'Flight Risk', Cinematographer, Johnny Derango

0:09Jawad MirGood to have you. I just literally came back from the movie theater.

0:16Johnny DerangoThat's amazing

0:16Jawad Mir... Was watching Flight Risk. And, you know, Mel Gibson, after a long time, coming back. And, you know, I knew what to expect, like, in terms of the premise and everything in the trailer, but with the amount of twists and turns there were, it was very engaging and very entertaining. And the best part I liked about it was, you know, sometimes movies like these get dragged out a little too long. I think it was just pacing was perfect in it. So bravo, good job.

0:43Johnny DerangoYeah, it's a, it's a tight 90 minutes.

0:45Jawad MirYeah. No, it's, it's really engaging, entertaining. It just gets to the point right away. And, you know, I'm not gonna say anything. We're gonna keep it spoiler-free.

0:54Johnny DerangoNice.

0:55Jawad MirBut, yeah, no, I liked it. And, you know, working, you, obviously you worked with Mel, and I've seen some behind the scene, how you guys did it and, you know, the LEDs and everything. And I'm sure, you know, I'm not gonna say where or what because I don't want, it's a fresh movie. But

1:15Johnny DerangoSure

1:15Jawad Mir... Yeah, it's, it had everything. It had suspense. Mark Wahlberg, unlike anything I've ever seen him do, you know, really well done. And Topher Grace was great as always. So yeah, kudos to you and your team.

1:30Johnny DerangoThank you very much.

1:32Jawad MirHow did you get on board on this film?

1:35Johnny DerangoSo this was actually a really fun one for me because, Mel and I did a movie together back in 2020 called Fat Man, and we had a really nice connection working together on that movie. You know, I think he noticed some of my lighting and some of the work I was doing, and we just genuinely had a good time working together. So during the pandemic, the Nelms brothers, who I've done five movies with, were editing Fat Man, and Mel was kind enough to offer to them that he would come sit down with them for a day and go through the movie and sort of give his opinion and feedback on it. And, he's an amazing collaborator, especially with other directors, because he never sort of pushed what he wanted. You know, he would give suggestions, and if they wanted them, you know, they would take them, and if not, you know, no hurt feelings, you know? True professional in that manner. So they were going through the edit, and he had made a couple comments to my buddy, Eshem, who's one of the Nelms brothers, about how much he liked my work in the movie. And so when we were on set, Mel had asked me to send him a still from Fat Man, and he wanted to show it to his son.

2:37Johnny DerangoSo I sent it to him, and I had gotten his number at that point. And when we went to wrap Fat Man, he had left with two weeks left of shooting. He was in the movie for the first four weeks. So I just sent him a message just telling him how much I liked working with him and, you know, I hope we could do it again. And I knew it was gonna be one of two things. I was either gonna get a message from him back saying, "Lose my number, kid," which is a great story, or, you know, he might respond to it. So a couple hours later, he did. He wrote back and said, "I'm sure we'll do it again sometime." So I knew, you know, he had my info and could contact me if he, if he wanted to, right? And after they told me he liked my work, I sent him a text message again saying I had just seen a cut of the movie and I was really happy with the way it, you know, looked and worked, and I thought it was a fun movie. And, before I could even put my phone down, the text bubbles popped up, and it was him. And I was like, "Oh, man, he's gonna text me back right away." And no sooner than I had that thought that the text bubbles disappeared, and I was like, "Oh, man."

3:34Jawad MirOh. Oh. Oh.

3:36Johnny DerangoBut before I could put the phone down, it rang, and it was him. And he just called to congratulate me on the movie and tell me how much he liked my work on it. And he said, "Hey, man, I don't know if you have any interest, but I have a movie that I'm looking at directing. If you're interested, I'll send it your way." So that's what happened. He sent me the script during the pandemic, and it got put on hold for a couple years. I thought it went away, and I was like, "Well, I got a really great story about Mel Gibson asking me to be his DP even though it never happened. You know? What a great story. I mean, that's a highlight of my career." And then flash forward to beginning of 2023, out of the blue I get a call from a line producer, and she said, "Hey, Mel is making his film, and he wants you to be his DP. Are you available?" And when I mean, there's only one answer when you get that call. I was like, "Absolutely." So a couple weeks later, we went into pre-production on it.

4:28Jawad MirSuper, man. You know, that, the text bubbles, normally when you get a text message from even, like, a contractor or a normal, you know, like a producer or a gig, can drive you bonkers, but to get it from Mel Gibson…

4:38Johnny DerangoYeah

4:38Jawad Mir... You know, a director of that caliber and a great human being, you know…

4:43Johnny DerangoYes

4:43Jawad Mir... A wonderful human being. And I've always known…

4:45Johnny DerangoI mean, it was, it was crazy because I was, I was so excited, like, in that moment, seeing that he was actually acknowledging it, and then to have that, like, that 30 seconds where it looked like it completely went away was just devastating. And then for the phone to ring. So it was like, it was like a rollercoaster in two minutes. It was amazing.

5:01Jawad MirYeah, he wanted to make it personal for you, and the right choice.

5:04Johnny DerangoYeah.

5:04Jawad MirText becomes too impersonal, right? So, but yeah, no, Mel Gibson, obviously we've all grown up with the films that he has starred in, Ransom, Lethal Weapon, Braveheart, you know? Obviously the ones he directed, Passion of Christ, and the very popular one, I always have a hard time pronouncing it. A… Appa. You know what I'm talking about.

5:25Johnny DerangoApocalypto.

5:25Jawad MirThe one that was... Apocalypto.

5:26Johnny DerangoYep.

5:26Jawad MirThank you, yes.

5:27Johnny DerangoApocalypto, which is an amazing…

5:29Jawad MirApocalypto

5:29Johnny Derango... Amazing film.

