Guillermo's 'Frankenstein', Cinematographer, Dan Laustsen

0:00Jawad MirAs a, as a director myself, one of the things that I have come to appreciate over the last seven, eight years is that the way Guillermo shot the scene, so, you know, you did and with Guillermo, what's your personal preference in that realm?

0:13Dan LaustsenOf course, I'm making the movies for the director, with the director. That is like, for me, I'm always the director's man. I have a million opinion about everything, but…... I'm not going, I'm not going to be in the editing room, you know? I can just…

0:25Jawad MirThat's true

0:26Dan Laustsen... I can just support and suggest, but I'm a huge fan of wide angles. And, you know, Frankenstein is shot large format, you know, Alexa 65. Widest lenses when we shot it was a 24 millimeter, and the beauty of that is because it's a large format, the 24 millimeter is so wide, but it's still at 24 millimeters, so when you're coming into a close-up, it's not distortion. If you shot that on 35, I would say you should maybe shoot with 18.

0:54Dan LaustsenAnd we would come in with a 18 on a close-up in the same scene, it's distorting a lot. But because we did that a lot, so we are coming in with a wide angle, but it looks pretty nice in the close-up. It looks fantastic, actually.

1:16Jawad MirWelcome back, everyone, to another episode of Kingdom of Dreams Podcast, The Making of Stories. I'm your host, Jawad Mir. I'm so excited to have the cinematographer of Guillermo del Toro's latest film, Frankenstein, Dan Laustsen. What a great conversation we had about the film, and what a great piece of cinema it is. I absolutely loved it, and, I cannot wait for you guys to listen to this conversation. We talked about the film, we talked about blocking, we talked about lenses, we talked about the story, the lighting, and some beautiful breathtaking scenes that were in the film. Incredible conversation. Please do take a listen. My conversation with Dan Laustsen, cinematographer for Frankenstein.

1:54Dan LaustsenYo.

1:56Jawad MirHi, Dan. How are you?

1:57Dan LaustsenI'm good. How are you?

1:59Jawad MirI'm doing great, thank you for asking. I want to say bravo, just right off the bat.

2:08Dan LaustsenThank you, sir. Thank you.

2:09Jawad MirExceptional film. I just re-watched it, again today.

2:14Dan LaustsenOh, you did? Hey.

2:15Jawad MirYeah. And I'll be, I'll, I have a disclaimer. I mean, as a film producer, director myself, I should have done this a long time ago, I haven't seen G… Guillermo's films, that many of them. I've only seen Pacific Rim, Hellboy, and this one, so I gotta go back and revisit his, library, including the ones that you worked on, of course.

2:34Dan LaustsenOh, this is number five, I think.

2:37Jawad MirYeah, but amazing. Every frame was just phenomenal, just to kind of give you right off the bat. I mean, I, my prediction, you're gonna win the Oscar this year.

2:47Dan LaustsenOkay, don't talk about I'm getting it, so press…

2:51Jawad MirNo, I absolutely loved it. I normally don't say that. Like, every image... And I watched in the movie theater and I watched on Netflix. It's beautiful, so thank you.

2:59Dan LaustsenOh, thank you very much. Nice of you. Nice fa… I hope you're right, but who knows?

3:04Jawad MirTime will tell, but, you know, yeah, thank you so much for taking the time to chat. You know

3:11Dan LaustsenYeah

3:11Jawad Mir... Ob… your work is, you know, I was going through your filmography, John Wick, obviously working with, Guillermo and bunch of other films, and I wanted to sort of get an idea, even though you have had worked with him in the past, how, obviously you had that connection, the relationship with him, how did this project come about, and when did it come about, in the, in the radar c… based, considering it's based on a classic book?

3:38Dan LaustsenI think, you know, first time I worked together with Guillermo was when we did Mimic, was his first American movie and it was my second American movie, and I just came from a remake of a Danish movie called Night Watch, and it was the Weinstein Brothers that produced that. And they should do a movie with Guillermo, and Guillermo, they asked Guillermo to watch the Danish because they like what I did, and Guillermo liked them as well, and he asked me to do Mimic, and that's like for 30 years ago or something like that. And I remember we talked about what is your dreams, what, he asked me, you know, we was younger, of course, and he said, "What are you, what do you want to do?" And I said, "I want to do a western or whatever." And he said, "I would love to do Frankenstein. That was my dream project." And then I forgot everything about that, of course. And then 15 years later, he asked me to do Crimson Peak, and he talked a little bit more about Frankenstein. It could be cool to do it, but he couldn't do it because there was another studio, whatever it was.

4:39Dan LaustsenAnd then we did Nightmare Alley, no, Shape of Water, and then Nightmare Alley. And on Nightmare Alley he said, "I'm pretty sure next movie's going to be Frankenstein." And then I read the book, and I was like, "Wow, this is a pretty cool book. Fantastic story." And then I got the screenplay from Guillermo, and I was like, "Wow, how could you change..." He changed so much in the story, and of course I should not have been surprised about that because I know him so well, so I know he was able to. And the way he's approaching everything is different, difficult, that's, different, that's Guillermo del Toro way to approach everything. So I loved the screenplay, of course, and that was, like, so much different than the book. Of course, the m… key element was the same, but the way he turns everything around was much more powerful, I think, than the book. And now we make…

5:30Jawad MirYeah

5:30Dan Laustsen... Movies together and that is fantastic.

5:34Jawad MirSo I had no idea that he directed Mimic. I remember watching it in the theaters when it came out, and 30 years ago also, around the same time, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein came out, which was produced by Francis Ford Coppola and directed by Kenneth Branagh.

