'Monster House', Cinematographer, Xavier Grobet

0:07Jawad MirSo tell me how you got started in, the film industry or in cinematography per se. What piqued your interest?

0:14Xavier GrobetI guess from early age. Well, my mother was a still photographer.

0:20Jawad MirOkay.

0:20Xavier GrobetI grew up with cameras and dark room in my house, and always with photography, you know, and a camera on my hands. And, but eventually, when I was around 11, I bought my Super 8 camera, and I just kinda, like, started doing, you know, same photography, but in motion. So that's kinda... That was kinda, like, my start. And then I went to, you know, I went to film school in Mexico City. I studied there, and then I just kinda, like, continue on with the career, you know.

0:56Jawad MirSure. And what was, s… about the work that your mom did that inspired you more than just having a camera in the house? Like, was there a certain photograph, or was there a certain story that she was trying to tell using the photo medium that somehow spoke to you at a very deep level?

1:17Xavier GrobetWell, it's funny. I guess the first recollection I have, we were living in England that year when I bought my camera. And she started doing a series of photographs with, like, foot, what, s… soles, you know, the ones you put inside shoes?

1:34Jawad MirSure.

1:34Xavier GrobetAnd she was doing this series of, like, kinda, like, steps walking in different directions. And so I, funny enough, I got... I imitated her, and I got the same things, but I animated them. So I guess I kinda, like, started with animating those soles and up through the house. You know, I would place them on the floor, on the floor, on the walls, on the ceiling, and I would just kinda, like, follow them as they would walk around the house. So, I guess that's... That's how it, you know, started, I guess, you know.

2:06Jawad MirAnd when you say animated, was it, like, more through still photographs animation, like stop motion? Or was it…

2:11Xavier GrobetNo, like doing stop, like stop motion animation with the Super 8 camera. Yeah.

2:16Jawad MirRight.

2:16Xavier GrobetStop mo… stop motion. Yeah.

2:18Jawad MirYeah.

2:18Xavier GrobetLike the old style, the old, the old way.

2:20Jawad MirOh, no. I know, I know. I've used 16 and Super 8, but mostly I've used 16 millimeter.

2:25Xavier Grobethuh.

2:25Jawad MirNot Super 8 as much. But having said that, when you were first... And I'm asking you this because I went through this myself, and I'm sure everyone does, unless I am an, a one odd piece, is that when you first grab the camera, right, like, in tho... It's not digital. You don't know what you're shooting. You don't know if it's underexposed. You don't know if it's overexposed and all that fun, stuff. Did you... The first time you started filming whatever that was, did that happen to you? Like, did you go through any of those…

2:55Xavier GrobetOh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, with, Super 8 and eight-millimeter and all that, when I started, of course everything was, out of focus or over… underexposed or overexposed. I didn't know how to use the... You know, most of those cameras started having, like, automized, like meter in the camera so that would…

3:21Jawad MirOh, right. Yeah

3:22Xavier Grobet... Give you a guide. But it was... I wasn't totally into that myself. I mean, when I was starting, like, I didn't know how it really worked for, you know, specifically. But so yeah, it had all this... I had to learn the way of getting a r… a roll of, like, Super 8 completely overexposed, you know? And then it's like, "Oh, what did I do wrong?" So yeah, we all went through that. Yeah.

3:42Jawad MirAnd processing film, in the '90s was super expensive. I mean, I can't even imagine the time when you were going through. Like, how was that in terms of getting it processed for the h… you know, for the fun of it? Like, you know, from your stand... Your mom understood you because of her love for photography or…

4:01Xavier GrobetBut it... I mean, it wasn't extremely expensive. It was consumer's, consumer cameras. The Super 8 cameras were super, you know... It was like, it was h… it was like having an Insta… Inst, an... What is that? Instamatic Kodak camera. I mean, you would just send…

4:18Jawad MirOh, okay

4:18Xavier Grobet... You know, you would send your roll to develop, and they would... Then you'd get your film back. It was, it was like every... That was, like, the way it used to be back then.

4:27Jawad MirDid you ever…

4:27Xavier GrobetWithout, like, all the phones or anything, you would send your film to develop, and then you would bring, get it back, you know?

4:33Jawad MirYeah. The reason, the reason I asked was because when I was in, school in the early 2000s, I was, I was taking a couple of film courses, and we were shooting on s… 16 millimeter. And to shoot, I think it was 100 feet, the black and white film roll, it was itself 25 bucks, and to process it was another $25 or $30. So were you shooting on 100 feet or more than that or less than that?

5:00Xavier GrobetBut this is... I mean, I guess you're not as old as I am, but…... Super 8 was a cartridge that you would buy…

5:08Jawad MirOh

5:08Xavier Grobet... And stick in the camera.

5:09Jawad MirI see.

5:09Xavier GrobetYou send it to develop.

5:11Jawad MirAnd that's the…

5:11Xavier GrobetIt's not 16 millimeter, no.

5:13Jawad MirYeah.

5:13Xavier Grobet16 millimeter is a different story. Super 8 was a tiny little film, and then you would get it on a cartridge. You would stick it in the camera. You would shoot it, and then you would send it, and you'd get it developed, and you would get your roll back. It was this big.

5:26Jawad MirAnd how much could you shoot on that cartridge?

5:30Xavier GrobetHm, I don't know. I guess it was, like, three, four mi… maybe five minutes.

5:34Jawad MirOkay.

5:34Xavier GrobetMaybe a bit more. I can't remember.

5:36Jawad MirRight. And how... And how did you... Because there was no audio p… component to those cameras, right? Like, it's n… it's just…

5:44Xavier GrobetEventually there were. Like, la… the latest Super 8 cameras had magnetic sound, so…

5:50Jawad MirWhat year was that?

5:52Xavier GrobetHm. Gosh, I guess in the '70s.

5:57Jawad MirOkay, so they did have sound in the '70s. Okay.

