'The Brothers Sun', Cinematographer, C. Kim Miles

0:08Kim MilesIs that a different room than last time? That's looks more art-directed than last time.

0:14Jawad MirWell, I think at that time it was probably I was looking at the laptop. Now I have, like, a proper…

0:20Kim MilesOh, cool

0:20Jawad Mir... Setup. Yeah. How have you been? How were your holidays?

0:23Kim MilesVery well, very well. Very good. And you?

0:26Jawad MirGreat, man. Great. What'd you, what'd you guys do, just, family?

0:30Kim MilesYeah, we were just down in Palm Springs visiting friends and stuff, and it was a friend's anniversary so off we went. Yeah. Yeah, it was good.

0:36Jawad MirThat's awesome, man. That's awesome.

0:38Kim MilesYeah.

0:39Jawad MirWell, thank you for joining, man. I really enjoyed, as I said to you in the email, really enjoyed the series, The Brother's Sun, which was…

0:47Kim MilesCool

0:48Jawad Mir... It's funny, I s… I saw the trailer a while ago, but I didn't really know that you had worked on it.

0:53Kim MilesOh, yeah.

0:53Jawad MirAnd I think at the time you were probably working on it w… when we spoke last. Was it, would that be right to assume?

1:00Kim MilesNo, it would've been after, I think. I was done, Brother Sun, I think we wrapped in October of '22.

1:08Jawad MirOkay.

1:08Kim MilesSo it's been a long time in post-production. And, I think the last time we talked I was in Atlanta doing a, doing a movie with Bobby Farrelly.

1:15Jawad MirRight. That's right.

1:16Kim MilesYeah.

1:16Jawad MirThat's right.

1:17Kim MilesYeah.

1:17Jawad MirWell, awesome.

1:18Kim MilesYeah.

1:18Jawad MirWell, tell me how you got on board on this. I mean, I would love to know the story behind that because you had a great story with Robert Zemeckis, so I'm hoping for something similar.

1:27Kim MilesWell, it's sort of similar. Yeah, I guess. You know, everything unfolds in a different way. I had done, a YouTube, web series based on the Mortal Kombat franchise way…

1:41Jawad MirOkay

1:41Kim Miles... Back in, like, 2012 or 2013, I think, sometime back then. Maybe even before that. And I'd interviewed for it. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't a Mortal Kombat fanboy or anything.

1:52Jawad MirYeah.

1:52Kim MilesBut I'd met with the director, Kevin Tancharoen, who was the young, very young Thai, American director, I guess, of Thai descent. Super good guy.

2:04Jawad MirYeah.

2:04Kim MilesBut he was, like, a big Mortal Kombat fan. And I was…

2:07Jawad MirRight

2:07Kim Miles... You know, I'd interviewed because, 'cause I think I knew the line producer, and, but I, at the time, I had a bunch of movies of the week. I didn't have a whole lot of, you know, a lot of weight behind my resume. And I know that he'd interviewed some heavy hitters in town to do the show and, anyway, so I hadn't heard anything back and I was getting antsy and I, like, I needed a job and I really wanted to do that one. So I sent them an email and said, "Look, you know, I know you're interviewing some bigger names, but maybe you'll get more value out of, out of me because I've got more to prove than some of these other guys, you know? And I'll do it for whatever."

2:44Jawad MirRight.

2:44Kim Miles"I don't, I don't care about the money and all that." And unbeknownst to me, they were actually out to, somebody else, and they were, I think they were having some trouble with, rates and stuff. And Kevin said, "You know what? Let's just go with this guy. Let's just go with this guy. It's easier. It solves a lot of problems." So that's how Kevin and I met, and then, and then we, got along really well. Super good guy. And, he and I crossed paths occasionally on Flash and Arrow, when I was doing those shows. He came and directed a couple episodes.

3:16Jawad MirYeah.

3:16Kim MilesAnd then, so we always kept in touch and then he said, "Hey, do you wanna come to LA and do a, and do a, an Asian-centric, TV show for, or a show for Netflix?" And I was like, "Yeah, totally." 'Cause, you know, always felt, my mom's Chinese, so we've always felt kind of underrepresented in the, in the business and so on. And I was like, "Yeah, totally." And, he said, "It's, you know, it's kind of, Crazy Rich Asians meets John Wick" was the pitch. And he said, "But we're gonna lean very heavily into the Asian side of things. You know, there's gonna be a mama-son kinda character that, is the matriarch of the whole series." And so there's a lot of, a lot of through stories that touched on a lot of, Asian, upbringing, beats, you know? There we were gonna talk about food and all this, you know, everything in Malaysia at least, and China and stuff always centers around food, so food was gonna be a big character in the, in the show.

4:17Kim MilesSo all the things that he was saying were very interesting, and plus it was an opportunity to work in LA, and do a show down there, which I hadn't done.

4:25Jawad MirRight.

4:26Kim MilesAnd to work with Kevin, who's a really good friend of mine. So yeah, so I said, "Yeah, let's, let's do it." And after a bit of, trials and tribulations with work visas and, union, waiver forms and stuff, it all kinda worked out.

4:42Jawad MirSuper, man. And you know what one of the cool things about this, the series is, I mean, I'm not gonna talk much about it, but just to kinda give you the flavor, the moment it opens up and the f… the name of the city comes up in Taiwan, right? T… Taipei.

4:58Kim MilesYeah.

4:59Jawad MirAnd the font and the color and the music, I kid you not, I was like I was watching Kill Bill. Like, it was, it just had that vibe to it, and it kept that vibe throughout but by keeping its authenticity at the same time.

5:12Kim MilesYeah

5:12Jawad Mir... And it was really fun. You know, even the opening sequence, the cooking and the…

5:17Kim MilesYeah

5:17Jawad Mir... You know, you know what, you know what happens then after that, right? And it was, it was…

5:20Kim MilesYeah

5:20Jawad Mir... Really well executed. And one thing…

5:22Kim MilesOh

5:23Jawad Mir... I think you and I have sorta talked about this maybe, I know I talk about this almost every episode on the podcast when I s… I speak to a DP, is the idea of keeping to the wides. I mean, this was shot anamorphic, but at the same time, it wasn't like, you know, cut. Like, there was a lot of times you could see that the fight choreography was really well executed, and it was shown on the camera as it was happening instead of hiding it with cuts. So that was really cool…

5:49Kim MilesYeah

5:49Jawad Mir... I thought.

5:50Kim MilesYeah, that was something that was, that we wanted to address right away, and that, and that actually had its roots back in Mortal Kombat. We had a stunt coordinator named Larnell Stovall on Mortal Kombat that was very much in tune with the Hong Kong… Approach to action filmmaking as opposed to the Hollywood approach. Which is to say that you sit back and you enjoy the choreography of the fight and you see it all unfold, you know, on the screen rather than relying on, stutter cuts and, you know, cut to emphasize the action. You know? Th… there's a, there's kind of a purity to that's, that's a lot more enticing, you know? And, so that was something that we wanted right from the beginning. And, yeah, after the, after the cooking, the opening cooking thing, that was, that was a mandate that we had, right away, was to keep shots continuous and in single sequences as much as we could.