5:49Dan LaustsenOh, great. I've never seen that

5:50Jawad Mir... Which I actually saw yesterday again after a long time.

5:54Dan LaustsenOkay.

5:54Jawad MirAnd I think that sticks... I haven't read the book, but I th… I th… I think the first half of the film is similar to Guillermo's version, but I think in the last part, yeah, there's a little bit of a difference in terms of Elizabeth's character and what happens to her in your film…

6:12Dan LaustsenAh

6:12Jawad Mir... It's different than it is in Kenneth Branagh's version. Which I'm guessing is more closer to the book entirely.

6:19Dan LaustsenOkay, yeah. I don't know because I haven't seen it.

6:23Jawad MirI would recommend that you check it out. I mean, it's, it's a good film.

6:25Dan LaustsenOkay.

6:25Jawad MirYeah, it's a good film.

6:26Dan LaustsenI'll do that. Okay, cool.

6:27Jawad MirYeah. And well, I was gonna ask you, had you seen the original, well, not the original, but Mary, the Kenneth Branagh, but you haven't, so that, we'll skip that part. In terms of, you know, the process that you have working with Guillermo or even on this film or in general, what is that like as a, as a cinematographer? Are you going through his storyboards to get an understanding of his vision, or is it some other form of constant communication? I mean, by now you have a sort of a idea how he works, what he likes, you know, the, it's like a, basically a professional relationship which you understand from the back of your hand.

7:09Dan LaustsenYeah.

7:09Jawad MirSo d… tell me that process.

7:12Dan LaustsenNo, Guillermo's doing, he's always doing a kind of mood boards, a mood board, you know, like, you know, he's doing this scene should be approximately this color palette, could be like that, and another scene is like that. So he do that for a lot of scenes in the movie so everybody, all the pe… the head of departments, like the costume designer, the production designer, myself, and visual effects, is starting more or less on the same, or we are starting on the same level. This is my vision, and then we starts to work together about how should we design it, how should the sets looks, how should the costumes looks. You know, we are working together because for Guillermo it's very important and for everybody else is like the costume is not only the costumes, the costumes is a part of the set, and how are we going to light the sets, how are we going to light the costumes. So you know, it's like if your cost… if your costume designer's deciding something in a very strong color and I'm lighting it in the opposite color, I'm taking all the power away from the color, and that's the same with the set.

8:12Dan LaustsenSo we are working very close together, all head of departments, together with Guillermo of course, how to do, how to make the color palette, how to blend everything together, and what is actually the style of the movie. And Guillermo and me talked about that a lot of course, you know, how much the camera going to do, what is the lighting atmosphere, should it be candlelight. We talked a lot about because it's the same period, so we looked a lot into Barry Lyndon. Should we light everything with candles? Should that be like the key light all the time?

8:47Dan LaustsenAnd Barry Lyndon is a masterpiece. Of course, it looks amazing, but we was just going in for a more split color, you know. When we are lighting a scene with candles, we always have a contrast color like steel blue on the walls. For example, when we have a scene in the lab where everything is lit with candles, there's always some steel blue or another kind of blue on the back walls to break up the color palette so it's not getting monochromatic. So we always have this like, the contrast in the color, for example, as well when the ship, around the ship, you know, that's a kind of moonlight, that's a steel blue color.

9:26Dan LaustsenThe key light is a torch. Everything is flaming torches, and that's, it's going to be the key light for that scene. So we talked a lot about that all the time. What should that scene, how should that scene be lit? Should that be a day or night? Or, and we're changing that. When the screenplay's coming out, we thought this should be a night scene, and then we see the locations, figure out maybe this scene should actually be at daytime because that's better for location. So that's like, and it's a very fluid prep because we have, we know each other so well, so it's not like we're sitting down and talk how... We're not w… we're not walking through the screenplay from day number one. It's a very soft prep. And we, Guillermo's making storyboards, but very loose storyboards, but just, that's just a kind of a guideline…

10:14Dan Laustsen... How much we are seeing. We are never shooting the storyboards. The storyboards is kind of, this is, I think the ship should be li… like that and that as a big wide shot, but we never sh… it's not like we're shooting a storyboard. It's just a guideline for everybody to feel what way we are going.

10:32Jawad MirSure. You talk about contrast and although there was a lot of contrast in every frame, one thing I found interesting, it wasn't really a contrast, but it's still to me is the frame that stood out the most, although every frame was incredible, was the scene when Elizabeth, wearing green, goes out of the castle or the mansion, and you see the open ground and you see green grass. And even though there is no contrast, but that dress of her really pops out.

11:05Dan LaustsenYeah.

11:06Jawad MirWas that some sort of one of those things that just kinda happened, or was that very well, you know, planned out in terms of getting that shot?

11:16Dan LaustsenMore or less everything with Guillermo is, like, very planned. You know… ... It's very, we are planning everything down to the last details, and we have space for changing the, changing our minds. But a scene like that is, like, very like, that is, like, exactly what we want to do. Green grass. And that's the same when she's coming down to the creature in the c… holding cell in her, in her green dress. You know, she's coming into this, like, more or less monochromatic set.

11:46Dan LaustsenThe light is to the blue side. It's not steel blue, but it's like a cold scene, and she's coming into that set with a very warm dress, warm like, warm green light set. And that's this, just this color palettes all the time. And when she's coming down to the holding cell next time, where they're falling in love with each other, he's still in this, like, very blue set, and she's coming down with the candles. So that's a small scene, very romantic scene, where she's actually coming into his life with warm lights, and it's very small and beautiful. And then she's leaving again. He's sitting in this... Actually one of the darkest scene in the movie, I think, when he's sitting there alone, and we have this stripe of lights on his faces, and he's sitting very sad and bent up. That's, it's, it's a very strong scene, I think. But that's what we try to do. We try to work with the light and the light and color palettes a lot, as much as we can. So it's not, there's nothing like, "Oh, this happened," by the way.