6:01Xavier GrobetYeah. Yeah, in the '70s. Yeah, we would have, like, film, you know, the Super 8 cameras, fil… cameras. I had an Eumig. I w… I think it was the brand. It was Japanese, and it had... You know, you could buy s… rolls with sound. So that was not an issue. And it was, ma… it's a, it was a magnetic, band on the film.

6:29Jawad MirRight. And when you started pursuing that career towards the film world, was it y… did you always know it was cinematography? Or was it kind of shift and back between directing or editing?

6:45Xavier GrobetNo. It was pretty much always with a camera. I mean, I've had a interest maybe in directing one day, but I mostly been with the camera and behind the camera, yeah, s… from the beginning and throughout school as well. Yeah. Except for when I did in school, my two or three films that I did in school that I directed.

7:05Jawad MirYeah.

7:05Xavier GrobetBut yeah, but I was mostly always behind the camera.

7:10Jawad MirAnd what was the project or gig or something that gave you that break to be able to do it more than a student film? Or, you know, to where you're getting paid for it? It doesn't have to be, like, you know, major Hollywood project, but just where you're getting paid for your first project.

7:28Xavier GrobetWell, I f… I went to film school. And I started,.. The director of the sc… of my school, Eduardo Maldonado, he was a documentarist.

7:39Jawad MirOkay.

7:39Xavier GrobetAnd he was shooting a documentary, and one of our cinematography teachers, Santiago, was shooting it, so he brought me along as his assistant…

7:49Jawad MirYeah

7:49Xavier Grobet... On that project, and that's how I kinda, like, started, not professionally, but yeah, started working on the business. And through Santiago, this teacher of mine, you know, I started working with him quite a bit. He's the one who, pushed me to get into the union, which at those, at that time in the '80s, early '80s, it was very hard to get into the union, the same way it was here and in every other country where, you know, the old folks didn't wanna let young generations come in and take their jobs. So it was all very…

8:26Xavier Grobet... Very controlled. But I was able to go in, and that's how I kind, how I kind, you know, how I kinda started. And eventually our film school had a graduate student program where the f… the school, produces a feature film by a graduate student every year. And so I was, lucky enough to do the second one in the program with Carlos Cabrera, another friend from school. And so that was my first feature film, that I shot when I was... When was this? In 1989, I guess.

9:09Jawad MirOkay.

9:11Xavier GrobetSo yeah, that was the beginning. I mean, after that, after I shot that film, which got a bunch of awards around the world, it was a tiny, little movie, but it was very successful. ... And then I, that's when I decided to stop assisting camera and becoming a cinematographer. So I quit taking any jo… all the jobs that I had as a focus puller, and I w… was just pursuing my career, whether it was as an operator or a cinematographer. And of course, the first few months, it took a, you know, it wasn't immediate, you know, but little by little I started getting, like, mostly, like, promos and commercials and, you know, little commercials and stuff like that where they started giving me the chance to shoot. And that's how I, you know, started the long path.

10:00Jawad MirNice.

10:01Xavier GrobetYeah

10:02Jawad MirNice. And you worked on, as an assistant cameraman on Total Recall, right?

10:07Xavier GrobetI was, yes.

10:08Jawad MirHow was that experience? And what does por…

10:10Xavier GrobetOh

10:11Jawad Mir... First assistant cameraman, I mean, for the audience, what would that person do, and what was your role? But go ahead.

10:17Xavier GrobetWell, first I first, I was trying to go into that film as a f… as a focus puller, but I didn't get it o… originally. I... They offered me the job as a second cameraman assistant. The cinematographer, who is Joe Zacano, and his, at the time, wife or partner, Annette, she was the first assistant, and I became her assistant. But eventually, like, a month into the shooting, she became the operator, and I, they moved me up for, to focus pulling. I mean, basically the, what a s… what a first assistant does was is, onset takes care of, doing the focus. So you are next to the camera. You're checking the distances from the camera to the subject, and you're focusing the lens according to the movements of the camera or the actor, actress. And so that's your job, and it's, it's a very demanding

11:17Xavier Grobet... To do, and it's hard to do. But it's very fun to do as well 'cause then you know, you t… you train your eyes and your mind to, like, know exactly what distance there is between you and that person. And you have to guess, and you have to be sh… you know, fast with your arm and with your hand, and to be able to get it right now. So that's, that's the important part of it as an assistant. The other part of it is you're kinda like the one in charge in the camera truck, where you need to know, you know, everything about the equipment, and you take care of everybody under you, like all the other assistants and loaders and everybody else. So your job is to have organized the, you know, have all the equipment organized or have, you know, special equipment come in for a special day, or, you know, everything that has to do with the logistics of the equipment. So

12:08Jawad MirYou know, it's amazing that I always find that the job of a focus puller is probably one of the most underrated jobs, and it's such a... And you mentioned it j… just the way you did, it's such a difficult job bec… and especially in a, in a very fast-paced action sequence, right? When you're, like, when, especially when the camera's moving really fast. To be able to do all that with the movement of the action i… is quite challenging and it's very demanding. And I wish there was some sort of specific award for that because I genuinely feel that is one of the toughest jobs on the film sets. I don't know how you feel about that.

12:45Xavier GrobetYes, of course. I actually, you know, I was focus puller before digital, so I used to pull focus next to the camera, next to the operator, and it's something that I always push for assistants to do. But I think I lost the battle because nowadays everybody pulls from a, from a monitor and from a position away from the camera. So it's really hard to, like... I don't understand how that... I mean, of course you have all the technology to do that, but if you're next to the camera and you're pulling from the camera, you feel the motion. You feel when the camera moves, you feel when the actor moves. You know the distance that is in that space, and you know how to react to that. So, you know, I lost that battle. Like, I wish assistants were always, again, back closer to the operator and to the camera. But yeah, so it's a very difficult task.