6:53Kim MilesOf course, that, you know, eventually became, a little bit, diluted as we went along, but you know, we tried as much as we could to stay wide and show off the…

7:02Jawad MirYeah

7:02Kim Miles... Choreography. There's a, there's a really great, video that on YouTube that if you, if you look it up from Jackie Chan, and he talks about the difference between Hong Kong filmmaking and Hollywood filmmaking. And it's all about story and all about how you build the cut. You build the choreography to work with the cut rather than relying on the cut to alter the choreography. And…

7:26Jawad MirRight

7:26Kim Miles... It's re… it's a really interesting, video to watch because he's, you know, he's, he's almost, like, lamenting how Hollywood does it. You know, he's like, you know, there's, there's... When you watch a Hong Kong fight sequence, you're always, y… there's always comedy to it. There's always choreography. There's always, it's a dance, you know? And you always end up rooting for the underdog, and it's always the underdog that gets beaten and beaten and beaten, and then he comes up with something clever and triumphs at the end. And…

7:55Jawad MirYeah

7:55Kim Miles... Whereas in Hollywood, you know, it's, it's cut. You know, you start losing track of what's going on, and then sooner or later, somebody pulls out a gun or somebody blows something up, and it's over in a massive act of violence that doesn't really satisfy you know, on a soulful level. So it's a really interesting video to watch. So we took that to heart and really wanted to embrace choreography and stay wide and be respectful of all the work that went into it, you know, from the stunt guys.

8:26Jawad MirYeah. No, I'll check that out. Another place it was, I mean, there were a few other spots, but the one that stood out for me was the opening, and then I think it was episode seven or six. I won't say what happened, but I'll just give you the setting, and you'll figure it out.

8:41Kim MilesYeah.

8:41Jawad MirThe golf ball and the…... The sequence in that.

8:44Kim MilesYeah.

8:45Jawad MirThat was insane. I mean, that, the shot of… Yeah. Yeah, that was really... I mean, I had to watch it again just to kinda appreciate it way more…

8:53Kim MilesYeah

8:53Jawad Mir... 'cause it just had so much in it. You have to watch those sequences more than once to understand what went behind making them.

9:00Kim MilesYeah, that actually was a sequence that Andrew Mitchell, the alternate DP, that was one of his episodes.

9:06Jawad MirOh, okay. Okay.

9:07Kim MilesAnd Justin Yu, our stunt coordinator, who was absolutely unbelievable. Justin comes from a really great pedigree. He's, he's part of the gang that did, the John Wick movies. He's part of the gang that did the…

9:19Kim Miles... Fast and Furious movies. So he's got a huge resume and a, and a really solid grasp of what, you know, what's necessary and what's not necessary to tell the story. And right from the beginning, he was, you know, he said, "You know, this sequence we really wanna use, we wanna do it the way that it ended up being done." I'm trying not to give anything away.

9:39Jawad MirYeah

9:39Kim Miles... And at first, at first I was like, "You know, it's not my episode and I don't really have a pony in the race," but my concern at first was that, doing it that way maybe would draw too much attention to the camera. I thought that maybe it was, you know, it became about the process and not so much about the choreography. And then when I saw it, I was like, there was still a little bit of that, I thought in the back of my mind, but it was, it's so entertaining and so much fun. It's like, you know, you just dispel all of…

10:13Jawad MirYeah

10:13Kim Miles... Those concerns and just go with it, right? Yeah.

10:16Jawad MirYeah. And I think it's also the context behind that sequence…

10:20Kim MilesYeah

10:20Jawad Mir... Right? Like, what's, what the character's kinda going through. You kind of feel that in that movement and the camera work.

10:26Kim MilesYeah. Yeah.

10:26Jawad MirIt's so crappy I, we can't talk about the scenes, but I mean, I would love to. But having said that, and I know sometimes what happens with series is that, you know, there's, sometimes there's two DP. I mean, sometimes there's... I know my DP sometimes has worked on series for Disney, where it was, there were, like, seven or eight DPs because of locations and times and, you know, availability…

10:50Kim MilesRight

10:50Jawad Mir... And all that. Was that something similar to this? Was it, was it your availability or was there another…

10:55Kim MilesNo, it was,.. No. When Kevin asked me to come aboard, he said, "You know, I'm doing..." He was gonna do five of the eight episodes he was directing…

11:06Jawad MirYeah

11:06Kim Miles... In addition to being the producing director on the show. And he said, "Can you just come and do my episodes?" 'Cause I know, like, from experience before, doing all the episodes gets, you get underwater really quickly, especially on a show like, that's as involved as this with all the choreography and all the, all the prep that you have to do to keep it alive. So we decided, "You know, I'll do all of Kevin's episodes," and, Brad Falchuk, our producer, had a long relationship with Andrew Mitchell. Andrew was a, was an operator on Glee and, American Horror Story, and he'd started shooting episodes of American Horror Story for Brad, and he was very impressed with his work. So Brad wanted to give him the opportunity to come aboard, and I was like, "Yeah, great, you know, let's bring Andrew on." And then, so Andrew did, let me see, three, one, see, I did one, two, I can't remember which e… but six and s… five and six and seven, I think, or something like that. Four, six, and seven. I can't remember.

12:00Jawad MirOkay.

12:00Kim MilesBut, yeah. S… so it works out well 'cause it's, you're kinda sharing the load a little bit 'cause it's…

12:05Jawad MirYeah

12:05Kim Miles... It's such a busy show. And it's, it's almost necessary, I think, in a show like that.

12:12Jawad MirYeah.

12:12Kim MilesYou know? So yeah.

12:14Jawad MirYeah, I mean, I know the, I don't know if you have seen the series, Monarch, Legacy of Monsters by Apple TV+.

12:21Kim MilesYeah.

12:22Jawad MirIt, I think it has eight or 10 episodes, I forget. And then not only they have a different TDP, but they just literally have different directors for every three episodes. They had, like…

12:32Kim MilesYeah

12:32Jawad Mir... From one to three, one director, four to six, another, and six to eight…

12:35Kim MilesYeah

12:35Jawad Mir... Another, and eight, nine, 10. Because yeah…

12:37Kim MilesYeah

12:37Jawad Mir... You're right, I mean, it does, it does take up on a lot, a… and it is. I mean, it's, like, 50 minutes episodes times eight. That's, like, almost, like, four feature films, right? So…

12:47Kim MilesYeah. Yeah

12:48Jawad Mir... More or less. One thing I mean, there were so many things that I can talk about. But, you know, just to be generic about the fact that the series was so grounded, and that is something I'm so glad to see it slowly kind of sneaking back into movies and series where there's not too much, you know, side stories. Everything is kinda, like, connected to just one story. And it's…

13:13Kim MilesYeah

13:13Jawad Mir... So, the relationships between the siblings and the mom and, you know, tho… those are... I don't even think that has any cultural bar… barrier. I think that's a universal appeal. And it really, it really spoke a lot, and I think it hooks you on, besides the action and the choreography, the relationships really hook you on from the beginning. When you read the script, was that something that, I mean, aside from you wanting to be on the show, you know, was that something really that spoke to you at a personal level at all?

