Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and episodic productions, it is my pleasure to welcome Jeanie Bacharach. Jeanie is a triple Emmy Award winner for her work on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “The Bear”, and among her many other credits are “Ally McBeal”, “The Dropout”, “Black Mirror”, “Lucky”, “Brothers & Sisters” and “Nashville”. In this interview, Julie takes a deep dive into her Emmy-nominated work on the second season of “Beef”.
Kirill: Please tell us about yourself and the path that took you to where you are today.
Jeanie: I started out as an actress, very briefly, in New York. Then I was a reader for auditions, and it opened me up to the other side of the industry and casting. I found that quite fascinating, and still creative to this day. That was my start in casting in New York where I worked primarily in theater. Later on my husband and I moved out here to Los Angeles, and made my way mostly in television. That’s been the main focus of my casting career.
Kirill: What are the bigger misunderstandings or misconceptions about the role of the casting director, and what goes into it?
Jeanie: People don’t quite understand what we’re doing behind the scenes. So much of it is about personal taste, and what you respond to in an actor and in their work. The wonderful thing about it is it’s subjective. What I might respond to in an actor, someone else might not, and vice versa. I try to tell young actors to always keep that in mind. Whatever feedback you’re getting is coming from one person’s experience or perception.
Taste is a key point. People don’t realize that there’s a collaborative aspect of it. We are there at the very beginning, often before maybe even a director is on. We’re trying to take the writer’s vision and bring it to life. But part of our job is to try to expand whatever that idea may be. When they were writing it, they may have thought a specific way. But what’s so fun and maybe not as understood about what we do is that we then try to take that and stretch it as much as we can while still serving the piece and the character. You can’t become arbitrary and have it at the detriment of the story you’re telling.
Then, you’re working behind the scenes to set actors up to succeed as best possible. Sometimes that means finding a piece of film on them that other people may not have seen that can help a director or writer to see their work in a different light.
It’s so collaborative, and you’re there from the beginning. One way to see it is that you give birth to the project, and then it’s up to the rest of the creative team to go from there.
(L to R) Charles Melton as Austin Davis, Cailee Spaeny as Ashley Miller, Carey Mulligan as Lindsay Crane-Martin, Oscar Isaac as Josh Martin in episode 202 of Beef. Courtesy of Netflix.
Kirill: Did it feel that the recognition of your craft at the Oscars was overdue?
Jeanie: Certainly, as every other part of the creative process has been recognized up to this point. It was way overdue and very exciting. I don’t quite understand what took so long, but I’m so glad we’re there.
Kirill: What are the bigger differences between the feature film world and the episodic productions, and why do you mostly stay in the episodic world?
Jeanie: When I first started in television, there wasn’t as much streaming and cable. It was pretty much all network TV. As streaming and cable came into being. and there started to be the crossover of feature people – directors and writers and actors – into television and back and forth, the differences starting getting smaller.
The biggest difference is we have to work much faster in television than in feature films, because the schedule is so different. Once you get into casting a series, you have anywhere from eight to ten days to cast an episode, whereas in feature films you generally have months of preparation.
Another thing about casting in television is that since you don’t have that much time, you need to know that actors are going to be able to deliver in the moment. And yet another one is that no matter if you’re casting for a long term series or for a limited one, it can be eight or ten or twelve hours of screen time. You need to find actors that people are going to invest in and want to watch over a period of time. On a feature film you’re holding a much bigger screen, but for a relatively shorter period of time.
You’re looking at a longer period of time when you are casting for a series. You have a deeper development of the character in a series. A feature film may cover a large period of time or a shorter period of time, but in television, more often than not, where your character starts and where it ends can be very different. You need to know that the actor can carry all of those beats and story points over multiple episodes and/or seasons.
(L to R) Seoyeon Jang as Eunice, Charles Melton as Austin Davis, Cailee Spaeny as Ashley Miller in episode 203 of Beef. Courtesy of Netflix.