12:49Dan LaustsenIt's very little of that.

12:51Jawad MirRight. You know, I…

12:53Dan LaustsenBut…

12:53Jawad MirSorry?

12:54Dan LaustsenBut we just try to be as precise as possible all the time.

12:58Jawad MirYeah, no, for me, I mean, like, I mean, there were some incredible scenes with the sunlight coming in through the windows, the, you know, the landscape. I mean, there are some breathtaking scenes, but some, for some reason, that green on green, and in the, in the context of that scene, the way where, what the emotion was at the time, it just worked very well for me.

13:20Dan LaustsenOkay

13:20Jawad Mir... Just personal, you know, thing.

13:22Dan LaustsenSure.

13:22Jawad MirAnd I wanted to, sort of ask you know, Guillermo has said very openly that everything in the film is more or less practical or practical effects. Like, you know, you guys actually built the real ship with hydraulics if... Yeah, right.

13:41Dan LaustsenYeah.

13:41Jawad MirWith the hydraulics. That scene of the ship moving back and rocking back and forth when, you know, Frankenstein pushes it in the mid…

13:51Dan LaustsenYeah

13:51Jawad Mir... In, sort of in the beginning and the end, what, was there any challenge from i… in that, like, i… in terms of shooting that? How did you guys achieve that from a s… cinematography standpoint? I'm not necessarily talking about the hydraulics, but just being on the ship.

14:07Dan LaustsenThe beauty of the ship was, like, we was, we knew, we talked a lot about how should the, what should the atmosphere be in the ship. You know, we didn't, you know, let's say in the real world you have, like, one small candles on the ship, and that was all, and then everything was l… lit with moonlight, and we didn't want to go that way. We want to go to a very dramatic way because it's a very dramatic scene. So we talked about it should be flaming torches. And of course there's, flaming torches can be dangerous because it's a lot of fire, and there was some ideas about that should be a CG, it should be a LED torch, and we should put flames around it, and Guillermo, he said, "No way. It's never going to happen because we want to go for real. We want to go real torches." And of course that's a little bit tricky because how much real actors that have to hold the torch, but it works extremely well. But the beauty of that is because it's real flames, it, real torches, so when the wind is shifting, the light is shifting as well. So, you know, the actors is actually lighting their self with flaming torches, and it's getting so dramatic because that's a lot of stuff going on around when he push the ship.

15:16Dan LaustsenYou know, the ship is falling over, the actor's falling over, they're losing the torches, they pick them up again, and it's getting very dramatic compared to if you have, like, one big static moonlight coming down from the side. So we knew we were going to do, we want to do that scene as dramatic as we could, excuse me, with light. And like, the flaming torches is amazing there because it's just, it's getting so aga… organic and so chaotic because everything is changing all the time, and that's, it's, it's really, it works extremely well, I think, and that is actually f… because the flaming torches is the key light and the actors are holding their own key light. That was a, we have this idea from the beginning. And of course that hydraulic, the specialty effects guys that pu… that pushed... It's, it's amazing and somehow they made that set, the ship. But we want to light it dramatic. We want to light it as alive as we could, and I think that's the flaming torches that did that.

16:19Jawad MirYeah, no.

16:20Dan LaustsenSo…

16:21Jawad MirM… most certainly.

16:22Dan LaustsenAnd that's the same when they're looking for the, for the creature the first time when they're walking over the ice. You know, that is only lit with torches. The actors are carrying their own key light, and it's, it's, it works really well, I think. Very dramatic and very beautiful.

16:36Jawad MirYes, 100%. I, you know, this is more of a comment. I loved how, you know, forgetting about it's Frankenstein or any other film, just in general, the way this was crafted where you have a chapter, on the creator and he's narrating the story, and then you hear Frankenstein's version of the story.

16:59Dan LaustsenYeah.

16:59Jawad MirNot necessarily version, but his kind of continuation and how it kind of comes... I thought that was, o… obviously that was in the script, you know, but that was just so beautifully done that even though, you know, you have Victor, who is not in that story for a good, what, 30 minutes probably I think it was long…

17:17Dan LaustsenSure

17:17Jawad Mir... You st… you are still in the film because you're rooting for Frankenstein now.

17:22Dan LaustsenYeah. I think that's right, but that's the fantastic screenplay and the fantastic way Guillermo is putting his story together.

17:31Jawad MirYeah.

17:31Dan LaustsenAnd it is, the whole thing about working with Guillermo is, like, he knows exactly the way he wants to tell the story with the camera. So, you know, it's a very fluid camera. Every, the camera's moving all the time, but that's his, like, he knows where he wants to cut, so he's designing those shots. Of course, we're talking about it all the time, but he's designing A and B out of all the shots, and it's, it works really well.

17:54Jawad MirYeah. A… as a, as a director myself, one of the things that I have come to appreciate over the last seven, eight years, I used to but now it's way more, is that the way c…... Guillermo shot the scenes or, you know, you did and with Guillermo, the way Janusz Kaminski with Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, you know, all these directors. I'm a huge fan now for the last seven, eight years of wider shots. Same thing with Quentin Tarantino, because they put you in that space of the environment and, you know, sometimes because of budgetary reasons or whatever reasons, you kind of get away from that and you try to get medium to close-ups, which are great by the way, but they don't immerse you into that world. You know, Paul Thomas Anderson does that really well, too. Is that something you as a cinematographer, aside from working with Guillermo or I know you're sort of more so, dependent on what the director's vision is, but what's your personal preference in that realm?

