Behind The Lens with D.Gregor Hagey and Morning Glory

I met D. Gregor Hagey and Morning Glory at the Mississauga Independent Film Festival where they gave a workshop for the RED CAM and I was fortunate enough to interview the guys afterwards.  D. Gregor Hagey is a Toronto based Director of Photography whose completed nearly 200 projects in his 16 years as a working artist.  He’s worked on everything from music videos, documentaries, shorts, and features. Currently he’s working on the second unit for a show you’ve probably heard of called Flash Point, yes that Flash Point you see on CBS/CTV.  He was one of the first adopters of the RED Camera and has been invited to speak all over Canada as a result of his knowledge and expertise with the new technology.  If you don’t think Red Camera is revolutionary then take yourself to your local cinema and watch District 9 so you can get a better idea of the technology.  This Ryerson graduate received a CSC nomination in 2003 for his work with 35mm anamorphic on the short  Filthy and was nominated again in 2008 for his work on the Docudrama series Mayday: Gimli Glider.  You get a glimpse of his work with Red One Camera in the rock’n'roll comedy SUCK which you can catch at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.   

Morning Glory (brother and partner in crime of D.Gregor) works as a Data Management Technician in Toronto. Morning describes himself as a very independent filmmaker and after meeting him I’d have to agree.  He’s studied at both York University and Ryerson Polytechnic.  A forward and free thinker Morning was one of the first to purchase the Red Camera after following its development from its early days as an online rumour to its production and now its industry implementation.  One might say he’s been addicted to Red since its inception and is now at the forefront of its constantly evolving technology.  Along with being a Data Management Technician Morning has also worked as a video assistant on commercials and as a web designer. 

I have to say that it was really great to get to interview these gentlemen and pick their brains for thirty minutes.  It was so great it inspired this interview series.  Here you have it folks, the very first Behind The Lens with D. Gregor Hagey and Morning Glory.

AnnieG:  Hi this is AnnieG and I’m here with..

D.Gregor:  Gregor Hagey

Morning:  Morning Glory

AnnieG:  And you guys are from?

D.Gregor:  We’re both from Toronto.

AnnieG:  Company???? (giggles)

D.Gregor: I’m a Director of Photography and I have a website www.dghagey.com, it’s my website.  

AnnieG:  Do you have any websites?

Morning:  The website soon to be up its (www.rubedo.ca) Rubedo.ca, Rubedo is the name of my company as well.  

AnnieG:  Cool.  Tell me a bit about how you guys got involved with the Mississauga Independent Film Festival. 

D.Gregor: I know Jeff from an indie feature that I shot last year on the Red Camera.  Jeff was a writer/producer on it and he told me about this crazy movie he made with his brother and all that so I went and got a copy of it and watched it and thought it was awesome.  And we just kind of stayed in contact after the project we worked on last year.  Then he comes up with he does this film festival as well and he’s like some super human Canadian filmmaker I don’t know.  He makes movies he makes film festivals.  So, late last year at some point he said "we’d love to have a red workshop next year, would you do it?"  And I said oh yeah sure and he followed up with it this winter and that’s just Jeff, Jeff just invited us.

AnnieG:  So tell me a bit about working with Red and how got involved with working with Red Camera.

D.Gregor: Well, I guess I got involved working with Red Camera with my brother’s camera, one of the first camera’s to come into town.  Well, I’ll just start he had one of the first cameras coming into Toronto and so being a DP I of course wanted to shoot a test with it. I started working with Red Camera the day it arrived shooting camera tests and two days after it arrived we shot a short film.  So it’s a technology I’d followed on the internet and I’d followed the forums for it and after it arrived, well technically I was the guy who flew down and checked it out.  

Morning:  Yes, you touched my camera before I did.   In Lake Forrest California in Jim Jannard’s hot car garage.

D.Gregor:  (Giggles) Yeah.

Morning:  Funny car?

D.Gregor: Yeah, I don’t know it was some kind of garage. I mean he called it his garage but it was this big giant warehouse.  

AnnieG: (laughs) Oh, wow.

Morning:  A millionaire’s garage.

D.Gregor:  A millionaire.  I was like "this is your garage?".   It’s like this giant warehouse out in this industrial park.  

Morning:  They’re moving to Nevada though.  They have a "Red Ranch". 

AnnieG: Just in time for the water to run out.

D.Gregor: I know.  It doesn’t make any sense.  I don’t know why anyone would want to move to Nevada.

Morning: Maybe that’s a secret invention he’s working on.  Water

D.Gregor: Water out of  sand.

AnnieG:  Digitizing it some how so that it turns into water.

DGregor:   Yeah.  I have no idea.

Morning:   Wavelet compression. Put the waves in wavelet.   

DGregor: Ahhh that’s it.

Morning:  I guess I can give you a little more detail on the origin.  I’m a very independent filmmaker in terms of I work in all sorts of genres I do drama, I do documentary, I do experimental; I love shooting more of an essayic/personal diary/journal kind of filmmaking that I would often do with my Bolex. But even a hundred feet of film…

AnnieG:  It’s expensive.