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Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and episodic productions, it is my pleasure to welcome Olga Mill. In this interview, she talks about her journey into the world of costume design, key ingredients to longevity in the industry, and her thoughts on generative AI. Between all these and more, Olga dives deep into her Emmy-nominated work on the second season of “Beef”.
Olga Mill on the sets of “Beef”.
Kirill: Please tell us about yourself and the path that took you to where you are today.
Olga: I knew I wanted to do what I do today pretty early on. My family moved to New York from the Ukraine when I was five. They would take us to the theater all the time, and I also went into community theater acting programs. Later on I went to a performing arts high school in New York. The acting part of it didn’t resonate with me, but I did like the parts about making your own sets and costumes.
I remember walking home from school one day and thinking that I could be a costume designer. The more I thought about it, the more it looked like it would let me out of some of the acting stuff that didn’t resonate, and also that it appealed to a nerdier research part of myself. It also felt more practical in a way. That’s when my path started, back in high school.
It took a long time to feel confident enough to want to be in the designer role. In the film industry, if your family’s not in it, it can feel so out of reach. So at first I was thinking that I would be happy if I could just work in a costume shop. And then I wanted to be an assistant. And only when I went to graduate school at NYU that I felt ready to go for the head of department role.
Costume design of “Beef” by Olga Mill. Courtesy of Netflix.
Kirill: What are the misconceptions or misunderstandings about what costume design is?
Olga: The first one is that a lot of people assume that I know how to sew. It’s really important to understand the construction and design because I’m talking to tailors. But left to my own devices, it’s a skill that I don’t have. I respect it a lot, but I certainly wouldn’t be able to do it myself.
The second misconception is putting costume design in with fashion. Fashion is its own lane that I have so much respect for, but that’s not where the meat of my knowledge is. As a costume designer, you are driven by the script and the characters and not the aesthetics of fashion. I don’t mean to downplay fashion, but these are two independent avenues that often get intertwined. They are different skill sets.
Kirill: Getting to “Beef”, how did you find your way to it, or perhaps how did it find its way to you?
Olga: I feel that we met each other halfway. I was a big fan of season one, and I had worked with the production designer Grace Yun several times in the past. I got the script for the second season through my agent, and I don’t know if it was through Grace or through my past work with A24.
I met Sonny [Lee Sun Jin, the creator of the show] for a coffee, and he laid out his thoughts for season two. It’s an anthology series, and it was interesting for me because you can start from scratch with new characters. I put together some visuals and sent him, and then we went from there.
Costume sketches for “Beef”, courtesy of Olga Mill and Netflix. Left to right – Ashley, Austin, Ashley.
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Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and TV productions, it is my pleasure to welcome Jess Royal. In this interview, she talks the role of set decoration and the bigger changes in her department in the last decade, key ingredients to longevity in the industry, and her thoughts on generative AI. Between all these and more, Jess takes a deep dive into her Emmy-nominated work on “Stranger Things”, from its early days to the final season.
Kirill: Please tell us about yourself and the path that took you to where you are today.
Jess: I’m Jess Royal. I’m a set decorator and I did all five seasons of “Stranger Things”. My background is in law. I went to law school and practiced criminal defense. I had some faith going into it that some people are wrongly accused or overcharged, but in my case, our clients were very much guilty [laughs]. The thought of doing that for the rest of my life was quite daunting, and I felt an urge to do something creative.
I didn’t know what that was going to be right away. I found my way into film based on watching background interviews of production designers and set decorators who did period sets on movies and TV shows. I love history, and that was the best possible merge of both worlds. Fortunately, I met a production designer on an elevator, and I would not let go until I got what I wanted, and here I am now.
Kirill: What are the misconceptions or maybe misunderstandings about your role?
Jess: My mom still calls me a set designer, because that’s what the words make sense in her brain, even though a set designer is more of a draftsman who draws up the plans. Perhaps people draw a connection to interior designers that do a full design. People hear set decoration, and think about curtains or sofas or the frilly little details at the end.
