STEVE RAMSEY - Gaffer
Team Deakins
James Ellis Deakins
4.9 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2026
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
SEASON 2 - EPISODE 190 - Steve Ramsey - Gaffer
In this episode of the Team Deakins Podcast, we speak with gaffer Steve Ramsey (THE BRIDE!, WEST SIDE STORY, JOKER). We worked with Steve on THE GOLDFINCH, and we had a great time catching up with him. During our conversation, we discuss what a gaffer actually does, what his or her responsibilities can be, and how Steve adjusts his process to work with cinematographers ranging from Janusz Kamiński to Vittorio Storaro—and us! Steve also grants us insight into working on the sets of several Steven Spielberg films, and he shares how he and the film's cinematographer will prepare a scene to give room for Steven to follow his instincts. We also reflect on the rise of LEDs, and we discuss a few instances in which classic tungsten lights and gels solved a problem on the day. At the end of the episode, Steve gives his advice for anyone interested in a career as a gaffer, and we reflect on the job's non-descriptive title.
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Recommended Viewing: WEST SIDE STORY (2021)
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This episode is sponsored by Aputure
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi and welcome to Season 2 of the Team Deacons podcast, |
| 0:07.0 | a collection of informal conversations between Roger and James Deacons and a guest. |
| 0:13.0 | We never know where the conversation will take us, so listen in and see where it goes. |
| 0:21.9 | This episode is sponsored by Aperture and its new Storm XT-52, the industry's most |
| 0:29.5 | powerful LED point source light. Brighter than a 6K HMI and powered by Aperture's revolutionary |
| 0:36.8 | Blair light engine, the Storm XT-52 is both a tunable |
| 0:41.9 | white light and also the brightest ever adjustable color LED. Storm XT-52, unrivaled output, only from |
| 0:52.2 | aperture. |
| 1:00.0 | Today we're speaking with a gaffer. His credits are many and include Joker, West Side Story, and leave the world behind. We're pleased to welcome Steve Ramsey. Steve, |
| 1:07.2 | thank you for doing this. Hi, Steve. Thank you. Thank you so much, you guys. |
| 1:11.1 | So good to see you. |
| 1:12.6 | This is going to be fun. |
| 1:14.6 | And we'll start the fun by asking the question. |
| 1:17.6 | How did you get to where you are today? |
| 1:19.6 | Were you a kid that noticed when there was a dark corner in a room and liked it? |
| 1:25.6 | Or did you not even notice that at all and |
| 1:28.2 | want to become something else and find it later? What's your story? Well, the dark corner, |
| 1:33.3 | I wasn't expecting the dark corner question. I wasn't either. It just came up. I don't know. Yeah, |
| 1:39.9 | I probably was afraid of dark corners very early on, but. Yeah, nothing to do with like. |
| 2:02.6 | No, yeah. No, I, well, you know, I liked, I did like, you know, art as a kid, and I loved drawing. And I grew up at a time where, you know, when there was, you know, you'd go places and there, there was no iPad at the time to be shoved into my hands or nearby TV or anything like that. So sometimes that was a pad of paper and a pencil and all right, have fun. So there was that. But, you know, |
| 2:11.8 | in terms of did I know I was going to be a gaffer one day? No, I had no idea that that was, you know, |
| 2:17.3 | that was my future. And I had no idea what a gaffer one day. No, I had no idea that that was, you know, that was my future. |
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