18:56Dan LaustsenMy… Of course, I'm making the movies for the director, with the director. That is like, for me, I'm always the director's man, you know? I'm trying to, man or w… women, you know, work together with a lot of female directors as well. But I think the director is telling the story, you know. I could… I have a million opinion about everything, but... I'm not going, I'm not going to be in the editing room, you know. I can just…

19:20Jawad MirThat's true

19:21Dan Laustsen... I can just support and suggest, but I'm a huge fan of wide angles. And you know, we shot, I think we shot, you know, we, Frankenstein is shot large format, you know, Alexa 65. Widest lenses when we shot it was a 24 millimeter, and the beauty of that is because it's a large format, the 24 millimeter is so wide, but it's still at 24 millimeters so when you're coming into a close-up, it's not distortion. If you shot that on 35, I would say you should maybe shoot with 18.

19:51Dan LaustsenAnd you would come in with the 18 on a close-up in the same scene, it's distorting a lot. But because we did that a lot, so we are coming in with a wide angle, but it looks pretty nice in the close-up. It looks fantastic, actually. But I'm a big fan of wide angles. I think it's... What I like about wide angles is you're getting into the, you're coming into the performance, you're coming in there together with the actors. But of course, as a cinematographer, it's much more complicated to light the scenes because the camera…

20:20Jawad MirYeah

20:20Dan Laustsen... So much, you're coming from a big wide shot, and in the same take you're coming into a close-up, and those, the wide and the close-up have to look really beautiful. But that's…

20:31Jawad MirYeah

20:31Dan Laustsen... We like sync the source lighting we like. We always have all the lights outside the windows. We have never lights on the set. I'm lighting everything from outside the windows set. So the exposure is falling off in a very beautiful way, so it's not so important that the actors have to be exactly the same position, but it's, it helps a lot of course. We try to block the scenes so the light is, looks pretty nice. But…

20:57Jawad MirYeah

20:57Dan Laustsen... It's, it's always out… outside the windows and we are shooting very wide angle, and I'm a big fan of wide angle. I don't know if you know that movie called I Am Cuba.

21:06Jawad MirWhich one?

21:07Dan LaustsenI Am Cuba.

21:09Jawad MirNo, I don't. I should look it…

21:12Dan LaustsenBig film

21:12Jawad Mir... Up. Okay, I will.

21:13Dan LaustsenIt's a film shot in Cuba in '62, and everything is shot handheld and it's super wide angle and it's looks fantastic.

21:20Jawad MirIs that the one, I saw the scene on Instagram. I don't know, it has nothing to do with wide, but it was like, before the jibs or the cranes were invented, it was a mass funeral and the camera kind of goes up the building and then over the rope. Is that the same one?

21:35Dan LaustsenThat's a movie. It's called I Am Cuba.

21:38Jawad MirOkay. I Am Cuba. Okay. Okay, I gotta see it now. I've seen that scene, which was, which still blows me away that this is way before all that tech.

21:44Dan LaustsenThe whole movie is like that. The whole movie is like that. And you know, you should see it because it's a masterpiece, and it's shot in '62 in Cuba, and it's, it's, some of the scenes you have no idea how to sh… I would, I don't know what that's, how that's shot.

21:58Jawad MirI'll take a look. I wanna go back to a little bit in your, career. You know, you've been doing this for a while.

22:07Dan LaustsenYeah.

22:07Jawad MirWhat was that, what was that moment, if you remember, in your life that sort of gave you this little bug of whether to be in the film industry or whether to be a DP or both? Do you remember that? Like, what inspired you? Was it a movie? Was it a director?

22:24Dan LaustsenI didn't w… I was not inspired, you know. I was, am educated as a fashion photography. But I was…

22:32Jawad MirOkay

22:32Dan Laustsen... I liked that. When I started, I loved it, but then I moved away from it when I was 19, 20 or something like that, and I was lost. I didn't knew what to do. And I liked to be a National Geographic documentary photography, but, you know, I'm liv… was growing up in a small town in Denmark and I was like, I didn't see that so well. So my sister saw actually advertising in the Danish newspaper about there was opening for advertising in, students to go into the Danish film school, and she said to me, "Why are you not trying that?" And I said, "I don't know about movie making. I don't care. It's not my call." And she, as a big sister does, saying, "Don't be like that, little brother. Just give it a try." So I sent some pictures into the film school for apply to get a student, and a month later, I got a letter, "We want to see you at, to interview." And I was in panic because I didn't, I didn't knew anything about movie making.

23:32Dan LaustsenNever in my whole... Of course, I went to the local cinema to see some movies, but that was like nor… normal comedies. I went to interview and a month later, and I was of course in panic there as well because it says, "What do you know about, what is your favorite cinematographer?" And I didn't knew anything about it. I was like, "Oh." So I got a letter a month later and, "Welcome to the film school. You don't have to go to a test. You know, we like you as you are." Like, what the going on here?

24:01Jawad MirWow.

24:02Dan LaustsenOf course, that was 100% panic, and I was 21

24:07Jawad MirWow

24:08Dan LaustsenAnd I didn't knew anything about movie making. I have never seen a film camera before. I have never done anything. And that was those days we shot on film, of course.

24:15Jawad MirRight.