The best thing about my job is doing junkyards and huge equipment. It’s doing a landscape that I can build from scratch – exteriors and interiors. It can be drapery, but it’s also every stack of newspaper or a collection of tchotchkes. You can build a backstory of where someone’s been in their life, what they’ve collected, what’s important to them.
I feel like “decoration” is the wrong word. It’s designing a whole world and a whole backstory for a character or a town, using objects, exterior and interior.
Left to right – production designer Chris Trujillo, set decorator Jess Royal, and art director Sean Brennan on the Mayor Cline’s bedroom set of “Stranger Things”. Courtesy of Jess Royal and Netflix.
Kirill: What would be the bigger change that happened in your part of the world, comparing today vs when you were starting out?
Jess: Before, we didn’t have the option to fix things in post with VFX. You had to think about everything – something like covering a transformer on a telephone pole half a mile down the road that someone would see that’s not period. Now we make a note for VFX. Sometimes it’s handy, but I also miss thinking about everything in 360. On “Stranger Things” we started with Schindler boxes to do playback on older TVs to prevent flicker on camera, and now everyone is using green screens to put it in post. It’s mostly about technology and VFX.
Kirill: Getting to “Stranger Things”, how did it start for you, and what stood out in those early days?
Jess: I worked with the production designer Chris Trujillo for a few years before the show on smaller indie movies, and we kept saying that one day we’re going to get a show or a movie that everyone’s going to watch, and we’ll really have made it in the world.
I was in Los Angeles on a vacation, about to get on a plane, and he texted that he was sending a script with a good potential for me to read and to see what I think. Originally it was called “Montauk” and that’s where we were supposed to shoot it. I read the script on the plane, and I thought that it could be so amazing. One thing led to another, and we were scouting in Wilmington for Montauk, and eventually they said that maybe we can look in Atlanta and change the setting of the show. No matter what though, I felt that it had great potential.
It felt very small at the beginning. Netflix was hesitant to give us money to do everything we wanted to do, but then it came out, and it was amazing. It felt that our lives changed, as everyone watched it within 48 hours. It was cool to grow up in those early months of the first season or two.
Jess Royal on the sets of “Stranger Things”. Courtesy of Jess Royal and Netflix.
Kirill: Was it that immediate for you after the first season dropped?
Jess: The release premiere in LA was somewhere outside of West Hollywood. I remember we were sitting on folding chairs, and how small it still felt. But it caught on so fast. I went straight from LA to a wedding in Massachusetts, and by the time I got to Massachusetts a day or two later, my brother had watched it, my mom had watched it, people at the wedding had watched it. Everyone was talking about it, or at least the people I was surrounded with, whether they were watching it for my sake or not. It felt like it was blowing up right away.
I’d already started scouting for “Ozark” at that time. My original film job was the location scout and then I became a decorator, so on some of those earlier shows I would scout and then I’d start prepping decorating. “Ozark” was fun to scout for and I was excited about doing it, and then at some point a few weeks in “Stranger Things” was immediately picked up for season two. So I had to leave “Ozark” a little bit early. I was bummed about that, but I think I made the right choice to stick with “Stranger Things” and what we had built. Merchandise and various experiences came later, but everyone hearing about the show was pretty immediate.
On the sets of the Byers’ living room of “Stranger Things”. Courtesy of Jess Royal and Netflix.
Kirill: Looking back at these 10 years and the entire story arc, why did people connect so much with this show?
Jess: It’s a multi-generational show. One of my best friends is about the age of Jonathan in the show, and he was a photographer in high school and later went to college at Pratt for photography. People his age identify with all the music of the era. They were kids in high school right at that same time. He immediately loved it, and I ended up using his photography as Jonathan’s background photography in the dark room and bedroom.
