy for us
Speaker 1: because we managed to put it on film, which is
Speaker 1: really special. It is it's it's the family I have, well,
Speaker 1: the big family that I never have because it's just
Speaker 1: me and my sister. Right, So there's large people and
Speaker 1: you sit down to lunch. It's a room full of
Speaker 1: people are sitting down to lunch, you know, yeah, and
Speaker 1: then we're all getting up and done doing our thing
Speaker 1: and you know, everybody checked. If you had an ego
Speaker 1: that was checked at the door, it wasn't about to set.
Speaker 1: And that was fun. Well, that was the environment we had.
Speaker 1: It was very mentioned, open door, round table, collaborative environment
Speaker 1: where whether it was you know, just checking in about
Speaker 1: a scene or trying to figure out creatively how to
Speaker 1: make something work, or checking in on someone on a
Speaker 1: personal level and going, hey, how are you, how's your life?
Speaker 1: Are you good? Are you you know? Are you well?
Speaker 1: Basically which you rarely rarely get. And then something I
Speaker 1: think on set has kind of been at least the
Speaker 1: lunch room, for example, has kind of been lost since
Speaker 1: COVID really because there's so many protocols now and so
Speaker 1: many things that everyone has kept so separated. I haven't
Speaker 1: had that since Shadow Hunters, and I miss that so much,
Speaker 1: just being able to sit with everyone and chat and
Speaker 1: check in and have birthdays and you know, whatever event
Speaker 1: is going on, and it's you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: there's such a there's such a camaraderie about it that
Speaker 1: will always live in infamy, at least in my in
Speaker 1: my heart with Shadow Hunters. Yeah, no, it's like it's
Speaker 1: like the football scene in the Top Gun where everybody is,
Speaker 1: you know, bonding that our launches when we do that, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, exactly right. Yeah. Well, on that note, Drew,
Speaker 1: is there anything else you would love to to add
Speaker 1: or say or you know, the we know the Shadow
Speaker 1: family loves you just as we do. We've it's been really,
Speaker 1: really incredible to have you here today. Well, thank you
Speaker 1: very much. I know I could go on and on
Speaker 1: for hours with other things, and I still want to
Speaker 1: board everybody, but it was certainly a lot of fun
Speaker 1: seeing you guys. I can't believe it's worse so quickly,
Speaker 1: I know, because there's sort of an invitation before starting.
Speaker 1: But and you know, and my driver was late to
Speaker 1: pick me up. That's way to push everything. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: chopper was late as well. We had some weather here.
Speaker 1: It was a whole nightmare. Oh well, I walked. I
Speaker 1: don't know, no, But thank you so much, Drew. It's
Speaker 1: it was incredible to spend so many years is working
Speaker 1: so closely with you and to be able to kind
Speaker 1: of relive that for at least a little bit. It's
Speaker 1: been a pleasure. It has been a true pleasure, and
Speaker 1: the best of fortune to all of you. Absolutely all right,
Speaker 1: take care, monsieur bye. Return to the Shadows as hosted
Speaker 1: an executive produced by me Dominic, Sherwood and Katherine McNamara.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Langley. Our senior producers are Liz
Speaker 1: Hayes and Diego Tapia. Our producer is Hannah Harris and
Speaker 1: Kristin Vermilia, and our intern is Sam Kat's. Original music
Speaker 1: by Alex Kinsey performed by Alex Kinsey and Katherine McNamara,
Speaker 1: and the episode was mixed by Seth A landscape