24:16Dan LaustsenI have a half year, the first half year in the film school I said, "What do I do here?" But I'm a big believer if you love something, you're going to fight for it, and I did that. You know, I was really bad because I didn't knew what I was doing, but I was just fighting into this, and I really loved, I loved the film school because you're doing a lot of mistakes and I think you're getting strong of mistakes. You find your style, you find your way when you are making the mistakes. So I did that a million times. And then the f… I was done in June and I shot my first feature film as a DP in June or July, and I've been doing that since. I've never done anything else. I've never been a camera assistant. I did a little bit camera assistant for a half movie. I was really bad to that. But that is, that is my background. I've been a cinematographer all my whole life, and I love it. But again, you have to make a lot of mistakes to be better.

25:18Jawad MirI couldn't agree with you more. I always share this story when this conversation kind of like, kind of like this comes up. When I was, I took three or four film courses and then I left because it was way too expensive. But my first short film that I did on a Bolex…

25:33Dan LaustsenOh, yeah

25:34Jawad Mir... On the, it was a one min… one-minute stock, black and white. It was completely underexposed. My second film was completely overexposed. And then after that, you know, as you learn, and you make mistakes. And even now, like, you know, I've done... I'm not a DP, but I've done ridiculous amount of camera work, ridiculous amount of editing, but my heart and my everything that I love is, like, writing and directing. Like, that's just the thing. And you, like you said though, I like the word you fight for it because there is uphill battles every single day on it, every single day.

26:02Dan LaustsenThere's uphill battles even on the movies I'm doing right now. You know, every day.

26:05Jawad MirI'm sure you do. Of course. It's always there. It's always there, 100%.

26:10Dan LaustsenNobody wants to force you to do something you don't like. But that's…

26:16Jawad MirWell, you s…

26:17Dan Laustsen... That is, that is the part of being a cinematographer or director, of course. You want to do it as good as you can and you want to do it right, and I think that's the reason it's so great to work together with those amazing directors I'm working together with because there's only one way and that's those guys' ways, and I love it because that's the way…

26:38Jawad MirYeah

26:38Dan Laustsen... It's only one way when you're making a movie. That's the director's, the director's, vision.

26:45Jawad MirW… while working on this film, and I know it's, it's a hard thing to answer, if you can remember, it could be a scene or it could be just a behind the scenes story that you had fun in executing, but also a separate or the same one that was extremely challenging and how you overcame it.

27:04Dan LaustsenI think when the, in Frankenstein when we did the creation of the creature, that was a very complicat… complicated scene to do for me and it was a very complicated scene to understand in the beginning because…

27:16Jawad MirOkay

27:17Dan Laustsen... There were so many variations and you had so many things we want to do in the same time, and I have a little bit hard time to actually figure out exactly how we're going to do it. So, you know, again, you're forcing yourself into something you don't know exactly where you're going because that's like thin ice. And that's again the discussion between Guillermo and me and the other head of department, special effects, visual effects, you know, production design. How are we going to approve this? How are we going to make it? And we have a lot of discussions about a lot of, like, how should it look? And we find a way to do it, and one of the ways was actually when he's coming down, he's running up to the roof and the lighting strikes is starting and the rain is raining like crazy. And then before he's going up to the, to the tower, everything is l… steam is a very big deal of the set. But when he's coming back after he has killed his friend, the steam is disappearing and s… the smoke is disappearing and the smoke is c… getting a much more powerful part of the scene.

28:23Dan LaustsenAnd again, because it's o… organic, because steam is so much more powerful than smoke, and then we're taking all the key lights away and the lighting strikes is going to be the key light. So the whole scene is going to be much more chaotic because it's steam, it's lighting strikes, and of course a combination about it's a very dark scene, but the lighting strikes is i… illuminating his action and it's getting so dramatic, and the final result is, for my money, it's, it's amazing scene. But it, I have a really hard time to figure out in the beginning how should I do it. But, it works pretty well. So…

29:06Jawad MirYeah

29:06Dan Laustsen... It was, it was just very complex because the batteries, for example, we didn't want to have batteries was just plexiglass. We want to have light inside them, but light was not, it was just getting too clean, so we was pumping, smoke into the batteries. So the batteries actually was full of smoke that's moving around, so the light in there was a c… was going, like, organic again. And it's again, we try to do as much as we can for real and we want to do it as organic as possible, and it, that's just a scene where everything is coming into a, the big thing where everything works together.

29:44Jawad MirWow. Incredible. I wanted to also ask you, I'm, I'm forgetting which scene it was, whether it was his laboratory or whether it was, at Elizabeth's fiance's house, but there's gigantic windows and this, obviously it's made to look like it's sunlight. Like, you could see the orange.

30:03Dan LaustsenYeah.

30:04Jawad MirYou know, n… the lighting for that, what kind of lights did you guys use for that? Because… It looked, it looked phenomenally realistic to pass off as a real sun. So…

30:17Dan LaustsenWhen you're on location, I think the scene you're talking about, I think that's in the Highlander's, house, isn't it? The first…

30:25Jawad MirYes

30:26Dan Laustsen... Elizabeth, where she's sitting, standing actually with the painting. That is shot on location somewhere in Sco… in Scotland.

30:35Jawad MirOkay, so that was real?

30:36Dan LaustsenThat's a, that's a location. That's a small castle in Scotland. And that's…

30:42Jawad MirBut w…

30:42Dan LaustsenExcuse me?