13:38Jawad MirAnd kind of fast-forward to, Monster House, right? I mean, it's a very different film, and it's a major film. Like, you know, you have people like Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, Sony, and all these big names attached to it. How did you land that job?

13:58Xavier GrobetI knew the producer, Jason Clark, and he invited me to have a meeting with Gil Kenan, the director. First-time director. And I kinda like... I liked the idea of, trying a virtual way of movie making. And especially with that technology used on that movie, which is no longer used anymore, but something that Zemeckis explored quite a bit, which was, doing, motion capture and then animating towards that information, digital information. I mean, it's still a technology that is used a lot in special effects nowadays, but not as in animation as we did back then. But, that's the way, that's how I landed on that film. And, you know, it was a process of, for me, it was only, like, 10 months, but, for them it was years. But anyway, that was... I'll let you ask something else, but that's pretty much how…

15:01Jawad MirYeah

15:01Xavier Grobet... I end… ended up in that, in that project.

15:03Jawad MirAnd then how is that different... I mean, because motion capture is used in even Avatar. Avatar, the new one, right? The Way of the Water. And how is that different, Monster House... A… and I get it, like, the visual animation is, like, very, you know, like, kids-friendly animation, as opposed to Avatar is completely photorealistic. What's the difference technically if you, if you…

15:26Xavier GrobetWell, now that you say it, I mean, I guess there's no difference. It's exactly the same thing except for not on ani…... I guess, I guess you can tr… I think you, I guess you can say that, Avatar is an animation if you treat it that way, then it's exactly the same technology.

15:41Jawad MirYeah.

15:42Xavier GrobetI mean, now that I realize that as I'm saying it now that... What I'm saying is, like, in traditional animations they don't use that technology anymore. They just…

15:50Jawad MirYeah

15:50Xavier Grobet... Do it the old, you know, the 3D way that they used, before. But, yeah, it is exactly the same technology as in Avatar, where you have a virtual space with all the cameras capturing the motion of the actors and the performances, the sound.

16:09Jawad MirYeah.

16:10Xavier GrobetAnd then that is applied to... In our case, you know, I guess it's the same in Avatar. They, after we did the whole recording of the, motion capture for the whole film, all the scenes of the film, that information is, translated into 3D models and then applied to 3D, figures of the characters on a very, like, basic way, no? They're not by any means developed characters. Just, like, they give you the shape so you know what figure is what character. And so then you start playing with cameras and all that afterwards. But it's kinda like the same, it's exactly the same technology, I would say.

16:57Jawad MirYeah.

16:57Xavier GrobetYeah.

16:58Jawad MirAnd how is that process? Because, you know, you're in this warehouse of a room where everybody's runm… running around with all these dots on their body. I mean, yeah, the performances are there. It's the same thing as, like, a live action movie. But just yourself being in that environment where there's not actual real sets or real wardrobes or... You know what I mean? Like, how was that for you, or was it, like, a very seamless transition?

17:24Xavier GrobetNo, I mean, it's... Well, the first is to understand that the process of Monster House, is exactly the process of a live action movie. You do exactly the same steps…

17:37Jawad MirYeah

17:37Xavier Grobet... Only in different order.

17:39Jawad MirYeah.

17:39Xavier GrobetFor example, like, in a regular movie, you know, you have the script. You rehearse. Well, you have wardrobe, do the wardrobe. You have production designers do the set. You have the lighting happening, you know? Then you have the rehearsal of the actors, the blocking, and then you shoot it. In Monster House, the process was different. It was like first we had the performance, then we had the camera work Then we had the production design and the wardrobe attached to them. Then we had, of course, all the animation. And then at the end is the lighting. So you do exactly the same processes, only different order.

18:27Xavier GrobetI don't know if that makes sense to you...

18:31Jawad MirIt does, but I think what I'm trying to f… get at is, when you are on the... In that physical location, right? Like, I get it, like, everything is the same, but it's not... It's just being in that... Y… Because you have shot all these films. It came out in 2006, so I imagine it started production in 2004, 2003, and you've got, like, you know, 13, 14 years of experience of filming live action movies, right? Which again, it's not much different from what you did, but just being thrown in that environment where you're just in one room, right? And you're just following actors or doing coverage and all that stuff. Was that very easy to adapt to or was that just something difficult?

19:14Xavier GrobetI mean, well, the adaptation to that was, now that I said this about this, the way things are organized and worked out…

19:22Jawad MirYeah

19:22Xavier Grobet... When you are there in the, in the virtual space, which was like a square, 20 by 20 square…

19:28Jawad MirYeah

19:28Xavier Grobet... Surrounded with a structure of 300 cameras, infrared cameras, to capture the motion of these dots. First of all, just imagine for a computer that is processing all that information, you only have dots in space. You don't have an image. You don't know what the character is doing or anything. So in order to have that information next to your computer information, we had to shoot that sc… the scenes with video cameras as video references so that the animators later on had an, a visual, reference to what the actor was doing or acting or…

20:11Xavier Grobet... Or what gesture he was doing or she was doing, you know? So, and also we... It's like when we were planning the blocking of the actors on that space… ... The director and I, we were thinking of it as bi… from the camera perspective. So that's what I had to a… adjust to this system, where, okay, let's see that in the future when we do the cameras on the computer.

20:42Jawad MirRight.

20:42Xavier GrobetImagine that the camera's gonna be on this angle, so let's have the actors move in this sequence or in this way so that it had, sense, the motion of the actors had sense towards a point of view of a camera. Otherwise, you're just doing a play.

21:00Jawad MirYeah.

21:00Xavier GrobetYou know? Everything has to have a perspective. You have to think where the camera is and what the camera's gonna see when you apply it later on in the process. So then, for example, if you think you're gonna put a camera here, and then I would put a v… a video camera there to have that reference, you know?

