John Toll - Cinematographer

Team Deakins

James Ellis Deakins

Tv & Film, Filmlighting, Deakins, Movies, Filmmaking, Production, Film, Cinematography, Film Interviews

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2021

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

EPISODE 114 - JOHN TOLL - Cinematographer

Team Deakins has a great talk with cinematographer, John Toll (LEGENDS OF THE FALL, BRAVEHEART, WIND, THE THIN RED LINE, RAINMAKER). We start on a humorous note as we learn how he started in the business and learned on the job! We talk about his time as an operator and his eventual switch over to working as a DP. He recalls his time working for Conrad Hall as an operator and what he learned and also speaks of the different methods of working as an operator in England. We learn about his first big break to shoot the behind-the-scenes footage on ET which was never seen. He also shares why he chose to shoot WIND (his first feature as a DP), even though he tended to have bad seasickness! We learned about the difficulty of shooting WIND on the water and in boats, which is even more impressive when you consider it was his first time as a cinematographer! John’s humorous way of at looking things will have you laughing!

RECOMMENDED EPISODE VIEWING: Wind

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi and welcome to the Team Deakin's podcast. This podcast is a dialogue between Roger and James
0:10.4	Deakin's often joined in the conversation by a guest. It's very informal and we never
0:16.6	know where it will go. We're connecting through Zoom, so bear that in mind when you hear
0:21.7	the audio. If you'd like to submit a question or topic, please do so by emailing podpod at
0:30.4	rogerdeakin's.com. This episode is sponsored by AJA video systems, creators of HDR solutions
0:41.4	for onset and beyond. With the FSHDR, transform your camera log material to HDR in real time
0:50.2	from monitoring straight from the camera, including the ability to load your own luts or
0:55.6	employ the powerful color front engine to retain your creative intent. AJA prides itself
1:02.6	in providing future proof workflow solutions for 4K, 8K, HDR and beyond. Today we're speaking
1:14.0	with a cinematographer. His credits are many and include legends of the fall, brave heart,
1:19.6	the thin red line, gone baby gone and Jupiter ascending. We're pleased to have John toll with
1:25.8	us today. John, thank you for doing this. Thank you, John.
1:29.0	Pleasure to be here. It's going to be fun. Nice to see you. Yeah.
1:33.1	We'd like to start with a question. How did you get to where you are today? Is this something
1:38.4	you always knew you wanted to do or did you take another path? Tell us your story.
1:45.2	Well, I would be very specific. I actually got to California in the back seat of the 62
1:51.2	Chevy convertible. With no idea what I was going to do when I got here. I grew up in Cleveland
2:01.2	Ohio. I had no career plans. No, I had no idea what I was going to do. I had an older
2:07.8	sister who lived in LA and I decided when I was 19 years old to come to California. At that
2:16.8	time, when I did this, I was not economically well off. Couldn't afford a plane ticket. But at the
2:24.6	time when I did this, there were people who used to travel from the east coast to the west coast
2:32.5	seasonally. They would put an ad in newspapers, take writers to California. That was when it was
	...

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