13:45Kim MilesYeah, very much. You know, the whole... It's funny 'cause we went into it thinking, oh, you know, the food thing is a uniquely Asian thing. The m… the mama running the show is a uniquely Asian thing. And then now that people are starting to see it, we're, we're discovering that it's not a uniquely Asian thing. It's like everybody, every culture has a matriarchal, you know, aspect to it. Every culture, re… revolves around food, you know? So it is a lot more accessible to other cultures than I, at least I originally thought. So yeah, but ve… very much so that was, that was, a huge thing. And we didn't know we had Michelle when I signed on, so I was always, you know, super excited about who that was gonna be playing Mama San.

14:26Kim MilesBut, yeah, all the, like Kevin was just saying all the right things, you know? It's, it's, it's, it's about Ma… you know, you could be, you could be the biggest gangster, as this show shows, you could be the biggest gangster in Taipei and, you know, head of the, head of the triad and all that and throw your weight around, you know, internationally, but when Mama says, "Hey, sh… shut up," and it's t… you know, "Sit down," everything stops, right? So

14:51Jawad MirYeah

14:51Kim Miles... So that was something that was really cool. The show, like you say, it's grounded. It's, it's honest to itself. It's able to laugh at itself, I think, which is fun. That's something we haven't seen, in a long time, I think, you know, culturally. When you, when you do a show that's, that's, that caters to a particular culture like this one, you know, caters to the Asian market a little bit more consciously than other shows.

15:13Jawad MirOf course.

15:14Kim MilesSo often, so often lately you get a show that tries to amalgamate that culture into the greater consciousness rather than playing towards that culture and l… laughing at it and laughing with it and, you know, appreciating it for all of its flaws as well. And that's, that's what this show tries to do, is be honest to the, to the people in it and to the characters and not make them into these crazy Hollywood stereotypes and just let them be, you know, just let them be people and, that are going through some rather extraordinary circumstances.

15:50Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, no, it clearly, it clearly came across very vividly. You know, working on this series, the five episodes that you worked on, what was, what was the biggest challenge in terms of executing a scene, whether it's through because of choreography's marriage with the camera work, or whether it's just lighting or emotions of characters with the camera?

16:16Kim MilesYeah. It's, on this show, the biggest challenge is always time. You know, it's, it's, this kind of level of choreography and storytelling takes a lot of effort and a lot of prep to get it, you know, to achieve it in the, in the number of days allotted. I can't remember what we d… I think we did nine or 10 days per episode, so it was a really tight schedule.

16:38Jawad MirThat is tight.

16:40Kim MilesYeah. The fight choreography was always, like I remember going to work on days when we had a big fight sequence to do and thinking, "You know, I'm excited to do this, but boy, we got a lot of work to do." And there was always this kind of conflict of, excitement and dread when we had a big fight sequence. And to, Justin Yoo's our stunt coordinator, he always built more than we needed. He always built, you know, sequences that were much more elaborate that had, you know, eight or 10 beats in the fight sequence that weren't on the, on the script page. Just so that we had the luxury of being able to go, "Hey, we really like that beat. Let's, let's replace the one that's in the script with this one, or let's get rid of that one." and it created kind of an embarrassment of wealth in terms of the choreography of the fight sequences. The downside to that, of course, is that you've got 50% more fight sequence to shoot, than you originally planned. So there was a lot of decisions that had to be made on set on the day, "Hey, you know, let's watch the blocking, see the fight sequence.

17:44Kim MilesOkay, that's great. We're not gonna have time for all that, so let's get rid of this sequence. Let's get rid of this chunk of it. Let's get rid of that, and let's play that one up a little bit more," you know? So it was always time versus choreography versus trying to, when it was, emotional sequences, to give the cast, you know, as much time as they needed for the emotional beats. The cast is, was great. Like, they're, they're just such a great bunch of people. A lot of them are newer actors. You know, Justin Chien and Sam Song Li, are, C… I don't wanna say unknowns, but they're, you know, they're, they're very much at the beginning of their careers now and, you know, it... I'm so excited for them 'cause it's, it's gonna look really great for them. And to watch that on a show like this, you get, that's, that's based around a family. That family unit tends to just by default start forming amongst the cast. So once Michelle was there, it very much became the family unit, you know? And watching Michelle bring her years of experience and knowledge to the table and nurture the younger cast into, you know, into building what they needed to build to arrive at their characters was so great.

18:55Kim MilesAnd then of course, she has this incredible, history in martial arts and choreography too. So she was, like, the perfect matriarchal, figure for the whole show, you know? And then of course, she's Malaysian. I'm Malaysian. So, that was, that was one of the best parts of it for me, was that, you know, she's our national treasure as far as we're concerned in Malaysia, right? Oscar winner and all that, so.

19:20Jawad MirYeah.

19:21Kim MilesYeah.

19:21Jawad MirYeah, no, it's so interesting that you me… talk about Michelle. You know, I mean, first of all, she still looks the same as she did in Crouching Tiger…... Hidden Dragon, which was 25 years ago or something like that. But, th… that element of her caliber of actress that she is, and along with all the newcomers, like Justin was phenomenal. I think he was…

19:41Kim MilesYeah

19:42Jawad Mir... His acting was absolutely incredible in the entire series. That really came across in the characters too, that she literally held…

19:50Kim MilesYeah

19:50Jawad Mir... Not that everybody else didn't do their job. They did, but she was the glue that brought them all together, not only as an actress, but the, also the mother character.

19:59Kim MilesYeah.

19:59Jawad MirAnd it was just, it was just, incredible to see. The characters were so cool that there was opposites of... You know, that's the way it's supposed to be, like, where you create conflict, right, in one character…

20:09Kim MilesYeah

20:09Jawad Mir... In the story. And it was just, it was perfect. It was... And the casting was awesome. And yeah, I mean, at, and again, going back to the d… cinematography, the, what was, what was the toughest scene to light? I mean, I know, I know we can't talk about scenes, but just something that you'd wanna give me example of that was, that took the longest, whether it was from lighting standpoint or also making sure that, because choreography there's so much movement, and the camera is moving too. So you have to make sure that the lighting is, you know…

20:39Kim MilesYeah

20:39Jawad Mir... Hitting the spots. How…

20:41Kim MilesYeah

20:41Jawad Mir... Anything that you can share in that realm?

20:44Kim MilesI think the... Yeah, they were all sort of uniformly tricky. The, I think the most, not troublesome, but the most complicated one was the first fight sequence in, at Mama San's house in LA. When the g… when the giant shows up. That, I think it was because, mostly because it was d… it was, like, week one of camera for the entire season, and we were starting with a massive fight sequence. And we were on a stage. That house, interior was a, was a set build on stage. And I think that was a tricky one because we'd, we'd very consciously made a decision, early on in production design to build sets that weren't necessarily movie sets that you could just easily pull a wall to, you know, to cheat and get camera positions where you, where you needed to.

21:46Kim MilesWe wanted to have, you know, to sort of keep that sort of vibe that we're in a practical location, and we're actually handcuffed by some of the restraints that you would be on a natural location, on an actual location instead of, instead of having the convenience of being able to remove set, you know, set pieces to get the camera where we want it to be. So that kind of bit us in the, in the behind on that first week when we were trying to do this fight sequence. But, you know, we were heavily storyboarded. We knew the choreography. We knew everything, how it was gonna be. We had a lighting strategy for that house. One of the fun things that we were playing with, in the house you'll notice that there's a really bright, streetlight outside the kitchen window…

22:29Jawad MirYeah

22:29Kim Miles... Like super orange, super sodium.