5:29Jawad MirYeah, an amazing movie. And now he's working on Resurrection: Passion of Christ 2, if you wanna call it. So…

5:36Johnny DerangoRight

5:36Jawad Mir... You know, to work with such a caliber and such a down to earth human being, I don't know if you see this, saw this video recently. It just stumbled up on my feed. Somebody spotted him at a gas station filling

5:51Johnny DerangoHelping change a tire, right?

5:52Jawad Mir... Gas in the t… Yeah. And some guy was like, "Oh, you're Mel Gibson."

5:55Johnny DerangoYeah.

5:55Jawad MirAnd he was actually cracking jokes with him just to make him, himself, I think, feel kind of calm and make the other guy feel, "Okay, this is not a big deal. I'm just a guy," right?

6:03Johnny DerangoYeah.

6:03Jawad MirSo wonderful man.

6:04Johnny DerangoIt's, it's a great video for everybody who wants to seek it out. I think he even makes a joke about potentially robbing the guy, which is really funny.

6:09Jawad MirYeah. Yes. Yeah, 100%. Lighting-wise, I mean, this film… is interesting, right? So L… LEDs have been out for a while, and I've also had, a gentleman name, I think his name is David Smith. Please don't kill me if I get it wrong. He has this company called Plates Pro, so they basically go around…

6:32Jawad Mir... You know, the cities and they did Joker and, Daddy-O. Like, they just kinda film all the stuff exterior and then just kinda put them on plates and just similarly what you guys did, right? How, in terms of the actual footage that was in LED, was that the second unit? Was it, were you involved in it? Can you kinda run me through that first, and then we'll go into the actual cinematography.

6:55Johnny DerangoAbsolutely. No, it was a fascinating process, and it was, it was a new process for me. We had a VFX supervisor by the name of Michael Ralla, who did the pre-production and on-set visual effects. He wasn't involved with the post-production visual effects, so, most of what you see on the screen is not him. But what he shepherded me through was the acquisition of the plates and all of the volume work, which was the most intensive stuff for me. So what we did was we hired a helicopter and an aerial DP, and Michael Ralla helped design this rig with Wild Rabbit. And what they did is it's a platter system that's stabilized that holds, six RED V Raptors that were…

7:39Jawad MirOh, wow

7:39Johnny Derango... 8K a piece. And instead of shooting horizontally, we turned them this way so that they would fill the volume, so we could adjust the horizon up and down when we get to the volume. It gave us more latitude to move up and down, which we needed to do. But they're in a pinwheel fashion, and the, that footage went to a frame store here in LA, and they made 360 degree stitches of that footage, and the footage is absolutely gorgeous. I mean, we flew a helicopter through the Sierra Mountains here in California for three days to get very specific things. You know, we needed a sunset piece. We needed a low light piece. We needed a regular daylight piece. We needed a piece taking off from the airport. But it literally is a 30-foot cable coming down from a helicopter, so the helicopter has to take off, and it basically has what looks like a missile underneath it. And that holds it so it moves straight forward in a line and doesn't shimmy too much and doesn't get off course, and then that platter is stabilized, as I said. And we, yeah, we just got some of the most gorgeous plates I've ever seen in my entire life, and it's really what, down the line, made the interior stuff so believable.

8:47Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, no, I agree completely. I think the plane, the interior, and obviously, you know, when you, because of, I had, I knew that it was LEDs, so even when I was watching it, just, you know, maybe here and there, it wasn't throughout the film, when there was, like, a downtime in the film. You know, just like a…

9:06Jawad Mir... A shot of, like from the front of Topher Grace, or, Mark Wahlberg. And I would just kinda make an effort to look in the back window to see, you know, what am I, what am I spotting, w… it…

9:20Johnny DerangoRight

9:20Jawad Mir... What's there, and it was right on. So I do, I do have one question. I, it's not a critique in any way. I'm just kinda curious the reason for that because it caught me off guard, but then I got used to it. So f… specifically, for example, whenever the camera was behind the pilot seats and you see the, you know, the two protagonists, the back of their heads, and you see the front, the windshield and the mountains. Sometimes, if not most of the times, and I could be wrong, some of the stuff was out of focus, and was, what was the reason? The depth of field, obviously, w… was, not out of focus. But what was the reason behind it? Was it technically difficult, or was it by choice, or was it purely…

9:58Johnny DerangoYou know, most, yeah, most of the time it was an artistic choice. Working in volumes, you do have some limitations. You can't focus directly on the screen. You focus directly on the screen, and you will get a moiré pattern, and it'll be flashing rainbow. So even when you focus to the distance in a volume, so if I'm trying to focus on the landscape past them, you would have to focus just short of critical focus.

10:22Johnny DerangoSo to your eye, it'll still look in focus, but it's actually not technically 100% sharp. So most of the time we chose to keep it in the cabin with them.

10:33Jawad MirInteresting. And Mel obviously has worked on, in a, on a film like this, I think for the first time too, that in terms of the production level being mostly in the studio. Working with him in that environment and even yourself, 'cause, you know, when you're, when you're on locations, you're at least moving around, you got different places to go to, different views. But here you are just kinda cooped up in one studio, which is easy from a logistics standpoint. Just from a psychological standpoint, what was that experience like? And then obviously watching Mel work in that realm as well.