30:43Jawad MirSorry, I was gonna say but the, what the, was the light, was it the, was the source of the light, was that like, a light that you guys use or was it…

30:51Dan LaustsenOh, everything, you know, again, we did everything…

30:52Jawad MirRight

30:52Dan Laustsen... Outside. We have a t…

30:54Jawad MirYeah

30:54Dan Laustsen... Tons of cranes with 18Ks on. And then the problem with that when you shoot on location the way we are shooting is like you need to have the key light coming through the windows, but behind the key lights you need to have black so the sun is not coming to interfere with our lights. So you have like a crane with 18Ks coming through the windows and then you have cranes behind the 18Ks to kill the sunlight. So there's a lot of machines out there. There's, there's a little bit chaotic, but it's,... And again, it's, it's... That is l… lit on location and we have, every time we went to a location that was very important for us, we have to find a location where we couldn't have a little bit atmosphere because it's not heavy smoke. It's just a little…

31:36Jawad MirYeah

31:37Dan Laustsen... And so we see the stripes of light coming through. But that is location and it's, it's just heavy 18Ks outside the windows. Sometimes we did, for example, we switch between 18Ks and Dinos. Depends if you want to do a really suns… sunset scene, instead of gelling the 18Ks, I just switch to Dinos. So we have 18, we have, cranes with 18Ks on the top and Dinos on the bottom so we can just change the color there. It's, it's,... And of course you can only do that when you have a fair sized budget because it's, it's lot of equipment.

32:16Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

32:17Dan LaustsenBut it, but it worked well.

32:19Jawad MirNo, it was, it was beautifully lit.

32:21Dan LaustsenThat was shot on loca… thank you. That was shot on location in Scotland. So…

32:25Jawad MirSo t… if I, if I understood you correctly, so you had 18K lights coming into the window, then you had like a black sort of a material on the b…

32:33Dan LaustsenBehind

32:33Jawad Mir... Be… behind it, and then you had another light 18K pointed towards the sun's direction? Is that, is that what you were saying?

32:39Dan LaustsenNo.

32:39Jawad MirOkay.

32:40Dan LaustsenThe 18K is on the crane coming into the windows. But behind just to be... Because we want to control, we don't want to have sun coming into the windows. We just…

32:51Jawad MirRight, because of the lighting will change.

32:53Dan LaustsenYeah. So we have cranes behind the sun, like a big flag that…

32:58Jawad MirI see, I see, okay. Okay

32:59Dan Laustsen... We put like a 20 by 20 or two 20 by 20 frames behind the lights to cut the sun away so we can control our own lights to make that consistent. It's, again, it's a little bit of mach… mach… machinery out there.

33:16Jawad MirYeah.

33:17Dan LaustsenBut it works really well. But that's…

33:19Jawad MirYou know, I... Sorry, go on.

33:21Dan LaustsenBut that is like the way we try to do it. Every time we're on location that's light outside the windows. We never have light inside. But it's just the way it's falling into the window is much more beautiful comparing to when you have to take something inside. But it…

33:35Jawad MirOh, it's, it's a painting. It's a painting

33:37Dan LaustsenAnd we try really to keep everything away from inside because there's... If you bring lights inside a set where you have smoke you're just going to smash the smoke. So for me it's like as much as I can I'm going to keep all lights outside. And because we are shooting so wide angle so we don't have space inside for light as well.

34:00Jawad MirYeah. But that saves you guys time too in terms of like when you're getting coverage and when you're blocking, you're not wa… you know, rearranging the lights within the, within the space that you're working in.

34:12Dan LaustsenOh, because we still, the key light's coming from the same place so we just spin around.

34:16Jawad MirYeah.

34:16Dan LaustsenWe're not changing so much when we are spinning around. So it's, it's…

34:22Jawad MirYeah

34:22Dan Laustsen... And we are spending a lot of time to pre-light. I think pre-light, if you can do that as a cinematographer that's a big help for cinematographer, for the director, for p… set production designer, and for costumes as well. It's just because that's the first time everybody see the scene lit and you s… see maybe that sofa should go over there and, you know. It's, it's just a huge help for everybody if you can afford that, to be pre-lighting because it helps, you mu… shoot much faster. You come into a set that's lit and you just shoot it.

34:53Jawad MirYeah.

34:53Dan LaustsenSo it helps a lot.

34:56Jawad MirAnd also the blocking in the film was incredible. I mean, you know, the way the camera moved with the actors.

35:03Dan LaustsenYeah.

35:03Jawad MirAnd it w… everything was so fluid that it, I never got that sense even though there were so many beautiful moments, beautiful frames, there was never that, the story never went away. Everything was hooked, you know, in terms of the fluidness. And also I… it's, I mentioned this earlier about the chapters, but I think the fact that you root for Frankenstein the second part, and how he is more of a human…

35:32Dan LaustsenYeah

35:32Jawad Mir... Than the actual h… human that created him.

35:35Dan LaustsenSure.

35:35Jawad MirI thought that was just, you know, mesmerizingly beautiful in every sense of the... And there's some beautiful dialogue in there about hate and about rage and all that.

35:43Dan LaustsenFantastic di… dialogue, but that's of course Guillermo who wrote that.

35:47Jawad MirNo, I know. I know. I'm just mentioning that.

35:49Dan LaustsenNo, but we 100% agree. That is…

35:53Jawad MirI wanted to ask you know, you've been in the industry for a while b… but there must be somebody that you, your work, you like their work, you know, whether it's, is there a DP that you sort of look up to or you enjoy watching their work? Or is it kind of like, you know, whatever's good you kind of go with that?

36:15Dan LaustsenNo, you know, there are so many good cinematographers, there's so many good directors, there's so many good production designer I really love to see. And, it's more a… about the movies, I think. You know, for example, Apocalypse Now is one of my favorite movies. It's extremely well done and it's a really cool story, and I love it. I love it. And that's the same when I talked about I'm Cuba before. I think I'm a little bit of a cinematographer nerd. You know, I have to look at movies that looks good.