22:31Jawad MirAl… it's always on. It's always on.

22:32Kim MilesYeah. It's always on. And the backstory, the backstory that I made up with Kevin was that, well, first of all, we needed something dramatic to really drive that room. So the sodium light was kinda interesting against the color of the moonlight that we brought in for the rest of the... But we were like, "Well, how do we justify this light source?" And we're like, "I know what it is." It's, it's, it was the house on the, when Mama San comes to LA with Bruce to find a house. This was the house in the San Gabriel Valley that nobody else was buying because there's a streetlight right outside that…... That sends this super orange light. So nobody wanted it 'cause it was super obnoxiously lit. But she managed to get it for a good price because of the, because of the streetlight right there.

23:17Jawad MirThat's awesome.

23:18Kim MilesSo that's the backstory to the, to the house. But yeah, that sequence was a very early, like, wake-up, situation for us. You know, like, "Hey, this is the level of, fight choreography we wanna deliver. This is what it's gonna take, and this is how complicated it's gonna be." So we, that was definitely the more, the most complicated, I think, sequence of the whole thing. And we ended up kind of parsing out little bits of it and continuing to shoot them over the course of the season because it was, it was evolving in the cut, and it was, it was,.. We were discovering things about that philosophy of being, of staying wide and letting things play. We were discovering things about that maybe handcuffed the editors a little bit too much. So we did end up going back and shooting more inserts here and there just to, just to help, you know, the pacing and the cut…

24:10Jawad MirYeah

24:11Kim Miles... A… as the, as the devel… as the, as the edit was coming together. So luckily, that was a standing set On a, on a stage. We were able to have the luxury of looking at the cut and then going, "Okay, let's go back and do, you know, this little sequence over, or let's, you know, let's pick up a couple of beats of that sequence to help with the cut." So, but yeah, that was definitely the toughest.

24:35Jawad MirRight. And working with Kevin, how was that any different than any of the previous directors that you worked with? Not trying to draw a comparison, just, you know, because you worked with Zemeckis and you worked with, you worked on the show, White Lotus. What was working with him like? What was so different about it?

24:55Kim MilesKe… I think m… the biggest difference is that we're friends from before. Like, we, you know, we have a shorthand. We l… all like the same, we both like the same things. We enjoy… ... Framing and lighting and camera movement in the same ways, and we're always kinda challenging each other to, you know, "Hey, let's, why don't we try this? Let's, let's do that." You know, "Oh, that's crazy, but let's, let's give it a try. You know, what could go wrong?" So I think we're always challenging one another and always, keen to do something different, but we both put story above everything else. And, I think that's the most important thing, you know? Like, it's, it's, it's not uncommon that you, that you meet a director that puts, sometimes puts the style of what we're trying to achieve ahead of story, and sometimes that happens consciously, sometimes that's, that's an unconscious thing.

25:50Kim MilesAnd it's always a slippery slope when that starts to happen, right? And you start losing touch with the, with the narrative…

25:55Jawad MirStory

25:56Kim Miles... In favor of the visuals.

25:57Jawad MirYeah.

25:57Kim MilesRight? And so Kevin and I are always very, motivated by the, by what's happening in the story. And we have a shorthand. You know, we've been working together for so long that there's a shorthand between us that we, you know, it saves us a lot of talking on set where we can just kind of figure it out.

26:15Jawad MirYeah.

26:15Kim MilesHe trusts, yeah. He trusts me to... You know, we'll, we'll block the scene, and we'll look at it, and we'll decide, "Okay, we wanna do it from this side." And he'll be like, "Okay, y… you know, let's go. Go set it up. I'll go talk to the actors." And then we'll build it, and it's, you know, 9 times out of 10 he likes what we built and, you know, we don't have any of that conflict that you get sometimes when a director has a different vision of what was…

26:37Jawad MirYeah

26:37Kim Miles... What was supposed to go on, you know? So yeah.

26:40Jawad MirYeah, no, that is, the shorthand element is so, beneficial because nine out of ti…

26:48Kim MilesYeah

26:48Jawad Mir... Nine times out of 10, most people, like in a, in a relationship with DP and director, they would put that element of story above their egos, right? Like that…

26:58Kim MilesYeah. Yeah

26:58Jawad Mir... Sometimes that does happen, like one out of 10. But, you know, b… another challenge working with a friend is that, like, am I able to express the way I want to without... You know what I mean? Like bo…

27:11Kim MilesYeah

27:11Jawad Mir... In both direction without…

27:14Kim MilesYeah

27:15Jawad Mir... Coming across as egotistical. But I guess with your relationship with Kevin, that probably doesn't even come into perspective because you have known each other for a while, and that shorthand element kicks in very quickly and efficiently.

27:27Kim MilesYeah, and we both like the same things. Like, we're both motivated by the same things. We both like the same things visually, so it's, it's, it's a much easier, much smoother process for us.

27:36Jawad MirYeah.

27:36Kim MilesAnd Kevin preps really hard. You know, like, we spend a lot of time looking at clips from other movies, taking inspiration from stuff that we both like and, really kind of breaking things down and seeing how other people do things, what works, what doesn't work, you know, what we can kind of pilfer and apply to what we're trying to do but still kinda keep it our own and not, and not, you know, just…

28:01Jawad MirYeah

28:01Kim Miles... Cut and paste from other stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

28:03Jawad MirSure. What were some of the movies that you guys looked at just for inspiration, though?

28:09Kim MilesOh, things like, a lot of, like, Wong Kar-wai stuff. Grandmaster, Crouching Tiger we couldn't help but look at. Kill Bill. It's funny you mentioned Kill Bill, 'cause Kill Bill, it definitely came across the screen a few times.

28:25Jawad MirYeah.

28:26Kim MilesBut things like that. And it wasn't necessarily always entire movies. Sometimes it was just a clip from something that was interesting…

28:33Jawad MirYeah

28:33Kim Miles... Or, but, yeah, lots and lots of stuff. But a lot of, a lot of, Hong Kong types, a lot of Jackie Chan. You know, we'd be sitting la... There were times where we would just put Jackie Chan stuff on and just sit and giggle at it 'cause it was, you know, so much fun to watch. And you know, but it gets into your... Just watching it gets into your, into your blood a little bit.

28:55Jawad MirYeah.

28:55Kim MilesAnd it helps you with the process. Yeah.

28:58Jawad MirOne of the things I find interesting, and it's a, it's a, you know, it's a cultural thing, right? So there is that element of rep… of making sure that whatever you're showing from a specific culture in whatever movie or series, it's, it's, it's closer to the truth with some creative, you know, liberties.

29:19Jawad Mir... But at the same time what happens is, like you and I, you know, yes, we have different backgrounds, but we've been here for a long time.

29:28Kim MilesYeah.

29:28Jawad MirSo there's that. We're, we're, we're kind of like a bridge, sometimes kind of like falling on this side, sometimes falling on that side. And that happens with movies. Like, I remember when Crazy Rich… Crazy Rich Asians came out, or any movie that comes out that's made in Hollywood about a different culture, a lot of people appreciate it, but there will always be, you know, some that may not. D… do you feel, you know, with your background that you have as a Malaysian, like, do you feel this film... No, sorry, this series will be liked by a lot of people from that background in terms of ethnicity and culture?