11:06Johnny DerangoYeah, it was, it was a new experience for me because I've done a lot of indie films, and most of my stuff has been location-based throughout my entire career. Just so to have a movie that was 22 days on the stage was new for me. And you do, you get lulled into this weird sense of you don't know what time of day it is outside. You don't know what's going on. Like, you can't remember when you got there versus when you're leaving. It's just, it's a very different process, so you have to calibrate, and you have to stay sharp 'cause it's really easy to just sort of fall off track when you're, that routine is the exact same thing. And especially when you're working in an environment that never changes. Like, that airplane is always the same thing. So that to me became really important to change the looks throughout the movie, you know. And you've seen the movie, so you know the overall lighting evolves drastically from the beginning…

11:52Johnny Derango... Of the flight to the end. And that was something that was by design because Mel wanted the very last sequence, he, in his mind, he always saw that last scene on the runway at night. But yet we wanted to, we didn't want the flight to take place completely at night, and I felt it would be a good way to, create varied looks, so you didn't have to do everything in camera to keep it exciting and keep it changing. You know? I knew that it…... Shooting in a real Cessna Grand Caravan 208 body that we weren't gonna be able to cut away walls, we weren't gonna be able to take out anything except for the windows and the, nose. We were able to pull the nose off so we could butt up a deck against it, but there were no fly-away pieces. So we had to be really clever and creative in how we kept it interesting, 'cause the audience is gonna get bored in a, you know, 90-minute movie where 75% of it takes place inside that airplane, unless you're creative.

12:46Jawad MirYeah. It, something similar that I saw last year, was, Hanks and Spielberg miniseries, Masters of the Air. So they were… ... They were... Ha… have you seen it?

12:57Johnny DerangoI have not.

12:58Jawad MirSo there are sequences in there, obviously it's not the entire episodes and stuff, but in an episode, there's good long sequences, I would say a good 10 to 15, maybe even 20 minutes at times, depending on the episode, where you're literally in the cockpit, right?

13:13Johnny DerangoYeah.

13:13Jawad MirAnd not only that, not only that you're seeing the sky, but then you got to deal with the effects of the enemy fighters coming in and flying by you in dozens of amount and firing at you, and you have to react to that, and the lighting and the screen. Like, you know, even to that, you would probably appreciate that now that you worked on this. You, I recommend…

13:30Johnny DerangoFor sure

13:30Jawad Mir... You watch it. It's, it's a good series, too. But, it reminded me of that, and that, it really... And that's the thing, right? Like, when you're working on a film, you're, all you're doing is, like, you know, it's like, okay, one minute a day or, you know, half a minute a day, you know, in terms of production. But when you see it together, it's a different, like, we just see it in 90 minutes, but you go through not only that amount of duration…

13:51Johnny DerangoYeah

13:51Jawad Mir... Just like a regular production, but being cooped up, not just in a room, in a plane for all that, in a small plane, right?

13:57Johnny DerangoRight. Yeah.

13:58Jawad MirAnd so it was all, it was all Red cameras? A… a… all of them?

14:02Johnny DerangoN… no. We shot everything on the Sony Venice for the actual…

14:07Jawad MirOh

14:07Johnny Derango... Work. The pl… the plate work was done on Red. But we did, Sony Venice 2s on the approach. We shot that approach from a helicopter. It w… and our, pilot was Fred North, who if you go look up Fred North, he does all the amazing aerial helicopter stuff. And it was his, aerial DP, Dylan Goss, who was fl… who was shooting from the plane. So I had to be in sync with them, give them very detailed notes, let them know exactly what did I wanna do. I boarded out that whole last sequence, because we had 90 minutes a night over two nights to shoot that plane coming in at the end. And that was, that was an incredible challenge in itself, because you can't light a swath of area that large to get a plane approaching from, like, a mile out and see anything. So the decision was made, after really thinking it through, that I would shoot it at the blue hour when there was just barely any life, light left, right? There was, like, a 90-minute window where I could print it down in post to make it match, and raise it up…

15:07Johnny Derango... Towards the end. And so that was probably one of the most daunting challenges of my career, to figure out how to do that. And we had some technical hiccups the first day where the helicopter didn't even get off the ground. So that sequence really is comprised of 90 minutes of helicopter footage from one night. And then the first night, when the helicopter didn't leave the ground, we grabbed, I brought a DJI 4D camera with me, and we jumped in the back of Mel's pickup truck, and the operator held his arm over the tailgate and got this amazing shot where we're coming back down the runway, leading the emergency response vehicles that are converging, leaving space where then we could then put in a CG plane later on. So it was amazing. It became the hero shot of the sequence, but it was one of these things where, okay, you're under pressure. One of your major components is not gonna work for the night. How do you pivot and save your day? Because the movie relies on it.

16:04Jawad MirSuper. It's, I'm glad, I'm glad to hear you said a 4D. I've used that a few times. It's a, it's an interesting camera. It's definitely, something definitely for…

16:12Johnny DerangoIt's really cool

16:13Jawad Mir... Yeah, something definitely…

16:13Johnny DerangoMel…

16:14Jawad Mir... For what you're doing.

16:15Johnny DerangoYeah, Mel adores that camera, and it was great 'cause he sh… I just, I love him because he's, at his heart, he is just such a filmmaker, and there's nothing that's gonna stop him. So he's like, "I've got a pickup truck. Let's just jump in my truck and do it." I was like, "That's great. Let's go." And it was funny. He was, he was trying to drive, and the stunt guy was like, "No, I'll drive." So it was, it was a lot of fun.

16:38Jawad MirThat's awesome. And how big was the crew? I imagine smaller than a regular production.

16:43Johnny DerangoIt was, it was not a huge crew. I mean, we had, A and B cameras for about 70% of the time, and, just A camera about 30% of the time, and that just became because of the size of the space we were working in. You couldn't always get two cameras in. But Mel loves multi-cameras. I always, when given the choice, shoot two cameras. So we really did our best to get two cameras in there, but like I said, it's, it's the size of the plane that limited…

17:10Jawad MirYeah

17:10Johnny Derango... What we were doing. And I mean, that even came down to the decision we made to shoot the Sony Venice. The reason I went with the Sony Venice is because the Sony Venice, you can take off the front sensor block and turn it into this thing called the Rialto mode, where it's just the sensor block and the lens, and then it's a tethered cable. But there were times that I knew that I would be, you know, this far from an actor's face with the lens just because of the spacing, and it was the only way we could physically do it.