21:16Xavier GrobetAnd so the actors would move around, not completely. They had to, like, follow what those cameras were doing, 'cause those are ju… just references. But in a way, the blocking and everything in the c… in the set was, being, thought out from a camera perspective.

21:35Xavier GrobetIf that makes sense.

21:36Jawad MirYeah. I mean, I've seen a lot of behind the scenes stuff of Monster House and of Avatar and all that stuff, but I was just trying to understand, you know, how difficult the transition is if it isn't. But it seems like, I think you, from what you're saying, you kind of, you know, adapted pretty quickly. It…

21:54Xavier GrobetIt's like, you know, it's like everything. Like, you know, y… you don't, you don't, you haven't done it, but as soon as you start doing it, you start kinda, like, figuring it out.

22:03Jawad MirYeah.

22:03Xavier GrobetAnd so... But it just kinda, like... It's very organic what you need to do. Like, it's not a big,.. Yeah, it's different. You know, after 10 months of being in Monster House, I did, wanna go back to a real set with actors and lights, you know, after that experience. But, you know, by doing it doesn't f… it doesn't feel like a big adjustment to do something like that. It's just once you understand the technology and the te… the technique, it's very easy to just follow, you know?

22:32Jawad MirRight. Right. And what was, the most challenging? Do you remember anything that happened on the set, any of the scenes or some techno… technological barrier that you had to come over? What was that and how did you overcome that? Or any fond memory. It doesn't even have to be a challenge.

22:52Xavier GrobetWell, I mean, as I said, like, the first le… the first step was to do the motion capture, and that…

22:59Jawad MirRight

22:59Xavier Grobet... That took us, like, seven or eight weeks. And then we stopped while at Sony, they were processing all that information and com… and conforming the 3D models. And once they were conformed, I came back to do the, to work on the computers now directly to put cameras and to do all the angles and do all the, you know. So learning that process was also interesting in terms of, you know, a camera on a computer is a dot, so you can put the camera anywhere you want.

23:31Jawad MirYeah.

23:31Xavier GrobetThere's no volume or there's no limitations of where you can put the camera or how fast or how... Or what lens you can, you can use. You can do anything with it, you know? So learning that was interesting. But also, like, for example, like, you're talking about coordinates with a camera, the way it moves, if it's a dolly move or a pan or a, or a crane, you know? And so a computer, we're just gonna... If you say go from A to B, this is gonna do, like, a, like, a mechanical move. So, and I didn't want... I wanted the camera to have a bit of, like, a softness to it. Like, so I was always asking the computer guys to, like, at the end of the curve when the camera can just stop, like, do, like, a softener, I would say. Like, just kinda, like, let the camera f… Come, you know, to a pos… to a, to a stop with a, with grace, not just like a bump, you know?

24:28Jawad MirYeah.

24:29Xavier GrobetThings like that. Or one day, I remember one time we were looking for, like a handheld effect.

24:36Jawad MirOkay.

24:37Xavier GrobetSo I had the idea, and I said to the guys, "Why don't you attach the camera to one of the characters, and then play the scene?" And so now the camera is attached to the character. When you play, the camera moves with the actor like that, and so you get a handheld camera…

24:55Xavier Grobet... Virtually. So that was a good, discovery. So playing with all these possibilities of how to…

25:03Jawad MirYeah

25:03Xavier Grobet... Move the camera around w… using that technology. And, you know, as you, start playing with it, you get, you know, all these fun ways of doing it.

25:12Jawad MirAnd do you think having that ability to put a camera wherever, you know, you want, and move it the way you want it in terms of speed and angle, you think that's a curse or it's a blessing as a cinematographer?

25:27Xavier GrobetIt's, you know, I, of course we did things that you can't really do on real life.

25:32Jawad MirYeah.

25:32Xavier GrobetBut I was trying to stay as grounded as possible.

25:35Jawad MirRight.

25:35Xavier GrobetAnd I said that to the, to Gil, the director. I said like, "Not just because we can move the camera in every direction and in every possible way, we should." I mean, we also have to tell a, tell a story, and we need to know, you know, find the right style of movement or where the camera has to be. Like you're, like you're shooting a regular film, no?

25:54Jawad MirYeah.

25:54Xavier GrobetBut of course, when you have the possibility of like, you know, like there's a shot where we start really close on Chowder, I mean, this character, like on a really long zoom. And then the camera… ... Zooms back to like a super wide angle. I mean, there's no lens on Earth that you can do that. Like, we went from like a…

26:14Jawad MirYeah

26:14Xavier Grobet... 1,000 millimeter to a 17…

26:16Jawad MirI remember

26:17Xavier Grobet... In one shot.

26:18Jawad MirYeah.

26:18Xavier GrobetSo that's something that you can't do with the real e… with the existing equipment, but you can do on a computer, you know?

26:25Jawad MirAnd I think those kind of movements really did well and played well for the type of genre of the film it was, right? Like the scary element…

26:33Xavier GrobetYeah

26:33Jawad Mir... And the music and the sound effects with the movement of the camera and everything. So that worked out really well. And working with the director, the first time director, Gil Renan, is it, how you pronounce it, Renan?

26:46Xavier GrobetKenan.

26:47Jawad MirRenan.

26:47Xavier GrobetGil Kenan.

26:48Jawad MirGil Kenan. How was w… how was it working with him, considering it was his first film, and you were doing your first like, you know, motion capture per se?

26:56Xavier GrobetWell, he's, he's very clear on what he wants. And, you know, by saying first time director, I'm, I don't mean to say that he didn't know what he was doing. He definitely…

27:05Jawad MirNo, I know, I know he did

27:06Xavier Grobet... Knew what he was doing.

27:07Jawad MirYeah.

27:07Xavier GrobetBut yeah, it was a lot of like talking together. Like the, he had like, things very, already very well visualized. Like for example, the beginning shot where the camera follows the lead.

27:23Jawad MirYep.