30:04Kim MilesI think so. You know, it's, it's, Malaysia prides itself, on having a place on the world stage. That's a very important thing to

30:14Jawad MirYeah

30:15Kim Miles... Not only to Malaysian politicians, but to, you know, to the general public. They like to be the... You know, it's, it's such a cultural…... Melting pot in Malaysia. And there's so much Western influence that pours into the country. And to be, for once, on the world stage and to be able to present a little bit of Malaysia to the rest of the world, I think is important, to the culture. Michelle, of course, is the, is the greatest ambassador of that. But no, Malaysian culture has always been, I'd say to people when they ask, you know, "What's it like there?" 'Cause there's, you know, there's so much, m… there's so many different races and so, you know, everything's so different. And my response is always that, you know, it's the most, it's the most harmonious, racist country in the world. Like, everybody's... And I mean that in a kind of a loving way, you know? It's, it's a culture that's still able to not take itself too seriously, and it's, you know, the three major ethnit… ethnicities in Malaysia are the Malay people, the Chinese people, and the, and the Indian population.

31:23Jawad MirYeah.

31:24Kim MilesAnd everybody gets along. You know, you spend holiday seasons visiting. You know, you go to your Indian friends' places for Deepavali. And e… everybody embraces everybody else's culture. Everybody else is able to, l… you know, you're able to laugh at yourself, you're able to laugh at one another, and it just works, and everybody gets along, you know? And nowadays there's so much, there's so many walls that people put up to separate us versus them, and that's something that hasn't happened in Malaysia, at least not on the level that it has happened elsewhere in the world. So I think…

32:00Kim Miles... I think this, yeah, Malaysians love Malaysians, seeing other Malaysians doing well. You know? And to have Michelle Yeoh go to LA and beat the place up is gonna, I think is gonna resonate really well. Yeah.

32:19Jawad MirThat's awesome.

32:20Kim MilesYeah.

32:20Jawad MirI, it's funny you mention that Malaysians don't take them serious… themselves seriously. I think,.. Did I was, did I tell you I was in Malaysia last year?

32:29Kim MilesNo.

32:29Jawad MirFor the first story.

32:30Kim MilesOh, great.

32:30Jawad MirI was, I was there for, a screening of my film.

32:35Kim MilesYeah.

32:35Jawad MirAnd, one of the thing, we were staying right, in the center. You know where that big mall is

32:42Kim MilesMid Valley? Yeah

32:43Jawad Mir... Where you... Yeah. So somebody said we need to go s… try this fruit. And I don't know how to pronounce, is it, is it durian? Is that how you pronounce it?

32:52Kim MilesDurian, yeah.

32:52Jawad MirYeah, durian.

32:53Kim MilesYeah.

32:53Jawad MirAnd it's supposed to be the worst fruit of all time, right? It stinks. And I'm like, "Okay, how bad can it be?" So right from the city where it was all high-rises, we got into the street, it was all, like, market, and we sat on a bench…

33:06Kim MilesYeah

33:06Jawad Mir... And they brought the fruit, and then the first thing I did was I smelled it.

33:10Kim MilesYeah.

33:10Jawad MirAnd it smelled really bad. But, you know, just to have that experience. I actually had half of the fruit, which was surprising.

33:18Kim Mileshuh. Yeah.

33:19Jawad MirBut it w… they just... And they knew that it sucked. Like, you know, they said it is gonna be really bad. So that, when you said that, it just kinda, you know, reminded me that how they were just making fun of their own fruit, which is so im… important to make fun of yourself because…

33:31Kim MilesYeah

33:31Jawad Mir... Then that's, that way you're free, and everybody's kinda, like, relaxed and they can connect to you very easily.

33:36Kim MilesYeah. I agree. And it is the king of fruit. It's, it's, durian. There's different species of durian.

33:43Jawad MirOkay.

33:44Kim MilesBut, yeah, there's certain ones that are just un… It's definitely an acquired, an acquired taste.

33:50Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

33:51Kim MilesBut

33:53Jawad MirIt w… it was, it was bad.

33:56Kim MilesIt's kind of, you know, you've been…

33:57Jawad MirBut I will te…

33:57Kim MilesYou've been... Sorry, go ahead.

33:59Jawad MirNo, please, go ahead. Go ahead.

34:01Kim MilesI was gonna say you've been indoctrinated then. If you've had durian then you've been accepted into the, into the culture there, so good for you.

34:10Jawad MirYeah, no, it was, it was actually really cool. I mean, I spent five, six days there, mostly in the city.

34:15Kim MilesYeah.

34:16Jawad MirI didn't really go... I wish I could go elsewhere, but it was just busy with, three screenings. But it was just such a, it was such a worldly city. Like, you know, you could, y…

34:26Kim MilesYeah

34:26Jawad Mir... I, y… you, I just felt that I kind of belonged there…

34:31Kim MilesYeah

34:31Jawad Mir... In the sense that nobody kinda looked at you in a strange way. And the food, oh my God. Holy crap. I mean, just the, I mean, I remember going into the food court, and we're kinda going off topic, but that's okay. Food court, and there was, like, literally over 50 different choices of different ethnicity of food.

34:50Kim MilesYeah.

34:50Jawad MirLike, it was just cra… I couldn't even figure out what to eat. But when I did…... It was phenomenal. It was phenomenal.

34:55Kim MilesYeah.

34:55Jawad MirThe food was amazing.

34:55Kim MilesYeah, it's, it's f… yeah, the food's a huge thing there, so that's great. No, I'm glad you had a good time there.

35:02Jawad MirYeah. Going back to The Brothers, Sun, what was one thing that may have... Have you seen the final cut of the entire series yet?

35:16Kim MilesYeah. Yep.

35:16Jawad MirOkay.

35:17Kim MilesYep.

35:17Jawad MirWas there anything specific, without talking about it, that you wished from a creative sense point, not necessarily story, but just the camera visual, that got cut out that you wish it hadn't? Was there anything like that at all?

35:30Kim MilesOh. There's always stuff like that.

35:35Jawad MirYeah.

35:35Kim MilesNothing particularly stands out on this one. There is, there is one particular fight sequence that I wish we'd done differently overall, without, the one with

35:48Jawad MirWas it, was it in the beginning of the episodes or the later on?

35:52Kim MilesIt was, I think, episode three. I think it's the, it's the one that happens on the pool deck, that

36:02Jawad MirOh, the…

36:02Kim MilesYeah

36:02Jawad Mir... The outfits they're wearing?

36:03Kim MilesYes. I just wish that,.. That location beat us up pretty good in terms of sun direction and all that. And I think that is the one thing that I wish we could, I could redo if I had to. But ... But no, there's nothing that... Y… you know, you always…

36:21Jawad MirYeah

36:21Kim Miles... Initially think that you're missing something. "Oh, why didn't they use that shot?" But then when you look at the assembly it's like, "Oh, okay, well, that, it, that's why they didn't use it." That, you know, 'cause it… It, you know, it extends a beat too long or it gets in the way of the story. So, there's always, you know, which of your children you end up killing. But no.

36:40Jawad MirYeah.