17:35Jawad MirSuper, man. Have you tried Sony Burano yet?

17:38Johnny DerangoI have not yet, no. I hear it's a good camera, though.

17:41Jawad MirYeah. It is. This is what I'm shooting on right now. It's on Burano.

17:45Johnny DerangoOh, is it really?

17:46Jawad MirYeah.

17:46Johnny DerangoNice.

17:47Jawad MirYeah. It's interest…

17:48Johnny DerangoSony's got a, they have a good line now. I mean, they have, from their sort of lowest end of the line all the way up to the top line, they've, they've done a really good job at unifying things.

17:58Jawad MirWell, they were smart when, 'cause, I remember Canon, you know, when the 5D, 7D, and all that stuff, they were doing really well, but Canon had this problem, and I think they still do. They just never listened to the customers. I…

18:11Jawad Mir... Remember this very specifically. And then Blackmagic and Sony kinda started listening to customers, and Sony just went in a different direction. Because Sony always had, like, I remember, I still have, like, my first three camcorders from the '90s are Sony, because back then it was just Sony…

18:25Johnny DerangoOh, amazing

18:26Jawad Mir... Right?

18:27Johnny DerangoYeah, for everything

18:27Jawad Mir... But Sony, yeah, Sony listens to its customers, and I think that's what matters the most is just listening to your customers, what they want.

18:35Johnny DerangoYeah, and it's funny, I don't, I don't wanna get in the weeds too much on Sony cameras, but if you go back even to the time when they released the F3, it was the same time when Canon launched their first, their first camera that was a, you know, a larger sensor.

18:48Jawad MirYep. Yep, I remember.

18:50Johnny DerangoAnd the F3 was a vastly superior camera. I mean, the sensor on that is still one of the most beautiful sensors I've ever used. But Canon snuck in there with the marketing and talked about how they were the low light level camera and just really capitalized on it, which was brilliant, you know? But yeah.

19:05Jawad MirYeah, and the, and the depth of field I think what's pulled people in more, like the whole cinematic aspect to it. The 5D was the first camera that was able…

19:13Johnny DerangoYeah

19:13Jawad Mir... To do that, to my knowledge, right? But going back to Flight Risk, what was something that was very challenging to overcome, whether it was a shot, a scene, the lighting from a lighting standpoint, anything that comes to memory that you can talk about?

19:30Johnny DerangoSure. That last sequence as I described was…

19:33Jawad MirOkay

19:33Johnny Derango... One of the most challenging by far. But there was, there was also challenges in just trying to work within the space, the volume within the budget we had, and make the lighting feel authentic all the way through. You know, I would've loved to have had a Technocrane with a huge light on it that I could have played as my sun, but like budgetary constraints didn't allow that. So what we did was, as the volume curves back to the back, we put two movers up here that could play as hard suns, and we could rotate them and move them. And then at this end we put two aperture lights up top to come back this way. And what we would do is, if the plane was banking, the sun would start here on one of those movers, and it would slowly dim out. And then I had a 40 foot by 20 foot LED panel over the top, and my lighting programmer would trace a circle, a bright circle that would go across it so the reflections…

20:21Jawad MirOh, I see

20:21Johnny Derango... Would move across the top, and then we would pick it up on the other side. And it was like this poor man's, poor man's rig that we had to create and just be nimble. It, the whole shoot, I love the... The thing that I love about this shoot is we had to be really flexible, and we had to be really creative, and we had to come up with interesting solutions. So it was a studio movie done in an indie way.

20:43Jawad MirYeah. A… anytime it's, there's DIY involved, like, you know, when you're working on it, yeah, it can be sometimes painful, but the, i… it doesn't even matter if it's a film, it can be any kind of production. The creativity that you are forced to come up with is just amazing. I've, I've had that happen to me over and over again. I'm sure you too as well. It just…

21:03Johnny DerangoAbsolutely

21:04Jawad Mir... Pushes you, right? And it's the most wonderful thing, not at the moment, but later on.

21:08Johnny DerangoThat's, that's exactly right. In the moment it's painful and frustrating, but when you're done with it's, it's such a sense of accomplishment because you've overcome a problem that could have lowered, you know, the overall quality of the movie, you know? And I don't, I don't feel like we suffer from that from any of the volume stuff. I think I would stand by that to the end of my days, that I'm super proud of what we did on that volume.

21:32Jawad MirYou should be. Going back to your career, we'll come back to Flight Risk in a minute.

21:37Johnny DerangoSure.

21:38Jawad MirWhat was the catalyst that brought you into the world of film and made you addicted like you are?

21:44Johnny DerangoIt's, it's... Yeah, for sure. It's, it's a really interesting story, 'cause I grew up in a small town in the middle of Illinois. It was super rural. And my dad was a dentist. My mom worked at my dad's office. And I kinda always grew up just thinking that I'd have to get like a 9:00 to 5:00 job or a real normal career. And my escape, 'cause my dad, my dad had a really, or my dad has a really strong work ethic, and he always just, that was what he taught us. Everything was about work ethic, and that was the most important thing and, you know, being responsible and pleasing your bosses and that was really important to him. So that was nailed into me from the very beginning. So I, my escape was cinema. I loved going to the movies. I loved going to the video store and in a small town, searching the aisles for anything that had won at a film festival that I'd never heard of like became really interesting to me, you know? Unlike today where you can flip on Netflix or flip on all these things and you have access to so many movies, you know, you were limited to what was in the video store, right?

22:44Jawad MirYeah.