27:24Xavier GrobetThat was something that he had been working on, like he wanted that shot specifically. So there was clear ideas. He had clear ideas of what, how he wanted to see things, and then I came in kind of like helping out in terms of, help… helping him like choose the right angle for the scene in terms like of the drama of the scene happening, whether the camera was moving around or, you know, or moving in with the actors or, you know, kinda like the actual language of it, you know? But he had a very clear ideas as well. It was a r… it was a really cool collaboration with him.

28:03Jawad MirRight. And was there any time that, Zemeckis or Spielberg popped in on the set?

28:09Xavier GrobetNo, not really. They're just executive producers. Yeah.

28:12Jawad MirSo they didn't…

28:12Xavier GrobetMaybe Zemeckis once s… yeah, stopped by at the, at Sony Studios when we were working on it, but yeah, not much.

28:21Jawad MirRight. And then once the motion capturing is done and the camera angles and all that stuff is done, in terms of the actual, the feel of the characters, how they look in the final output, right? The way they turned out in the final film, do you, as a cinematographer in that kind of a project, do you have any say in that? Or is that just more of like the animation/director department?

28:49Xavier GrobetYeah. Yeah, no, I had nothing to do with it. I had certain, things to say about the lighting, but not even... I mean, all the lighting and all the design of the ins… you know, of the show, the film itself is done by the visual effects guys, the animators, yeah.

29:09Jawad MirAnd so you didn't see the film in the final as, until it was finally completed, basically, right?

29:14Xavier GrobetWell, I, yeah, I saw p… you know, with Gil. I saw, you know, once it was, what we did on the computer, we saw that put together as a film, 'cause the editing's happening as you're doing those shots. And then actually, you know, if we did a shot in the, we had like seven, I guess, five or seven, computer artists. And so one, each one of them was working on a different, scene.

29:38Xavier GrobetAnd when those, shots were rendered, they were sent to the editing room. And so the editor would put them together, and then he would send us notes to do modifications. So that's also part of the, also different way of processing, where the editing is happening before the rest of, before even the wardrobe or the lighting is happening. So the editing, 'cause you wanna have the film edited on a very rough way before you start doing all the fine-tuning.

30:05Jawad MirOf course. Yeah

30:05Xavier Grobet... Otherwise it would be stupid and expensive.

30:08Jawad MirWaste of time and…

30:08Xavier GrobetSo then, yeah, so then we would do, you know, we would see the film, finalized as that, as…

30:21Jawad MirYeah

30:21Xavier Grobet... Of that process. And then I saw eventually other stages of the process before it was f… fully finished. Yeah.

30:29Jawad MirRight. Right. And since then, obviously, you know, you've done so many other projects and so many other films. Have you had the desire or have you had the opportunity to revisit anything like that again? Like, have you been offered or has that been the sort of…

30:43Xavier GrobetCabin's and I would love to. I would love to do another one. Yeah, I think it's… there's a bunch of really fun, things you can do with it, with this technology. So I would be really happy to do it again.

30:56Jawad MirMaybe you should knock on James Cameron's door.

30:59Xavier GrobetYeah, exactly.

31:01Jawad MirHe's got four in the work… three in the works or four, something like that. I think Avatar two and three, four.

31:05Xavier GrobetHe did already two and three?

31:08Jawad MirYeah, four is, four is half done.

31:11Xavier GrobetIs it?, huh.

31:12Jawad MirYeah. Four is half done, at least production-wise.

31:16Xavier Grobethuh.

31:16Jawad MirBut then I also was reading... I mean, we're just kind of going off topic. Yesterday I was reading, I don't even know if this is true, that James Cameron shot so much of Avatar three that there might be a nine-hour cut for Disney Plus.

31:27Xavier GrobetOh my God.

31:28Jawad MirI mean, that's like, it's like a miniseries almost, right?

31:30Xavier GrobetYeah.

31:31Jawad MirAny… anyways, but, y… you have also worked on films like, Focus, and Enough Said, and 21 Grams, and Babel. Babel I have always loved. It's one of my favorite films. But you came on as an additional cinematographer, at least with the IMDbs…

31:50Xavier GrobetJust on 21 Grams and Babel, I just helped Rodrigo. On 21 Grams I helped him with second unit cinematography, and on Babel I just helped, his mother passed away during that movie, so I came in to, you know, I took over for a week while he was taking care of businesses, and then he came back. So it was just…

32:09Jawad MirOkay

32:09Xavier Grobet... Helping out. Yeah.

32:11Jawad MirOkay. And in Babel or 21 Grams... Well, let's talk about Babel, for example. Being there in a week, were you shooting… Because it had multiple story angles, right? Were you… D… did you just do part of one or did you do part of few or…

32:25Xavier GrobetYeah, they were shooting... It was a section where they were shooting in Tijuana.

32:29Jawad MirOkay.

32:29Xavier GrobetThat story. So it was just as, a mo… a week of work in Tijuana while Rodrigo was in Mexico. Yeah.

32:38Jawad MirAnd working with… working on… I know you didn't work on that film that much. I'm just, I'm just try… because it's one of my favorite films, actually. And I'll, I'll obviously have a separate episode about that with the cinematographer of that film. But just working in that kind of a story, like, did you know the full fledge of a story even though you were there for a week, just to give you some sort of a context?

33:01Xavier GrobetYes, of course. Yeah. Yeah, read… Before I got there, I read the script and I knew what it was all about. And then I went, you know, I went down and they filled me in with all the, all that Rodrigo had planned so that, I could just follow with his, you know, with what he had planned originally. Yeah.

33:22Jawad MirAnd have you had the opportunity to work... I always don't know how to pronounce his name, so forget me… forgive me. Alejandro? Alejandro? Is it…

33:29Xavier GrobetAlejandro.

33:30Jawad MirAlejandro. Have you ever had the opportunity to work with him again? B… because, I mean, he's a fabulous filmmaker. I love his work.