36:42Dan LaustsenAnd of course, all classic black and whites and there's so many classic movies, so many s… incredible good cinematographers. And for me, it's like you have to take chances all the time. And I think those guys that take the biggest chances, that for me is the most interesting because…

37:02Jawad MirYeah

37:02Dan Laustsen... It's just, again, when you see Godfather, for example, it's really nice. But that's b… it's the story and cinematographers blend so good together. And again, of course, Apoc… Lawrence of Arabia, those massive big movies, it's, it's so beautiful. It's, and it's, and it's just done the way the director and the cinematographer wants to do it. It's not n… it doesn't feel like, "Oh, by the way, we was h… we was lucky that they..." There's nothing wrong with that, but I just like to, I like to be as much in control as possible. And I think there's…

37:39Jawad MirYeah

37:39Dan Laustsen... Th… there's like, there's so many great people out there and I'm really big fan of good m… movie making and good craftsmanship.

37:49Jawad MirYou mentioned Apocalypse Now. Have you seen the documentary Hearts of Darkness?

37:53Dan LaustsenYeah, but I haven't seen it, I haven't seen it for a long time, but, I saw it for many years ago. But again, the director that really wants to make his movie. It's like, you know, there's no, there's no, sidewalk there. He just wants to do it the way he wants to do it and it's…

38:08Jawad MirYeah

38:09Dan Laustsen... Outstanding. And that's the same with Guillermo. You know, he wants to do Frankenstein exactly the way he wants to do it and it's, it's, the way it should be.

38:21Jawad MirI asked you about Apocalypse Now and Hearts of Darkness because there's, they released a 4K version of Hearts of Darkness this year.

38:27Dan LaustsenOh, okay.

38:28Jawad MirI s… I spoke to the editors of that. And then recently, you know, the new Francis Ford Coppola film, Megalopolis, I'm not sure if you've seen.

38:36Dan LaustsenOh, yeah. I've seen it.

38:37Jawad MirSo…

38:37Dan LaustsenLove it

38:37Jawad Mir... Okay. So it's one of those movies that, you know, people talk about like, "What the hell is this?" Or, "What was he trying to do?" But there's a doc that came out, it's called Mega Doc.

38:46Dan LaustsenAh.

38:46Jawad MirIt's similar to Hearts of Darkness. I highly recommend it. It's, it's, and I wish every film set, every film had a behind-the-s… you know, like somebody telling a story, not the making of, like the real authentic stuff. Mike Figgis directed it, the guy who did Last, Leaving Las Vegas. I highly recommend it. You will, you will, you'll love it, I can guarantee you. It's an amazing piece of doc.

39:09Dan LaustsenOh, great. Oh, sure. Oh, cool. Okay.

39:12Jawad MirI, there's a book on, Frankenstein. I think y… you had a little bit of a part in it too or you were probably interviewed, in it

39:23Dan LaustsenI haven't seen. I've, heard about it.

39:24Jawad MirYou haven't seen it.

39:25Dan LaustsenI haven't seen it.

39:26Jawad MirOkay. So it's already out of stock. I couldn't find it online.

39:29Dan LaustsenOh.

39:29Jawad MirWhich is, which is great but it's not great. But you, were you interviewed by the author for that? I think her name is Sheila, if I'm not mistaken.

39:36Dan LaustsenI was. You know, it's so long time ago. I'm…

39:39Jawad MirOh, is it?

39:40Dan LaustsenI'm pretty sure. I don't remember clearly and I haven't seen the book so, but I know somebody had bought it for me. I have a copy somewhere. But I haven't seen…

39:49Jawad MirAwesome

39:49Dan Laustsen... I haven't seen it. I look very much forward to see it because I think that's, again, it's so cool to make those books about movies because I'm a movie nerd as well, but, I think it's great.

40:02Jawad MirYeah. It's all these books I, was... You know, you've tackled so many different genres. Is there a genre and/or a director, that you would love to work with or would love to, love to do a genre, a film in that specific genre that you haven't done?

40:22Dan LaustsenNot really. It's not like I'm dreaming about working together with... You know, they, again, I feel very lucky about working together with Guillermo, Chad and all the other directors I work together with. I would love to do a Western, like a real Western. That could be so cool. But again, for me it's more about the director comparing to the story because I think when you're doing a movie with a director you like and you work together with very good, it's, it's the best of the best. Because when you're working together with directors, you know, you're getting married for half a year, you know, so But you know you're so much together and you just want to be in the same page and I think that is the most important thing. You want to be together with a person you, look up to because you have to do that as a director because a director is so complicated. You know, it's difficult to be a cinematographer, but to be a director, it's pretty complicated and I will never be that, so

41:26Jawad MirWell, you're essentially the captain of the ship, right? You have to…

41:29Dan LaustsenBut I have a lot of respect for, you know, because I think it's, for me it's like relationships. Like everything is a relationship. You know, you want to work together with people you really trust and you love.

41:39Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

41:40Dan LaustsenAnd that's, it's not like, doesn't have to be love, but it's just like you have respect and I think res… respect and, support, that is for me the most important thing to do with a movie. And a lot of people are talking about I like that and that style, but you know, I'm working for the director, he or she, and I've tried to support that person as much as I can and I think that's, that's a cinematographer's most important job, try to tell the story with the director. And I said before, you know, I'm not going to be in the editing room. I have no idea how they're cutting it together. So, but again, I still want to support as much as I can, but I cannot I'm not fighting a director, saying, "It should be like this way," because it's not my call. I'm, if a director calls me and said, "Do you want to help me?" And I think help is support. You still have, you can have your opinion, you can discuss, you can have all that stuff, but that's, if you're coming in... And that's the reason I saying you, it's better to work together with people you l… you like and you know, because they…

42:44Jawad MirYeah

42:45Dan Laustsen... Go into discussions about something. It's, it's just... And whatever Guillermo and, for example, Chad does, you know, I trust them 100%. I think they have a really good taste and they're doing the right thing for the movie.