22:44Johnny DerangoSo I'd get two, three movies at a time. I'd go home and lock myself in my bedroom at night, and I'd watch a couple movies, and it just, it was my escape, and that's what I loved about it, you know? It was action movies a lot for me, things like Speed and Die Hard and those kind of things. And so I fell in love with action, and I thought that I wanted to go into law enforcement. So I was going to enroll in criminal justice classes, and I thought that I would become a homicide detective or a US Marshal or something like that. That was the goal. So when I told my parents my senior year of high school, I think it really u… unnerved them because they were fearing for my safety, and they said, "Is there, is there anything else you might wanna do?" And it was like this ray of sunshine just came down from the sky where I was like, "Well, maybe I wanna make movies." And amazingly, because I think they were so fearful for my safety, they're like, "Yeah, maybe you should look into that." And I was like, "No way." 'Cause I think if I had said my whole life, "I wanna make movies, I wanna make movies," they would've been like, "No, you gotta find a real job."

23:47Johnny DerangoBut in the moment they were like, "Sure. Look into it. See if you can make a career at it and let's talk about it." And so I went to community college for a year and prepared to go to film school in the process, took my first film school class in a community college, and then the next semester I was able to start hands-on film classes at Columbia College in Chicago. And that became a really special time in my life, 'cause I went to school to become a director. And in the program, the film program at that time, you had to take Tech 1 and Tech 2. And Tech 1, they put a 16 millimeter Bolex camera in your hands day one.

24:25Jawad MirYes.

24:25Johnny DerangoYou learn how to load it.

24:26Jawad MirOh, yeah.

24:26Johnny DerangoYou learn how to work with it. You learn how to take light meter readings. You went out into the park next door, and you filmed little films. And there was a man by the name of Ron Pitts. He was my first instructor… For anything that had a camera involved. And Ron was a legend. He's still to this day I would call my only real mentor. But Ron had a knack for being in interesting places at interesting times. I mean, he was there at the '68 Democratic National Conventions when the riots happened. You know, somebody got clubbed, and they tossed the camera to him, and he continued shooting. He was there when Malcolm X was assassinated.

25:01Jawad MirOh, wow.

25:01Johnny DerangoHe was on the bridge, he was on the bridge in Selma, Alabama on Bloody Sunday when the military attacked the people there. There's a, there's an incredible photo of him in the museum there where you can see him holding a Bolex and a tear gas canister exploding in front of him. So what I learned from Ron was that you can tell a story with the visuals just as much as you can tell it working with the actors. And he was showing me, like, where you put the camera and how you move things around, and how you do things to just make the audience feel something. And I was like, "This is incredible." And so from that moment on, I was like, "I think I wanna be a cinematographer." And the cool part about Ron was he looked me in the eye one day and he goes, "You're gonna be big time." And it just always stuck with me, and I don't know if he said it to everybody. I have a feeling that he didn't, and we just had this really close relationship where I would check in with him all the time until he passed away about 10 years ago.

25:57Jawad MirOh.

25:58Johnny DerangoBut I got a, I got a message from Charlie Selander, who was one of the heads of the department at the time I was going to Columbia, and he said, "Congratulations on Flight Risk." He said, "I know Ron's looking down on you smiling," and that just got me. It was, like, the most amazing thing that anybody could've said to me yesterday.

26:15Jawad MirThat's amazing, man. You should, you should make a film on Ron. You really should.

26:20Johnny DerangoYou know what? I tried. My wife and I tried to launch a documentary on him while he was still alive, and he was always so elusive and cagey about it, you know? I don't think he wanted to be in front of the camera, but the man had an extraordinary life and did some really incredible things. I mean, he told me a story about... Th… this one to me is a real special story, 'cause he told me it's about humanity and just understanding people. He shot a documentary on a KKK biker gang in Shreveport, Louisiana. So he as a Black man was down there filming a hate group at their peak, right? And he said about three days into it, the guys, the KKK members that they were interviewing started asking him questions about the camera and what he was doing and why he was doing it, and they came to respect him as an artist and as a craftsman. He told me a couple years later he got a Christmas card from the KKK.

27:16Jawad MirWow.

27:17Johnny DerangoYeah. So it's, it's just, it's one of these stories. And Ron was really good at bringing everybody together, and I think that's, his life shaped him. He w… he was amazing.

27:27Jawad MirThat reminds me of this documentary that I saw, think it was called Meeting the Enemy. It was a Muslim girl, I think her name was Dia, I think. I could be wrong. And she actually went, I don't know if it was KKK per se, but, like, you know, the extreme hard right, if you wanna call them. Like, you know…

27:49Johnny DerangoSure

27:49Jawad Mir... The white nationalists. And she did the exact same thing. Like, she was, like, literally in the middle of... And they gave her the respect even though they would say that, you know, "You are this, and you are that." But they would not do anything more than that. So that's interesting that how camera and how storytelling can ch… you know, for bizarre reasons change people's minds for a short period of time.

28:13Johnny DerangoYeah. It's a, it's a powerful medium…

28:15Jawad MirIt is

28:15Johnny Derango... Whether it be in front of the camera or behind the camera.

28:17Jawad Mir100%. But you should definitely, even if it's not a doc, man, I seriously think there's a narrative story there. You got… I'm sure you know more.

28:25Johnny DerangoFor sure.

28:25Jawad MirIt's, you, it's very special to you, and I think it needs to be told. The power of storytelling is very important to be told on camera, for sure.

28:34Johnny DerangoI agree.

28:35Jawad MirBut yeah, Bolex cameras, man. I remember my first two films, one was overexposed, one was underexposed. I still have the film that was completely overblown and still completely dark. So I completely relate to that, man. I miss, I miss that.

28:49Johnny DerangoThat's amazing. Yeah.

28:52Jawad MirI miss that. But, you know, in terms of your escape from the films, you know, you saw, you locked yourself in a room, watched three films. But would you be able to pin down a moment in a film or a moment by itself that kind of spoke to you much more strongly than any other film did or a scene did?

29:12Johnny DerangoYeah, I mean, I can, I can remember the moment that I realized how powerful film was, and it made me wanna make films, and that was the first time I saw The Usual Suspects. 'Cause that movie took me on a ride, and it was such sleight of hand. And I was like, "Wait a second. I just felt something that I've never felt before. I was fooled in a way that I've never been fooled." And it was just such a powerful and interesting thing to me. I was like, "I wanna make movies like that." 'Cause it's just, it's such a masterfully done film.