33:37Xavier GrobetOnly those two opp… opportunities that I helped him out, but I haven't, I haven't done anything else with him. Yeah.

33:43Jawad MirI mean, imagining it's something that you would like to do down the road if that opportunity presents itself.

33:48Xavier GrobetYeah, of course.

33:49Jawad MirYeah. And, what was your work on, what, the James Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus movie, Enough Said?

33:59Xavier GrobetEnough Said?

33:59Jawad MirYeah. But you were a main cinematographer. How… tell me just, how you got on board on that project and the process of working on that film. That was different than Total Recall or, you know, Focus or the other projects that you may have worked on that at least I am familiar with.

34:21Xavier GrobetWell, I met Nicole Holofcener, the director, while shooting Enlightened, that show where she directed one of the episodes, and I met her, and we had a good, relation there, so she invited me to her movie.

34:36Xavier GrobetThat's how I got into it. And I really love it. I mean, well, Nicole is a, such a good writer. She's written incredible scripts, and I really like this one. And I'm… it's, it's a little movie that I have a lot of, heart, put in that movie. I think, it's, it's such a great chemistry between those two, James Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. And it was such a pleasant experience, you know, fun, great people to work with. It was…

35:08Jawad MirYeah

35:09Xavier Grobet... It was kind of like a little family, you know? It's one of those projects that you're really glad to be part of. Yeah.

35:14Jawad MirIt's f… it's funny, right? That with James Gandolfini, late James Gandolfini, he had such good chemistry with Julia Louis-Dreyfus in Enough Said. But I had recently seen The Mexican where she had a chemistry with, J… it was almost identical chemistry. He was just… I… Both films, the way his performances, he connected to those two opposite characters so really well in a very genuine way. I don't even think he had to make any effort. I mean, I'm sure he did, but just seemed like he wasn't making an effort. It just came across so naturally to me. He was a great actor. He was a fabulous actor.

35:52Xavier GrobetYeah, he was, he was not just a great actor, he was a great, fantastic guy. It was, it was a shame…

35:57Jawad MirI've, I've heard

35:58Xavier Grobet... That he died. He was fantastic. It was so easy to work with him and so fun. He was very, you know, dedicated to his job. Like, he was sensitive to, like, distractions and stuff, so he was very concentrated always on his, on his doing. But, it was a shame that we were finishing the movie when he died. So, I think even Nicole offered to… him to see the movie, and he said, right, you know, before he died, of course, and he said like, "No, I don't wanna see myself being a b… a good guy." He was, he was not a He was sh… I guess he, there was some sort of, like, shame on his side that he didn't wanna see himself being, like, a softie…

36:39Xavier Grobet... Or something. So he didn't get…

36:42Jawad MirAnd unless…

36:42Xavier Grobet... To see the film finished, yes

36:44Jawad Mir... U… unless that chara… the, unless the character he played in Sopranos always lives with him, right? So complete opposite of…

36:51Xavier GrobetYou know, it was funny, like when we started the movie, I did s… call him a few times, I said, "Tony," instead of Jim. Like…

36:59Jawad MirYeah

37:00Xavier Grobet... Tony, I was, I was like, "I'm sorry, Jim." And he's like, "It's okay, it's okay." It's hard to take that character, you know, away from him.

37:10Jawad MirYeah. And when you are selec… when you are offered a film, right, it's different with a director. Maybe it's the same thing with a cinematographer. Do you basically pick based on something that speaks to you, or is it a genre, or is it the story, or is it the char… Like, is there any kind of process, or is it just one of those things, "Okay, I'm done with this job. On to the next one," kind of thing?

37:36Xavier GrobetYeah, I mean, you know, sometimes I've had to, like, you know, take jobs, you know.

37:42Jawad MirWe all do.

37:42Xavier GrobetSome of them are great, some... There's a couple there that I don't wanna mention, but

37:46Jawad MirThat's okay

37:47Xavier Grobet... But mostly what I f… what I like, that I've been fortunate enough to do is that I have a, like, a range of different movies all across. Like, I don't, I don't feel that all my movies look like it... Like, they don't move, they don't look alike. They're all different.

38:08Xavier GrobetAnd so I've been... I'd love to explore more, like, horror and stuff like that, but, which I've done. Like, did, I did that show, Them, for Amazon, which I enjoyed a lot.

38:20Jawad MirWhich one is that?

38:21Xavier GrobetSo... Them.

38:23Jawad MirThem, I haven't seen it. I have to take a look at that.

38:26Xavier GrobetYeah.

38:26Jawad MirOkay. It's a miniseries or, like, a seasonal show?

38:29Xavier GrobetYeah, it's, that's a se… They're, they're shooting, or they just finished shooting the second season. It's a, first season, 10 episodes.

38:35Jawad MirOkay

38:36Xavier Grobet... It's like a period piece of, an African American family in the '50s that moves into a white neighborhood in California, Los Angeles. Well, in Compton.

38:46Jawad MirThat sounds so familiar. I may have seen the trailer for it.

38:50Xavier GrobetBut anyway, so it's, yeah, it's fun to be able to work in different genres, you know, and just explore different ways of telling stories.

39:01Jawad MirYeah

39:02Xavier Grobet... You know, there's creativity in every possible, yeah, type of movie, you know. Like from…

39:09Jawad MirYeah

39:09Xavier Grobet... I Love You, Philip Morris, that is kinda like a comedy, but with a twist as well. So there was a bunch of opportunities to do fun stuff there, too. Or, like, Watchmen, which is kinda, like, science fiction, comic book, which has a complete different look to things. To, like, an offset that is just a, you know, like a d… dramedy. What is, what is... I don't know what that movie is. You know, it's the story of…

39:38Jawad MirDramedy's the right word

39:39Xavier Grobet... A story of, you know, two guy, two people in love, you know. So, yeah.