36:40Kim MilesNo, I'm, I'm really happy with it overall. I think it's, I think it's great. I, you know, I'm always second-guessing myself, and at the, at the end of it, I was like, "Ah, I could have done that whole show better." I could have done... I felt like

36:55Jawad MirOf course

36:56Kim Miles... You know, by the time you get to the end of it, and you're like, "Ah, I wish I wished that aspect of it was better," or, "I wish I'd spent more time doing that." but when you look at it as a whole, it's like, "Oh, okay, well, maybe it did work after all." But I think that's what keeps you going.

37:09Jawad MirYeah.

37:09Kim MilesRight? I mean, it, if you, if you start thinking, "Boy, look how great that show was I did," I think that's the end of the road, and it's time to…

37:18Jawad MirYeah

37:18Kim Miles... Start looking at other things, right, when you're not finding fault in yourself. Yeah.

37:23Jawad MirThat's true.

37:23Kim MilesSorry, my dog just came home. So you…

37:25Jawad MirNo, it's okay

37:25Kim Miles... That's what's happening off-screen.

37:28Jawad MirThat's all right. Speaking of that sequence, the one by the pool.

37:33Kim MilesYeah.

37:33Jawad MirThere was a really cool ref… reference that you guys did in there, too, a film.

37:38Kim MilesYes.

37:38Jawad MirI picked it up immediately. I was like, "Whoa."

37:43Kim MilesDid you see the... So did you see the banner when they first pulled up? Like, did you see... Yeah, okay.

37:47Jawad MirYeah.

37:47Kim Miles'Cause, 'cause some... It was funny because, yeah, that wa… you know, when we were, when that scene was, w… when it showed up in the scripts, we were just like, "You know how this..." I said to Kevin, "You know how this has to end, right? It has to end with that beat out front." And, he's like, "100%." So yeah.

38:06Jawad MirYeah, I love that. I'm a huge fan of that film. So I…

38:09Kim MilesYeah

38:10Jawad Mir... I absolutely loved it. Have you ha… have you, y… are your family members or friends, are they planning to start watching it? Comes out, what, two days, right? Yeah, it comes out in two days.

38:22Kim MilesIn two days, yeah, on the 4th of January. Yeah, everyone's, everyone's super excited. We were hoping to be at... Well, the premiere is being screened at Netflix on their, on their screen in LA, on the 4th, and they're gonna show, I think, the first two episodes.

38:38Jawad MirYeah.

38:38Kim MilesAnd we were like, "Oh, should we go to that?" But we've just... I'm in the middle of a movie in…

38:43Jawad MirYeah

38:43Kim Miles... Winnipeg right now, and…

38:45Jawad MirOh, Winnipeg

38:45Kim Miles... Had to... Winnipeg, yeah. So we're on our Christmas break. So I'd come home from Winnipeg just before Christmas, and then we'd, we'd had this trip to Palm Springs booked, like, last year. So we went to Palm Springs…

38:59Jawad MirYeah

38:59Kim Miles... And we, and we were supposed to come back on the 30th. And I thought, "Well, if we stay another three days so we can go to the premiere," and also the Emmys are going on, tomorrow. Thought, "Well, we could do that." But then it just, I end up having to come home and then immediately go back to Winnipeg, and it's just, like, it's like we didn't have a break at all.

39:18Jawad MirYeah.

39:18Kim MilesSo I thought, you know what? Better to come home and just take a couple of days to not, you know, not be running around. But yeah, the premiere's on the 4th.

39:26Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, that would've been great, but, you know, at the same time, it's what, it, three and a half hour flight.

39:32Kim MilesYeah.

39:32Jawad MirThen another two…

39:34Kim MilesYeah

39:34Jawad Mir... Two hours to get there, two hours to come back, and it's, you're almost, like, chewing up an entire day, right? So.

39:40Kim MilesYeah. It would've been brutal. And then rushing off to Winnipeg again to continue on that movie would be…

39:48Jawad MirYeah

39:48Kim Miles... Yeah. Nothing worse than showing up tired.

39:51Jawad MirThat's true. That's true.

39:52Kim MilesYeah.

39:52Jawad MirAre you able to talk about what you're working on right now? That you mentioned.

39:54Kim MilesYeah, I'm doing a movie... Yeah, it's, it's a Lionsgate movie based on, a book that I wasn't aware of but apparently is quite well known, entitled The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

40:09Jawad MirOkay.

40:09Kim MilesAnd, it's, about a... It's, it's, faith-based, I think is the way you say it.

40:16Jawad MirYeah.

40:16Kim MilesAnd, it's a director named Dallas Jenkins that's doing it. Super good guy, great bunch of people. And, it's a movie about redemption and, you know, and the real Christmas spirit and that sort of thing. I'm not particularly religious myself, but it was, it's, it's a great story, and it's got some really heartfelt moments in it, and I think based on how dear the book is to people, I think it's gonna do, it's gonna, do some numbers. We're trying to make a new kinda Christmas classic movie, you know? 'Cause there hasn't been one in a while, so

40:56Kim MilesSo that's, that's what that one's all about. Yeah.

40:58Jawad MirSo I'm guessing that's coming out next Christmas.

41:01Kim MilesYes.

41:01Jawad MirI'm assuming.

41:02Kim MilesYeah.

41:02Jawad MirYeah.

41:02Kim MilesYeah.

41:03Jawad MirYeah.

41:03Kim MilesYeah.

41:04Jawad MirThat's awesome, man. Good for you.

41:05Kim MilesYeah.

41:05Jawad MirGood for you.

41:06Kim MilesYeah.

41:07Jawad MirAnd, yeah, a… a… I'll go back to the Brothers Sun in a second.

41:12Kim MilesYeah.

41:12Jawad MirBut any other, any other exciting projects on the horizon? You don't have to talk about what they are, but just something that you're excited about.

41:20Kim MilesYeah, there's, I'm gonna go from that to, I'm gonna work, get to work in Vancouver for a change, for the next…

41:27Jawad MirNice

41:28Kim Miles... Nine months or whatever it is. I'm going to, join the team on, Invasion for Apple TV for their third season. So that's gonna be fun.

41:39Jawad MirWhich series, sorry?

41:39Kim MilesIt'll be nice to do something that…

41:40Jawad MirWhich series?

41:41Kim MilesInvasion. Invasion.

41:43Jawad MirOh, Invasion. Okay.

41:44Kim MilesYeah.

41:44Jawad MirYes.

41:45Kim MilesYeah. Yeah, so that'll be fun. Do something sci-fi, you know, get away from the Christmas movies a little bit, 'cause I've done two of those back to back. So it's, it'll be nice to do something a little darker, a little bit more mysterious, so.

41:59Jawad MirNi… so they're doing season three now? They're starting…

42:02Kim MilesCorrect

42:02Jawad Mir... Is that what you…

42:03Kim MilesYeah.

42:03Jawad MirYeah, I saw se… the first season. I haven't seen the second one yet.

42:07Kim MilesYeah.

42:07Jawad MirI don't, I didn't know there was a third one coming, so I guess, so that would be probably another year from now or so, maybe even…

42:13Kim MilesYeah

42:13Jawad Mir... Beyond that.

42:14Kim MilesYeah. It's a slow burn, you know, that series. I watched the first season when it first came out, and I was like, "Well, it's kinda slow." Like, it takes a long time to get going. But if you, if you stick with it starts to develop quite a bit of momentum, and it's, it's, it's quite a... And season two really starts expanding. And the plan was that in season three all the worlds kind of collide, and it becomes, and it really kind of comes to fruition. So we'll see. I saw in my email…

42:42Jawad MirYeah, have you just…

42:42Kim MilesSorry, go ahead, go...