29:41Jawad MirOf course, Keyser Söze.

29:43Johnny DerangoYeah.

29:44Jawad MirBla… back to Flight Risk. You obviously worked, you know, right next to Mel Gibson, worked next to the actors…

29:54Johnny DerangoYeah

29:54Jawad Mir... Lighting them. And in terms of a director, Mel Gibson is and how he works with the actors, from what I read, it's, he's, you know, I mean, it's clearly evident on the screen, but just in behind the scene I've read that he's very easy to work with. He demands the best in everything. Do you remember a s… a particular scene or a moment where things, you actually appreciated his direction being in person? I'm sure there were many moments, but if there was one moment to…

30:22Johnny DerangoYeah

30:22Jawad Mir... Talk about.

30:23Johnny DerangoI'm, I'm gonna hit you with a more general thing here, because for me it was, it was really interesting 'cause I really, like, latched in and tried to learn as much as I could from him…

30:30Jawad MirSure

30:31Johnny Derango... 'cause it was like going to film school every day. And for me, what I didn't realize and I learned from him, it's often as much about what you don't say as what you do say. He would watch the performances obviously like a hawk, and there was times that he would chime in with things that I just thought were absolutely insane. Like, the kind of things that only he would think of, and you've seen those in so many of his movies, like his little flourishes and things that make the movies his. But there's other times where he would see exactly what he wanted, and he didn't feel the need to make a correction if he felt it was there. You know, I've worked with directors in the past before where they feel like they have to weigh in on everything or it's not their movie. But Mel is such a consummate professional that he gets it. When he's getting what he wants, sometimes he doesn't have to say anything.

31:18Jawad MirYeah. That's amazing. I saw Quentin Tarantino in an interview, and I… and please tell me if you saw that with, same with Gibson, with Mel Gibson. Obviously, it, wonder, if he, if he didn't, that doesn't make it right or wrong, but…

31:30Johnny DerangoSure

31:30Jawad Mir... Quentin Tarantino said that, "I let my actors, the very first time they read out the lines, whether it's in rehearsal or whether it's in, like, a readout, just d… say the lines the way they wanna say it, right?"

31:44Jawad MirBecause if you tell them right on the very first day or rehearsals that, "This is what I want you to do and how to say it," you will never know what they were bringing to the table, and they could be bringing something amazing to the table that you don't know about. Something similar that you saw with Mel Gibson at the…

32:01Johnny DerangoYeah, I would say it's similar to that. You know?

32:02Jawad MirYeah.

32:02Johnny DerangoI don't, I don't know if it's the exact same thing. I don't know if it's the first read or what it is. I don't…

32:06Jawad MirYeah, you gotta…

32:06Johnny DerangoI'm not always privy to…

32:07Jawad MirYeah.

32:07Johnny DerangoYeah, I'm not always privy to the conversations they have outside of set where they discuss the characters and arcs and stuff like that, so they may have very detailed conversations about that coming into it, and that's why he doesn't have to give any notes, you know, when he doesn't give any notes, or perhaps it's because he has really carefully chosen the actors that he wants in those roles and believes in, you know? I know he does that for a fact with crew. What was fascinating to me is it feels to me like Mel hires people that he really trusts, and he's super collaborative. You bring ideas to him, and he'll vet those ideas, and if he likes it, you know right away he likes it, and if he doesn't like it, he'll let you know he doesn't like it. And then you just go back and forth, you know? And you create. It's a collaborative spirit, and I… he just wants to be surrounded, from what I can tell, by people he really believes in and really trusts and feels will make the best movie with him.

32:56Jawad MirAmazing. Working with the cast, you know, I've seen a lot of films of Topher Grace, obviously Mark Wahlberg, and, sorry, I forget the lady actress's name. I know her name off the tip of my tongue.

33:11Johnny DerangoMichelle Dockery.

33:12Jawad MirMichelle Dockery. Then w… I'm assuming, as you mentioned earlier, but just to kinda go in the performance standpoint, for Mark Wahlberg it was very different role. Yes, you were probably not present, you know, during any kind of notes or any kind of feedback given off the, off the set. But being on the set, especially Mark and the ac… sorry, Mel and the actors and their connection with each other in that small environment, was it always, you know, sort of they were on the same wavelength more or less?

33:46Johnny DerangoI mean, it felt, it felt like that to me. I mean, I never felt n… I never heard any big discussions or disagreements, you know? I think they clearly had discussed who the characters were before they got up into that airplane because Mel was on a video village by me most of the time. He had, he had a, he was recovering from a surgery, so he couldn't get up the stairs the entire time. So a lotta times he would be over microphone, which I assume is very difficult to do as a director. There are times, though, when there were things that he wanted to say very specific that he didn't want over the microphone, where he would find a way to get up into that airplane and talk to the actors.

34:26Jawad MirAmazing. That's amazing. Did you see his most recent interview with, Joe Rogan? If you haven't, I'd…

34:33Johnny DerangoI did

34:33Jawad Mir... Recommend that you would. Yeah, it's amazing.

34:35Johnny DerangoI have.

34:35Jawad MirI loved it.

34:36Johnny DerangoYeah.

34:36Jawad MirI just, something just came to mind. 23 days of shoot, correct?

34:43Johnny DerangoIt was 22 days on the volume, I believe, with three days of aerial work where we did the plates, and on those days, we did, two nights of that landing, so that's 25 days. And then at the end, we did two days on the runway where we shot that final sequence that takes place outside of the airplane.

35:01Johnny DerangoAnd then we came back the last night and did all the plates that were woven into that last scene as the plane has its, rough landing.