39:48Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, and I don't want any names or anything, but you mentioned, we all, we all have projects we work on that, you know, you just get on, and then you realize, you know, oh, not really enjoying it, but, you know, you have to pay the bills, too, right? Whenever you're in that kind of a project, and especially, and again, I don't wanna know any names. I… if it's, like, a six-month project or a five-month project and you realize in the first month that I got into this and I shouldn't have, but yeah, you need the money, how do you... Is it, is it the factor of, like, financial reason that motivates you just to kinda keep going, or how do you overcome that thing that, where you're not really enjoying it, but you have to do it?

40:31Xavier GrobetWell, like, being responsible of your work and sometimes... You know, I've learned that the same way you can be fired from a project, you can also say no to a project.

40:47Jawad MirYeah.

40:47Xavier GrobetSo I've learned, that if you're not happy doing a project that you can also speak out and say, "You know what? This is not working out. Why don't we make a change, get somebody else, and finish the project, and I move out?" So, you know, we have, we all have the possibility of doing that, no? It's, it's also a choice.

41:06Xavier GrobetAnd if things... You know, not everybody that you work with you connect.

41:09Jawad MirYeah.

41:09Xavier GrobetYou think you are connected, and then suddenly things are not the way they were meant to be, or you're not, or there's no chemistry between members of the crew and yourself. And so it's better to just call it off, and I don't think there's any… anything wrong with it. So if it's not working, I think we all need to learn that there's a possibility of saying no, and saying with the most, you know, kind way just say, "You know what? This is not working. Let's, let's change it," and there shouldn't be any problem.

41:39Jawad MirAnd y… you're right about that, but my question to that would be do you th… Because the industry is so big, but it's so small, right? Like, the word of mouth travels very quickly, and that's how you get projects. Like, you know, like you said, you were working with somebody, and so on and so forth. But if you walk... Not you, anybody that walks out of a project in whatever position that is, whether it's 10% in, 50% in, and even if you leave very politely, do you think that people are afraid to make those decisions because it may harm them in the long term, that this person walked out of the project?

42:13Xavier GrobetYeah, I'm sure they are. Yeah. But, you know, that's why I'm saying, like, I'm 58 years old, and I'm just saying that now, that I learned that. I mean, like, whenever I am in a project, I always think, like, "Okay, I committed to this. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna finish it 'cause that's the right thing to do."

42:31Xavier GrobetBut now I say, "Why do I need to do something I don't wanna do?" So, and I, and I say the same way. Like, if they can fire you can fire yourself too. You can al… also just come and say, "I don't wanna do this anymore." And, you know, everybody has gone through these situations. I don't think there's anything that will stain your career, you know? It's just things that happen with humans. Like, sometimes you get along, sometimes you don't get along. That shouldn't be an issue f… for anyone. But if things are not working for any of the parts, why force it, you know?

43:10Jawad MirAnd you're, and you're right that I think as humans, even not in our industry, but in general, we try sometimes too hard to make things work with people that are not in the same, you know, mindset as we are. And that puts a stress on us, and then later on you realize that, you know... And, yeah, it's, it's a good thing too that you have... If you get on a job one first time, maybe... I mean, you're realizing it now, but a lot of people who are probably not in your position, you're, you have a very, you know, successful career, they would go through it because they've given their word, and they just wanna go through it and deal with it. And it teaches you a lot too, and what it taught you is that it's okay to say no, right? So i… it's, it's a, it's a never ending cycle. And a… as a cinematographer, who have you looked up to the most growing up? Or are you someone you still look up to, or some film that you see to ke… in keep inspiring you and to keep making you move forward?

44:08Xavier GrobetI mean, I always loved, Néstor Almendros's work. He's, he's, naturalistic and simple, yet, large way of shooting. I always re… I always, react to his work.

44:27Jawad MirW… I'm not familiar with him. So what has he done?

44:31Xavier GrobetNéstor Almendros?

44:32Jawad MirI'm just trying to…

44:34Xavier GrobetOh my God. Well, you need to look him up.

44:35Jawad MirW… how do you spell that?

44:36Xavier GrobetI mean, he's done… Néstor Almendros.

44:40Jawad MirMaybe I know his work, but maybe I don't know his name. Hold on. Néstor... What films has he done?

44:47Xavier GrobetOh my gosh. Hold on a second.

44:57Jawad MirOh, he's a Spanish cinematographer.

45:00Xavier GrobetYeah. He did all his work here in the States...

45:07Jawad MirHold on.

45:08Xavier GrobetOne of the most beautifully shot movies of history, Days of Heaven.

45:13Jawad MirHe did Kramer vs. Kramer…

45:15Xavier GrobetAh

45:15Jawad Mir... Sophie's Choice. I've seen these movies, but…

45:17Xavier GrobetDays of Heaven, if you haven't seen Days of Heaven, you've missed it all, 'cause that's the most incredibly, beautiful, available light movie ever made.

45:31Jawad MirOkay.

45:31Xavier GrobetSo I…

45:32Jawad MirI'm gonna, I'm gonna take, I'm gonna take a look at that because I have seen a bunch of other things that he's done not knowing that it was his. Sophie's Choice and Kramers vs. Kramer and... But, and, New York Stories, he did a segment of that I've seen. But I'll take a look at Days of Heaven for sure. For sure.

45:49Xavier GrobetYes. You'll be surprised.

45:50Jawad MirNo, I'm, I'm, I'm looking forward to that. I'm just making a note of that. And is there a particular movie that you see now before you go on set for, before you begin work on any new film or any new series?

46:03Xavier GrobetWell, you do, you know, your regular, research when you're starting a project. Every project is different, so y… I wouldn't say I watch the same movie for all the projects. But every time you start a project, you have all these references, and then you start watching the movies that you think can inspire you to what you're gonna do. So, yeah, there's always that stage of research when starting a project now.