42:43Jawad MirNo, yeah. Please, Kim. Go ahead.

42:45Kim MilesI was gonna say, I just saw in my email this morning that we had about nine scenes and storyboards just popped in this morning. So it seems like they're, they're getting, they're getting in the saddle, for sure.

42:58Jawad MirThat's, that's awesome. I remember season one there was an episode which reminded me of, the movie Signs, when the whole... It was shot in the house completely.

43:08Kim MilesYeah.

43:08Jawad MirWhich I thought was, even though it was similar, it was probably the best episode, along with the pilot. I don't know. I wanted to watch the second season, but I just felt some of the performances in the first season of some actors weren't that strong.

43:24Jawad MirAnd maybe it changed in season two, I don't know. But I'll, I'll give that a whirl now that there's a season three coming out.

43:30Kim MilesYeah

43:30Jawad Mir... When are you guys starting season three? Like, next couple of months? Is that when the production starts?

43:35Kim MilesYeah. J… when do we... Like, we go to camera in f… February, I think. I'm doing the, I'm alternating with, Tom Bursten, who's doing the opener. He's doing one and two, and then I'm doing three and four. And then we're alternating, two episode blocks after that.

43:53Jawad MirNice. Exciting.

43:54Kim MilesYeah.

43:55Jawad MirThat's cool, man.

43:55Kim MilesYeah.

43:55Jawad MirGood for you. I'm really glad that they are…

43:56Kim MilesYeah, thanks

43:57Jawad Mir... Rolling for you. Would you, would you say working with Robert Zemeckis has really turned your career around? Would it be fair to say?

44:06Kim MilesI th… I can't imagine it's hurt. It, I think, if Marwen had been more of a critical success, it would have made a bigger difference, I think.

44:19Jawad MirBigger difference. Yeah.

44:20Kim MilesBut, you know, I'm, it was, that was a dream come true, that whole thing, and I can't, overemphasize how important it was to me, you know, in terms of my own development and, my own career. So absolutely, yeah. It's, it's certainly, it's certainly helped a lot. And it's also, you know, it, maybe more so on a personal level, I think, than on a, in a real, public awareness way, I think. It's, what it did more than anything was, reinstate my faith in the business, I think. You know? To know that at that level…

45:08Jawad MirConfidence, too.

45:08Kim MilesYeah.

45:08Jawad MirYeah.

45:09Kim MilesYeah. And to realize that at that level there really is, a group of people that are just trying to tell stories that are, in the, in the best way they can, and that have all the opportunities and toys and, materials and everything available to them to tell those stories. So it's, it's great to know that I can keep sort of working towards something that's gonna be, you know, that's gonna be big, you know? But yeah.

45:39Jawad MirYeah. It's, it's funny how confidence... I mean, this is a cliche as much as a, I, no matter how many times anybody says confidence and self-belief. If somebody puts a belief in you or just kind of even hires you know, they won't say that you're terrific, but the fact that they're hiring you is because they believe that you are, you know…

45:58Kim MilesYeah

45:58Jawad Mir... At least to that level. It really turns your thinking around. It really…

46:03Kim MilesYeah

46:04Jawad Mir... Puts your confidence back on the map, and then from... I've had that happen to me, you know, just some one person believing in me, and that has just completely ta… changed the trajectory of my career.

46:15Kim MilesYeah. Yeah.

46:15Jawad MirAnd it's so important to have people like that.

46:18Kim MilesYeah. That validation is super important, you know? And, when Marwen came along, I was in the middle of, the third season, I think, of Flash. And as exciting as that was, it was super great to do a show like that, I was starting to get, you know, a little bit jaded maybe with the t… the s… with the, network TV process.

46:42Kim MilesAnd, there were a number of challenges that w… that kept recurring on that show that, or on all of those shows really, that were starting to kind of bug me a little bit. So yeah. So when Marwen came along, it was a real affirmation that all those things that I was clinging onto and really trying to force, the Flash and Arrow to stick to, you know, were worthwhile and were, you know, the things that we, that we really pushed for despite everyone else telling us not to spend the money or not to waste the money, all kind of came to fruition because those were the things that got noticed, by Bob Z, you know, before Marwen came along. And, it made me think of something else, but I can't remember what it is. It'll, it'll come to mind. But, yeah, it was definitely, validation and... Oh, when, I first, when they first offered me the job, I, reached out to Don Burgess, who'd shot, you know, 30 years worth of Bob Zemeckis movies, and said, you know, "Is there anything, what should I be looking out for?

47:46Kim MilesWhat should I not do that's gonna set him off? Or, you know, what is he like?" And Don said a really great thing. He said, "Look, he's... Forget who he is." He goes, "It doesn't matter what his name is. He's hired you to be his DP, so be his DP. When he asks you what you think of something, tell him. Like, don't sugarcoat it. Don't tell him what you think he wants to hear. Tell him what you think. That's what he's hired you for, y… you know, that's what he's hired you to do. And don't be afraid of it. You'll find that he's the greatest collaborator you'll ever work with, and he just wants your opinion, and he trusts your, the institution of your job, and he expects you to do it, so just do that." So.

48:29Jawad MirYeah, that's actually… Yeah, that's so much like Don. I mean, I've, I've…

48:35Kim MilesYeah

48:35Jawad Mir... As you know, I've spoken to him and I've met him a few times too…

48:37Kim MilesYeah

48:37Jawad Mir... And he's such a…

48:38Kim MilesYeah

48:38Jawad Mir... Such a cool guy. Such a…

48:41Kim MilesYeah

48:41Jawad Mir... Amazing guy.

48:42Kim MilesYeah.

48:43Jawad MirSuch an amazing guy.

48:43Kim MilesAnd he's, he's getting the Lifetime Achievement, Award at the ASC Awards this year.

48:49Jawad MirYeah

48:49Kim Miles... So I foolishly in my naivety emailed Bob and said, "Hey, you probably already know this, but Don's getting the Lifetime Achievement thing at the ASCs." And Bob said, "Yes, fully aware." He goes, "I'm presenting it to him." And, so I was like, of course, what, like, who was I, what was I thinking?

49:09Jawad MirWhen is that?

49:09Kim MilesBut it's just…

49:10Jawad MirIs that, earlier this year, in, he's getting it?

49:15Kim MilesIt is, it's, in February, I think. I can't remember exactly when the date is. But it's usually, it's usually just before…

49:22Jawad MirBefore the Oscars

49:23Kim Miles... Oscars, yeah.

49:24Jawad MirYeah.

49:24Kim MilesYeah.

49:25Jawad MirOkay. Two more questions, man. Wh… what's the one thing in the show, the series that you worked on, The Brother's Son, that whether it was at the script s… stage or when you were filming it or afterwards or all three, that kinda just hit a nerve at a very personal level?