35:10Jawad MirAnd were they, the parts that were outside of the studio, were they Alaska, or was there some, different location? I think you said LA was in the last part, right? Am I mistaken?

35:22Johnny DerangoSo we shot the mountains, the actual plate stuff, in the Sierra Mountains in California.

35:27Jawad MirRight.

35:27Johnny DerangoThe airport actually consists of two different airports. The first half of the sequence was filmed in,.. Oh, man. It was,.. Wow, I can't remember the name of the town right now. I'm, I'm blanking. But it was…

35:42Jawad MirIt was Alaska.

35:43Johnny DerangoIt, no, it wasn't Alaska. It was California. The run…

35:45Jawad MirOh

35:45Johnny Derango... The first runway is in Ca… California, and then the second runway is in Mesquite, Nevada. And then we just married it together. We shot the different angles, and it sells as one runway continuous. But the first half of it is in California, and the second half of it's in Nevada. And then the sequence takes place in the Nevada airport, on the Nevada landing strip as well.

36:06Jawad MirInteresting. That's pretty cool to know. What was the, what was your biggest takeaway, not just as a DP, but just as a human being, from working on this film, 22, 25 days, you know?

36:22Johnny DerangoI think for me, as a DP, learning the technology was absolutely incredible. Mel and myself, neither one of us had ever done a volume movie or even, you know, extensive work on the volume, so we sort of learned it together. And like I said, we had a visual effects supervisor named Michael Ralla, who had done volume work before, and he's worked with Lux Machina, who was the company who ran our on-set volumes. And they were absolutely incredible the way those guys worked. But just being shepherded through that process, trusting Michael when I said, you know, "I think we need to get and acquire the most beautiful plates we can." He agreeing, production agreeing, going out and getting those plates. Because you can shoot on a volume and it can look like absolute garbage.

37:05Johnny DerangoAnd it all comes down to the plates. You can light it, you can make it look beautiful, but if the plates are not good, you're never gonna, you're never gonna win in the end, you know? We had the good fortune of having absolutely incredible plates, and then I was able to get together with my team. My lighting programmer was a guy by the name of Elton James, and he's done, he did Guardians of the Galaxy 3, he did Avatar: Way of Water for Cameron, so he's absolutely incredible. And he and my gaffer, Andy Lorenz, were instrumental in tying what was going on with the lighting to the plates. And you see it in the end with Topher Grace. I don't wanna give anything away, but there's a sequence where, if you remember, he's kinda leaned up against the window…

37:43Jawad MirYeah

37:43Johnny Derango... In the passenger seat, and the sun is flickering away.

37:47Jawad MirYep.

37:47Johnny DerangoAnd that was, something that I pitched to Mel. In the script, it was written a little different visually. The lines were all the same, everything, nothing changed like that. But I said, "Mel, I feel like in this moment, there's this dimming and this flickering of the sun, and we see at one point in his eye, and we need to make that sun go away behind the mountain." And that's exactly what we did, and I think that's a very powerful visual tool that we used to show what was going on with the character in that moment.

38:16Jawad MirIt's so funny you mention that because when I saw that sun, and because of the, what was going on with the character, I was like, "I hope they show it going behind the mountain," because of what was going on emotionally.

38:29Johnny DerangoNice.

38:29Jawad MirAnd when I saw that, I was like, "Yes, I was right." I mean, I felt, I felt proud of myself. Not that I had anything to do with the film, but I f… I, you know, I saw it coming, and it was just, it was just so well done, and it fitted perfectly in the moment because it was acquired, I feel.

38:45Johnny DerangoThat…

38:45Jawad MirAnd I think you probably feel the same

38:45Johnny Derango... That's awesome. C… 'cause reading the script, that's how I felt about it, so the fact that it translated and it made you feel something is amazing. That's, that's what I live for. I mean, as a DP, my entire purpose is to serve the story and to serve the director so they get the vision they want. And I come in with my ideas, and that was one where I pitched to Mel, and he was like, "That's great. Let's do it."

39:06Jawad MirSuper, man. Would you ever... Well, I'm sure you will probably end up doing this even if you want, don't want to do it, because that's the way that productions are shifting plates and everything, but w… your next project, whether it's already being talked about or we, it will be talked about in the future, would you prefer to do something on location just to have a little change of view?

39:27Johnny DerangoWell, the next movie that I'm doing, I'm going to do a Lionsgate movie in February, I believe, and it's a sequel to a movie called I Can Only Imagine, and that will be largely location-heavy.

39:39Jawad MirOkay. Okay. Yeah. I'm just trying to figure out what it is, but I won't. Don't worry.

39:44Johnny DerangoOh, no, it's, it's, it's a sequel to, no, it's a sequel to a movie called I Can Only Imagine.

39:48Jawad MirOh, I thought you said something else. Sorry. Okay.

39:51Johnny DerangoNo.

39:51Jawad MirI don't know. Okay.

39:52Johnny DerangoThere's, 20... It, yeah, it's a 2018 movie called I Can Only Imagine, directed by Jon and Andrew Erwin, and, Andrew Erwin is directing a sequel to it, I Can Only Imagine 2. So we start production, this spring.

40:04Jawad MirLooking forward to it?

40:07Johnny DerangoOh, I'm, I'm absolutely looking forward to it, yeah. Andy, is also a producer. He has a company called Kingdom Story Company, and I've done two movies for them now. I did a movie called Unsung Hero, which if you haven't seen, is my personal...

40:22Jawad MirIt sounds…

40:22Johnny DerangoI don't wanna say personal favorite movie I've ever made, but it's, it's probably the most special movie I've ever made and closest to my heart. It came at a time where I was doubting whether I wanted to make films anymore, and it sort of reinvigorated me, and I just think it's a really special film, and it allowed me to share my faith, too. It's a, it's a faith-based film, and I think it's, it's worth a watch.