46:30Jawad MirRight. And on that question, you also worked on White Lotus, right? Okay. So that's something that is in something I'm gonna see next week. But for something like that, what would you... What did you see to get, give you the feel of the approach that you wanna make on that film?

46:52Xavier GrobetWell, like the example that I did on White Lotus, we shot it in Sicily. We shot in some of the locations that L'Avventura from Antonioni was shot. So I watched that movie with Monica Vitti. And I got inspiration to... There's even a, an homage that we did for that movie with, Aubrey Plaza in the city of Noto, where the original film was shot. So we did exactly the same shot as L'Avventura with Monica Vitti. We rep… repeated the whole thing, as an homage to that movie and also, you know, as an homage to being in Sicily. So there's always references, and films that you…

47:36Jawad MirYeah

47:36Xavier Grobet... Get inspired from, you know…

47:38Jawad MirYeah

47:38Xavier Grobet... For a specific project.

47:41Jawad MirDid you ever... I'm assuming yes, but I'm just gonna ask you. Sergio Leone, did you ever see his work growing up or...?

47:48Xavier GrobetYeah, I did. Yeah.

47:49Jawad MirYeah. What did you think? What do y… I mean, for me, the opening of Once Upon a Time in the, West is, like, one of the most incredible pieces of cinema, like, without any kind of dialogue and, you know, you're s… at a train station.

48:04Xavier GrobetYes.

48:04Jawad MirAnd…

48:05Xavier GrobetYeah, that always, that always je… calls my attention, like, when you see pieces like that where it's all about the image, not about the lines. Because mostly everything now is just dialogue, and then you just wanna see something that is a story that is told with images, not with words, you know?

48:22Jawad MirYeah. But for that particular scene in that particular film, it was not just the fact that there was no lines, it was, like, every single shot, the lens that was used, the angle that was the camera was u… positioned, it was just... And the way it was cut back and forth between the wide to a close-up, you know. It was, it was beautiful. And… You said that you eventually wanna direct something, right? When you said that earlier, and you said that your mom is a, was a photographer, is that something that, something personal you wanna do? Because I mean, I see something. I'm sure there's some story there that you may have about your mom being a photographer.

49:01Xavier GrobetWell, I don't know if it has to do with my mother, but…

49:03Jawad MirI'm just…

49:03Xavier Grobet... Maybe it does. Who knows?

49:05Jawad MirYeah.

49:05Xavier GrobetIt's like…

49:06Jawad MirBut you always get the ideas from personal stories, right? Then you make them on your own and all that stuff. But is there something…

49:11Xavier GrobetYeah, maybe it's a good idea. Yeah. I did actually shoot two documentaries with my mother. We went to the Bering Strait, twice to shoot, two different documentaries on the Eskimos, both on the Alaska side and the Russian side. So I did... That's, that's what I did with her. But yeah, maybe there's some other inspiration I could do based on her to do my own p… my own work.

49:36Jawad MirWhat's that, what's those documentaries called?

49:39Xavier GrobetOne is called, Bering Equilibrium and Resistance. The other one is called Bering Family Reunion.

49:50Jawad MirAnd they're the same similar story or just, the name is…

49:53Xavier GrobetWell, it's, it's... The first one is what happened... Well, this is like eight years ago, the way that the Eskimos live in the tip of Alaska, in the… ... Bering Strait. And the second one was... 'Cause they, there's two islands in the strait, and one is Russian, one is American.

50:12Xavier GrobetWhen the Cold War, the Russians kinda like put a big wall, imaginary not physical…

50:19Jawad MirYeah

50:19Xavier Grobet... Between the islands. So he di… you know, they divided families, so they're all related. I mean, Russia and Alaska are like 50 miles a… apart. So…

50:27Jawad MirYeah

50:27Xavier Grobet... They divided families. So the second documentary, we took this, Alaskan woman to Russia, and we were looking for her relatives. So that's how we connected the two… ... Parts of it.

50:42Jawad MirAnd your mom's role was in it as a protagonist or…

50:46Xavier GrobetNo, she's the director.

50:48Jawad MirShe's the director, so you were doing the d… cinematography. Oh, that's interesting.

50:51Xavier GrobetYeah.

50:51Jawad MirSo h… how was that experience working with your mom as a…

50:54Xavier GrobetFantastic, I mean…

50:55Jawad MirYeah?

50:56Xavier GrobetFantastic. Yeah. I mean, you know, she's an artist. She was an artist, photographer. She had no experience with documentary, but, you know, it's... She went along, and I... You know, we helped her out. And you know, it worked out really well. The two films are quite interesting.

51:15Jawad MirI'm gonna take a look at them. Do you have any story of working with her on either one of those film that remains in your mind as a good memory?

51:23Xavier GrobetWell, just the fact, you know, the fact that we were, me... And my brother was doing the sound. So the fact that,.. And then besides other, you know, the producer and the people from Alaska who helped us out. But, just the fact of shooting something with my mother and then being in that corner of the world, you know, you know, what can be better than that, you know?

51:45Jawad MirYeah.

51:45Xavier GrobetIt was, it was just like, when we thought about it was like, what a gift to be able to experience this with my mother, you know?

51:53Jawad MirYeah.

51:53Xavier GrobetAnd you know, so it's just very profound.

51:57Jawad MirYou guys must have... N… not that you weren't at that level before, but to be able to re-bond again when you're not filming in that corner of the world where there's not much going on, right? Like, you're just kinda com… more or less disconnected from the world. And to be able to spend that time with each other, I'm sure that's something that stays with you forever.

52:19Xavier GrobetRight. Yeah. Yeah.

52:22Jawad MirGreat. I feel for now this is good, Javier. I've, I have been meaning to watch White Lotus, so once I do, I would love to chat with you about it in depth if that's something that you're willing to do so.

52:39Xavier GrobetSure. Let me know., huh. I hope you enjoy it.