STEVEN SODERBERGH - Director

Team Deakins

James Ellis Deakins

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

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2025

⏱️ 92 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

SEASON 2 - EPISODE 153 - Steven Soderbergh - Director

In this extended episode of the Team Deakins Podcast, we speak with director Steven Soderbergh (BLACK BAG, TRAFFIC, OUT OF SIGHT). Steven credits his father for giving him the movie bug, and he shares how a young adulthood shooting short films and writing spec scripts in Louisiana led to the 8-years-in-the-making overnight success of his debut feature: SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE. We spend much of the episode discussing Steven’s insights into directing and filmmaking, and he opens up about his transition into shooting his own films under the alias Peter Andrews. Steven also reflects on directing OUT OF SIGHT, recalling how he ended up with the job, when a studio note protected him from his own instinct to be lean in the film’s edit, and why he felt the movie was at stake when he went to war to cast Jennifer Lopez. Steven also stresses the importance of character and reputation in the business, and he recalls the pitfalls of acting like an egomaniac that he witnessed while crewing in his early days. We also discuss the value of establishing a basic grammar and set of rules specific to the film one is making, and Steven shares how he tries to listen to what a movie wants “itself” to be.

Recommended Viewing: OUT OF SIGHT

This episode is sponsored by Aputure & Barco

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,
0:50.9	only from aperture.
1:03.4	This episode is sponsored by HDR by Barco, where the magic of cinema reaches breathtaking heights with cutting-edge, high dynamic range, HDR, laser projection.
1:10.3	Don't miss the opportunity to immerse yourself in a spectacular world of deep shadows,
1:16.3	dazzling highlights, and vibrant colors at select theaters near you.
1:21.1	Buy your tickets, learn more, and experience extraordinary today.
1:26.1	Visit hDR by barco.com.
1:31.8	Today we're speaking with the director. His credits are many and include Aaron Brockovitz,
1:38.6	Oceans 11, Traffic, and Black Bag. We're pleased to welcome Stephen Soutterberg today. Stephen, thank you for doing this.
1:47.3	My pleasure. We'd like to start with our normal question, which is, how did you get to where you are today?
1:54.4	Is this something you always wanted to do, or did you take another path first and find this later?
2:00.7	What's your story?
2:01.9	My father was a movie nut.
2:07.9	He was an academic.
2:10.5	He was a Marine fought in Korea, interesting person, and loved movies and wrote about movies and published throughout his life.
2:21.9	And so he really gave us all the movie bug.
	...

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