40:44Jawad MirWhy were you considering sorta giving, if the giving up is the right word of…

40:49Johnny DerangoYou know, I had a rough run for a little while. I had done another movie, and it was probably the most trying experience I've ever had in my life on set. It was one of these situations where, you know, it's nobody's fault. If it could go wrong, it went wrong. We had COVID shutdowns, we had weather shutdowns. We had all sorts of issues that really hindered my ability to get things where I thought they needed to be, and I had some self-doubt about how my work was gonna end up looking in the end. And it turned out phenomenal. Like, it's great. But it was really heavy on me the entire time. And then the last day of the shoot, that school shooting happened in Uvalde, Texas, and I just said, "I just made a movie that was dark and violent and really heavy, and you know, I don't really wanna put something like that into the world again, or not for a while. And I wanna find something that's uplifting and shares my faith." And I reached out to Andrew Erwin, and we hit it off, and now I'm gonna do my third movie for his company, and first movie that he's directing this spring.

41:54Jawad MirAmazing. I hope, and I'm sure deep down you probably w… you're, you're wishing the same thing, that you end up doing The Passion of Christ 2. I really hope that you do, because I think you and Mel, aside from the, he's a very f… you know, from what I sorta gathered, full of faith, obviously, Passion of Christ, and so are you, so there's that synergy, too. So I really hope that happens, if it's for the good of the project, because, I'm looking forward to that film. I really am.

42:25Johnny DerangoYeah.

42:25Jawad MirIt may not, it may not fall in line with my own personal beliefs, but at the same time, I loved the first film. I had different set of beliefs about it, but as a film, I really admired it.

42:37Johnny DerangoIt's, it's a beautiful piece of cinema, and I, from hearing him talk about it and from listening to Rogan and, you know, things that he's told me personally, It's gonna be incredible. I mean, it sounds like it's gonna be on a scale of, you know, nothing you've ever seen. And we're talking about the guy who made Braveheart and Apocalypto, so…

42:59Jawad MirYeah

42:59Johnny Derango... I would buckle up for that one.

43:01Jawad Mir100%, man. 100%. Awesome. This has been great. I really appreciate your time. I enjoyed my conversation with you. It was awesome. Hopefully you had a good time too, and, thank you so much for being part of this, entertaining, fun-filled film with twists. And people who are watching it, don't go by Rotten Tomatoes critics reviews, because the critics don't know what the hell they're talking about.

43:25Johnny DerangoThere we go.

43:26Jawad MirGo, because true, I, and I know exactly why the critics bashed the movie, and I don't wanna get into that.

43:32Johnny DerangoYeah. Sure. I mean, I sat in the theater last night, a packed theater, and man, there was applause where there should be applause, which, and you don't always get applause in movies, but you can probably guess the couple points where there was, like, screaming and yelling and applause, and there was laughter when there should be laughter. And w… I think it's a movie you wanna go out and see in the theater with an audience, because it's, it's that feeling. It's, it's the reason I stepped into filmmaking in the first place. Like I said, I loved those 1990s, maybe even into the early 2000, action thrillers. They have a very different feel, and I think this movie has a very different feel than most modern action movies. I think it feels like a 1990s throwback, and it's what I grew up with and it's what I love, and this time, instead of watching that movie, I got to make it.

44:18Jawad MirYou know, it was, it reminded me, it had, there was absolutely no plot similarities, but because there was a plane element to it, but it was a small town story, A Simple Plan. Have you seen that? With…

44:31Johnny DerangoThat's a great film

44:32Jawad Mir... With Bill Paxton and

44:33Johnny DerangoWith, Bill and Dom, Bill…

44:34Jawad MirBill Paxton

44:34Johnny Derango... Bill Paxton

44:35Jawad MirYeah. And Bridget…

44:36Johnny DerangoYeah

44:36Jawad Mir... What's her name? I forget her name. Bridget Fonda.

44:39Johnny DerangoFonda.

44:40Jawad MirYeah. But another piece of information which I found, we were talking about the audience, so when I'm sitting in the movie theater today waiting for the film to start, I saw three batches of a group of people that s… ended up sitting together, and I'm thinking, "Why are they here to watch this film?" Because it doesn't have, and I'll tell you what the demographic was.

45:03Johnny DerangoSure.

45:03Jawad MirIt doesn't have any, you know, like, a 20s star, 20s to 30s star in it. It doesn't have any DiCaprio in it. Like, you know, stuff like that. It has Walmark, W… Mark Wahlberg, Topher Grace.

45:18Johnny DerangoYeah.

45:18Jawad MirAnd these were, like, I'm guessing 15 to 20-year-old girls. And it just…

45:23Johnny DerangoReally?

45:24Jawad Mir... I was like, "Why are they here?" Like, it's amazing, because…

45:27Johnny DerangoThat's amazing

45:28Jawad Mir... I was just wa… like, rightly, you're surprised too, because how do they…

45:31Johnny DerangoYeah

45:31Jawad Mir... Relate to this? And, they were the loudest, during, I mean, they're not chatting…

45:36Johnny DerangoReally?

45:36Jawad Mir... Or anything, but they were the, probably enjoying it the most, and I, it just kind of, I still am confused as to how that worked, because that's not their…

45:43Johnny DerangoRight

45:43Jawad Mir... Film, right? But it's something that…

45:45Johnny DerangoNo, but that's so nice to hear. Yeah.

45:47Jawad MirYeah. We thought it's something you should probably, would probably appreciate. Awesome, man. I was hoping to talk to, Mel as well. We reached out to his agent, but he politely said no, so I was really excited to, hoping to that he would say yes, but probably next time. But thank you so much for being part of it. I appreciate it.

46:03Johnny DerangoYou got it. It was great talking to you as well.

46:05Jawad MirWe'll talk again, I'm sure, for your next film.

46:08Johnny DerangoLove it. Take care.

46:09Jawad MirTake care, Jonny. Bye-bye.