People his age who now have kids who are around the younger kids’ age in the show can watch it together as family. It transcends generations. It also lends itself well to having a pop culture – the music, the D&D aspect for all the nerds out there who love it. This game has been going strong since the ’80s, and there’s so many generations that can enjoy that aspect. You cheer for these kids and it doesn’t matter how old you are. You want to see them beat the dark forces and stay friends. Watching them grow up has been a delightful thing for a lot of people who have grown up with these kids as the show has gone on.
On the sets of “Stranger Things”. Courtesy of Jess Royal and Netflix.
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Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and episodic productions, it is my pleasure to welcome Charlie Cole. In this interview, he talks about the transition of the industry from film to digital, the evolution of tools at his disposal, importance of communication, and his thoughts on generative AI. Between all these and more, Charlie takes a deep dive into his work on the just released “Cruel Hands”.
Charlie Cole on the set of “Cruel Hands”.
Kirill: Please tell us about yourself and the path that took you to where you are today.
Charlie: My name is Charlie Cole, and I’m a cinematographer. I started out as a fine artist, I was in love with charcoal drawing, and went to undergrad in Brooklyn at Pratt Institute. And then I realized that to be a fine artist, at least what worked for me, you’re isolating yourself in the world so much. I started falling in love with the idea of working with collaborators and being inspired by other people’s art forms, which led me to picking up a camera and seeing how that fit – and I just fell in love with that.
I did freelance director / cinematographer work for a couple years, experimental poetic narrative type things, and then I applied to this grad school in LA called American Film Institute for cinematography. That’s when I started taking it more seriously as far as a craft and a career. Before it was much more of a passion and something that I felt very in tune to – but now it’s full throttle, making my job, making my life fully cinematography.
Kirill: Would you call yourself a digital native? Did you catch the tail end of the film as the medium?
Charlie: I love that term digital native, that’s really fun. I was at the transitional period where film was still very much alive, but not being taught so much. I got my hands on it a little bit, but only enough to see how beautiful it was. It was never directly accessible to me easily.
Even today, if I ever want to shoot with film, it’s quite a challenge with production to get film going. I get maybe a year to shoot a project on film. Usually it’s a short or a commercial. I love film, but I’m a digital native for sure. I definitely grew up with it, and feel very comfortable with it.
Now everything is so good that you can cheat it so easily between the two. I did a music video years ago with the director of “Cruel Hands”, and we worked with Andre Chlebak, the colorist who did “Mandy”. I could have sworn that “Mandy” was on film. I would have bet an arm and leg on it. My first question was what film stock was used, and sure enough it was digital. And if you’ve ever seen Steve Yedlin videos, he shows you how you can make anything look like anything else with the right approach of digital control or manipulation.
Cinematography of “Cruel Hands” by Charlie Cole.
Kirill: What are the misunderstandings or misconceptions about cinematography?
Charlie: I’m half French and half American. When I tell my French side of the family what a cinematographer is, they’ve never heard of it. I think in Europe there’s a lot more of the idea that the author-artist is in charge of the story and the vision, including the camera work, especially in French cinema.
Our role as cinematographer changes culture to culture and depends on each collaboration with each director. I’ve seen collaborations where the cinematographer is more of a camera technician who is helping the director’s vision come alive, and those can work beautifully. I’ve seen collaborations where the cinematographer and the director are figuring it out together. I’ve seen and been in situations where directors come from more of a theater background or they have a wonderful idea with little film experience, and they’re using you to help finesse the story through filmmaking and how to show a story through a film. It can mean so many different things.
The term that I’ve come to love is that the cinematographer is shooting what the actors cannot say. Your job is to shoot the subtext of every performance and shoot the subtext of the story. Years ago I saw “Shawshank Redemption” on a plane, and I had no headphones, so I watched it on mute. But the whole time it was clear what was happening, what the characters were going through, and what the story was going towards. That’s the job of the cinematographer – that the images say everything that can’t be said otherwise.
Cinematography of “Cruel Hands” by Charlie Cole.
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