42:59Dan LaustsenAnd I've worked together with so many diff… different directors, and I've always been super lu… lucky about working together with people that have the same opinion and taste with, and that's, it's, as a cinematographer, that's a dream.

43:12Jawad MirWell, it's also you get a shorthand with these people, right? Like, you, now I, my, I, the DP that I've been working with for the last 15, 16 years, he's a great friend, and I, he and I don't even need to converse too much about what we need to do because he knows what I'm thinking and I know what he's thinking, and…

43:28Dan LaustsenYeah

43:29Jawad Mir... It just, it just synchronizes perfectly, right?

43:32Dan LaustsenYeah. It should be, I think. But you still have discussions about, you know…

43:35Jawad MirOh, yeah. Yeah, of course

43:37Dan Laustsen... Those discussions before you start shooting, because you don't want to stand in the set and be, have a argue about some stupid thing. You wants to be, because it's so, as you know, as a director, it's so stressful to be a director, you know, you can, and I, it's just support. And I think that's cool, but you want su… support on the way. You feel good for yourself as well.

43:57Jawad MirAnd that's what I meant, that when you know somebody, they know your temperament, so they don't take things personally or, you know, why is he or she saying this? You know, you just know each other so well, and it's all about relationships as you mentioned. Everything is about relationship, in this business and in life, too, in general. You know, y… you talked about Guillermo. If you were to describe Guillermo in one word, what would that be?

44:22Dan LaustsenPassion. I think he's passion of everything he l… he does. He love everything what he does so strong, and it's fantastic to be a part of that. It's passion and respect. That is, and I love that.

44:41Jawad MirNo, he seems very enthusiastic about anything that he does. I mean, any interviews that I see, I think one of the most moving moments, that I saw just recently, I don't know which screening he was at, about for Frankenstein, it was among the crowd and this guy made something, that was related to Pinocchio, I think. I think. It was somewhat p… some… something he designed and made…

45:02Dan LaustsenYeah

45:02Jawad Mir... From one of his films. And he took it and he thanked him, and he hugged him, and he said, "You're coming on the set of my next film."

45:10Dan LaustsenOkay.

45:10Jawad MirAnd g… and give me your Instagram handle. He's like, "It's on the back of it." "Okay, we'll reach out to you." Like, you know, he didn't have to do that.

45:16Dan LaustsenNo.

45:17Jawad MirBut it's because his love of cinema and that personality that he has.

45:22Dan LaustsenNo, but you know, again, big directors have this kind of, they have space to give people freedom. But it's still freedom, you know, the way they want to tell the story, because that's the only…

45:35Jawad MirOf course

45:36Dan Laustsen... That's the only way it can happen, a movie, you know? That's…

45:39Jawad MirYeah

45:39Dan Laustsen... The way it should be.

45:41Jawad Mir100%.

45:41Dan LaustsenAs a cinematographer, you know, you can have the best gaffer in the world, but you're just, somebody have to make the decisions. You need, but that's the beauty about movie making. It's a teamwork, you know. You need all the help. Everybody need as much help they can get, for everybody, and I think that's, it's like everybody's working for the movie and for the director, and it's, it's j… I think teamwork is amazing and I love that part of movie making.

46:06Jawad MirI think as a director, you know, even though you're leading the ship, I believe that you need to have people on your team that are a lot better than you in all the other departments than you are, because they're gonna bring the best of the best to your vision, right? Like, you have this vision, you have a story that you wanna tell, and you have to have people who, you know, ego needs to go out the window because it's not gonna go anywhere with that.

46:29Dan LaustsenNo, that's right. So…

46:32Jawad MirSorry, go on, please.

46:34Dan LaustsenOh, no, it's just respect. It's just respect.

46:38Jawad MirI just wanna sort of wrap it up, while you're, you know, obviously there's a lot of buzz I talked about in the beginning about the Oscar nomination, and which I hope you win, and I think you will. What's, is there anything cooking after this project? Or you're taking a break? If there's something that you can talk about.

46:57Dan LaustsenNo, I'm shooting, I'm shooting, Highlander right now with Chad, the director for John Wick.

47:02Jawad MirAh. Is that a remake?

47:05Dan LaustsenYes, it is. So that's big.

47:07Jawad MirAmazing.

47:08Dan LaustsenShooting that in the UK here right now.

47:11Jawad MirAwesome. When is that coming out, sir?

47:14Dan LaustsenI, actually, I don't know. And if w… if I knew it, I could not tell you. I don't know. I j…

47:21Jawad MirI thought I should try. That's okay.

47:23Dan LaustsenYeah.

47:23Jawad MirWell, I'm looking forward to that. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this, and thank you so much for putting out some beautiful visuals. Even though it's Guillermo's story and everything, still, you know, you're, you're the cinematographer. And, I truly enjoyed my conversation with you. I would love to chat with you, again, perhaps about John Wick or Highlander or both, maybe sometime next year whenever you have time. I'll reach out to your agent. But it was, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much, sir.

47:54Dan LaustsenThank you. Have a nice evening. Thank you very much.

47:56Jawad MirYou too. Take care.