49:49Kim MilesI think just the…

49:53Jawad MirLike it was relationship

49:54Kim Miles... Yeah, I think it was, it was, like the biggest thing for me was to be able to do a show with a good friend of mine that centered on Asian culture in Los Angeles. Like, there were a lot of things that were pros for the show, you know, that it was a lot of firsts and a lot of, you know, new horizons, new opportunities. I think that was, that was the biggest draw at the beginning was like, wow, I get to, you know, check a whole lot of boxes here and have a lot of fun doing it. And then once the scripts landed and starting to read the characters a little bit and seeing how grounded they were and how real they were and, you know, the scripts were written by, a lot of Asian American, writers, so there was a lot of that cultural undertone that, you know, you'd, you'd read a script and go, "I get, I know exactly what's happening with mom there. I know exactly how the son feels, you know, when mom says that joke." So I think there was a lot of that resonated, with me right off the top. And, yeah, it was...

50:59Kim MilesAnd then looking at the, you know, getting to do fight choreography, on that level was gonna be great. Like, there was just so many things about it that were, that were pros. And in fact, I can't even think of any cons, you know, when the show came along. I think the only con would be being away from home for that long. But, other than that…

51:18Jawad MirYeah

51:19Kim Miles... You know, there's a lot of, yeah, a lot of pros.

51:22Jawad MirOh, that's awesome.

51:22Kim MilesYeah.

51:23Jawad MirWhat scares the crap out of you on a movie set? Or in life in general. Like what, and we all have our fears. I mean, you know, let's face it, we all get afraid…

51:35Kim MilesYeah

51:35Jawad Mir... Of doing... Wh… what would be something that…

51:37Kim MilesYeah

51:37Jawad Mir... If you're willing to share?

51:39Kim MilesYeah. I think, I think just uncertainty. Like, you know, showing up on... Like, there's always sequences, like no matter how much we've, we've spent pre-lighting stuff and rigging stuff and forming a plan, there's always the, oh boy, is this really gonna, like, is this really gonna work, the way we'd anticipated? I think there's a lot of that. Uncertainty is always the kinda knot in my stomach all the time, and that's, most days I'll walk on a set going, you know, thinking, "How on earth are we gonna get through the day?" Or, "How are we gonna get this first sequence set up so it doesn't look terrible?" And so I think I'm always, I'm always kinda second guessing myself, and it never really goes away until we're about to roll and you can look at the monitor, you know, I've been, and see that, okay, it is working. It does look the way I was hoping it was gonna look and, you know. So yeah, the uncertainty. And, you know, I still, I still light with a meter.

52:39Kim MilesSo…

52:40Jawad MirNice

52:41Kim Miles... You know, and at first, it didn't really translate into, you know, when it was back in the Sony F900 days, the meter just became a way of measuring ratios and making sure that it was, you know, a shot was consistent, to the shot before and the shot after. But it didn't really seem to relate to exposure in the camera. But now with the new technol… you know, with Alexas and with the Sony Venice cameras, there's, there's a lot more, it's a lot more like shooting film, and you can kind of rely on the meter a little bit. So I think, yeah, coming to a new set that you haven't lit before and going, "Oh, you know, I don't know how this is gonna look good," but sticking to the same principles, hey, you know, if when in doubt, put up a really nice backlight, you know, get a nice key going, play with the contrast ratios, and it should work. And so that moment when it's like, okay, the meter says this, it should work, and you get to the monitor and it's like, okay, it did work. I think that's, that's the uncertainty on every scene I do, I think is always like, you know, I know the meter says this, but is it really gonna look good?

53:46Kim MilesSo.

53:46Jawad MirYeah.

53:47Kim MilesAnd that's just, you know, can't get away from that, I don't think.

53:51Jawad MirNo, I think that's a good thing because I've, I know that no matter what I'm filming…

53:57Kim MilesYeah

53:57Jawad Mir... Whether it's a documentary or anything, well, not filming, but directing

54:02Kim MilesYeah

54:02Jawad Mir... It, there is this level of thing, you know, fear. Like, it's, it's just that something that, okay, is I'm on the set, everybody's watching me, you know, that kind of an approach. And…

54:13Kim MilesYeah

54:14Jawad Mir... Will this work or will this not work? I mean, you have that belief, but at the same time, in the back of your mind, there's that self-doubt. But I think…

54:21Kim MilesYeah

54:22Jawad Mir... As you said, the camera starts rolling, I think…

54:24Kim MilesYeah

54:25Jawad Mir... 30 seconds in, it kinda just goes away.

54:28Kim MilesYeah.

54:28Jawad MirIt fades.

54:29Kim MilesI think a lot of it also in prep because… Like, as the DP on the show, I'm often, you know, the... When it's on an episodic show, the rest of the crew is out working the other episodes. And, you know, I'm sort of prepping it with the director and the production designer kind of on my own. And a lot of the anxiety comes from, you know, have I thought enough about this? Have I, you know, have we, have we got the right equipment for this and that? But then when you get to set or you get to the tech survey and it's like, okay, one layer of uncertainty goes away 'cause the key grip will say, "Oh yeah, we can do that. We'll do this." And the gaffer will be like, "Oh, why don't we do it like that instead? That'll get you what you want, and you don't have to, you know, then we won't have to do it this way." And then all of a sudden, all those other jobs that are there to help you get through yours start checking in, and that takes the anxiety away. 'Cause all of a sudden it's like, okay, I am kind of surrounded by pros that know what they're doing, you know? And then you get to set…

55:29Jawad MirYeah

55:29Kim Miles... And you watch the blocking, and the actors often deliver a scene in a way that I'd never imagined. Like, oh, that's a totally different take on how those lines came out, but that's really great. And then all of a sudden it's like, okay, well, if they're gonna do that, then we don't have to, you know, we can, we can keep the lighting this way. It doesn't have... They're, they're playing it darker than I read it, so now we don't have to get as much fill into the room or... So everything kind of becomes symbiotic, you know? And then the camera operator is like, they're going, "What if we move on that line and push in on that?" And then all of a sudden it just, like the circus kinda comes together and it, and the momentum starts driving, and then all of a sudden that uncertainty kinda melts away. And by the time you get to the monitor, it's like, oh, okay, great. It's, it's, that is what it was supposed to be, you know?

56:15Jawad MirThat's so cool, man.

56:16Kim MilesYeah.

56:16Jawad MirThat's so cool.

56:16Kim MilesYeah.

56:17Jawad MirMagic of cinema. That's all it is.

56:18Kim MilesYeah.

56:19Jawad MirMagic of cinema.

56:20Kim MilesYeah.

56:21Jawad MirFantastic, man. Thank you so much, buddy, for your time.

56:24Kim MilesMy pleasure. Anytime

56:25Jawad Mir... Chatting with you again.

56:28Kim MilesAlways

56:28Jawad Mir... I probably will be in Vancouver, maybe Winnipeg sometime in the next coming months. If the times collide…

56:34Kim MilesOkay

56:34Jawad Mir... Maybe we can grab something.

56:36Kim MilesLet's do it. Absolutely.

56:37Jawad MirSounds good.

56:38Kim MilesAbsolutely.

56:39Jawad MirAll right, buddy. Thank you. Thank you so much.

56:40Kim MilesHappy New Year.

56:41Jawad MirYou too, buddy.

56:42Kim MilesSee you soon.

56:42Jawad MirTake care.

56:42Kim MilesAll right.

56:43Jawad MirBye-bye.

56:44Kim MilesBye.

56:44Jawad MirI hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for watching and listening. Don't forget to subscribe, like, share, and comment, and do come back for another episode. Until then, have a great day.