Morning:  Yeah.  And I even like cutting with work prints in 16 so I could project it on a big screen to see how the relation goes in editing.  So I felt video was okay, it had it’s place.  It was a different medium than film it didn’t replace film it’s just a different medium.   But I really, even when Gregor and I went to Ryerson and we were entering Ryerson in the 90’s, he was ahead of me, but when we were entering we could tell film would become a fine art.  It was already on it’s way out.  We knew that at some point the technology would converge and film would be on the decline just like painting became a fine art when photography came in.  We knew that filmmaking would probably be somebody somewhere making their own emulsion on y’know some plastic 20 or 30 years from now but for the most part as a commercial medium we even knew back then it was on its way out.  So I guess I was feeling I wanted to take that next step and I thought a prosumer camera like the HVX200 would sort of suit my needs.  It shot 720, it shot progressive, it shot up to 60 frames per second.   So I came up with a little budget of what I wanted to spend, 15 grand, and I showed it to my brother cause he’s ahead of me and he’s more focussed on being a cinematographer where I’m a little more of a generalist in terms of wanting to know how to make films on my own or with a crew but I can be versatile that way.  And he felt I wasn’t going to be happy going from the Bolex to the HVX200, that there were just too many sacrifices.  So he said watch the Red, watch it’s development and see how it goes.  This was in 2005, it was just a rumour on the internet.   So I also followed it religiously and still go to Red User every single day. Back in the day it was DVX User until they finally decided it had enough steam and created their own website which became Reduser.net.  So yeah, I put my money down on the first day that they were taking deposits and in April 2006 I couldn’t fly down to NAB but I phoned and left a message.  I didn’t hear back from them till midnight, of course they’re two hours ahead, but I was a little worried that I got lost in the shuffle but I didn’t and ended up being in the first 100 cameras that got sold.  

AnnieG: Just a quick question since you are talking about where it’s going.  What do you think about Michael Mann in a feature and commercial format to use digital.   Since you guys are in the DP world and in the indie world working as a versatile artist what is your take on that and its impact?

D.Gregor:  Well, I mean. Digital films have been around, Dogma 95 was kind of the first wake up call that you could shoot something on minidv and have a lot of people go watch it.  

Morning:  Well, Hoop Dreams was before that but that was a documentary.  

D.Gregor: That was a documentary, but that was a very popular documentary.    

AnnieG: Dancer In the Dark.

D.Gregor: That was Lars von Trier who came out of the Dogma 95.

AnnieG: Which he put to end anyways.

D.Gregor: Well yeah.  If you read the Dogma 95 manifesto it’s a drunken joke.  

Morning: Well Dancer In The Dark broke Dogma 95 in many ways.  It was his first post Dogma 95 film but it was video.   

D.Gregor:  To me as a cinematographer as long as, budgets aside, I think you just have to make an aesthetic choice at a certain point.  But, you can’t ignore budgets, no one lives in a vacuum with out y’know…"oh you know what ever it costs we’ll just do it".Films aren’t made that way almost no where except for a few Hollywood movies.  So In Canada digital, I think it’s great.   Certainly there’s a lot more films being made.  I don’t know if there’s a lot more better films being made but there certainly are good films being made on digital video–absolutely.  There’s probably a lot more bad films too, but I mean, I don’t have to watch the bad films, it doesn’t matter, so long as a gem comes along every now and again that’s fine.  And what the Red Camera has done as an affordable digital camera is it’s levelled the playing field with 35mm so you don’t have to see it as a compromise to shoot digitally anymore–aesthetically. 

AnnieG:  Aesthetically yeah.

D.Gregor:  There’s a feature I shot on minidv when the DVX first came out and it turned out quite well and we blew it up to 35. And we got as much production value out of that format as we could but it still has a look that’s not as grand or cinematic as my personal aesthetic is as I would say most people’s aesthetic is.  So if the Red Camera had been available or had been around at that point in time we would have shot on that and I think the film would have had a much bigger impact.  Y’know you try to get the most you can out of the budget you have with your production value and now the Red Camera’s allowed you to go so much further and stretch your dollars so much further than you could before with the production value and really suck people in to the story telling.  So I think you had mentioned Michael Mann, and I mean I haven’t seen Public Enemies yet.

AnnieG: Miami Vice was partially shot…

D.Gregor: Miami Vice was on the Viper. And it’s interesting because he, from what I can tell, he likes his films to look digital.  

AnnieG: Yeah, he embraces it.

D.Gregor: He doesn’t try to make it look like film.  I mean that’s not my personal aesthetic but I find it interesting that someone like Michael Mann whose made so many movies and some really stylish films over the years now his films he’s shooting digitally and he wants it to look like video which is kinda wierd but it’s obviously a very aesthetic choice.  He wants to invoke some kind of an effect on people.  Miami Vice looked very video it did not look like film or cinematic at all it looked very digital, like digital video.  I guess in a way it makes it feel more like reality.  Because reality TV is so dominant now and people are so used to watching digital video on reality television so.

Morning:  And their home videos before that.

D.Gregor:  And home video before that but it was never a dominant entertainment form to watch things on video.  

Morning:  Except with America’s Funniest Home Videos, that’s where it all started I think.  

D.Gregor: What?

Morning: America’s Funniest Home Videos.

D.Gregor:  America’s Funniest Home Videos, yes well.   

AnnieG:  Well there’s skate board.  As long as boarding’s been around also there’s also the underground videos with skate videos.

D.Gregor: Of course.

AnnieG: They were very popular and that was a movement on its own. 

D.Gregor: Absolutely.

AnnieG:  Or music video making. 

D.Gregor:  Absolutely, yeah.  And I think there’s a lot of people who’ve come out of the skate board video genre and went right into the Red Camera for sure.  It’s a natural progression.  It’s a bit heavy.  It’s a bit of a big heavy camera for skate board videos.  

Morning: They’re waiting for the Scarlet for sure. 

AnnieG:  Canon XL was a favourite for skate videos for a long time.

D.Gregor:  Yeah, I don’t know there’s so many aspects of the digital revolution.  You could say that the video revolution started with 3/4 inch porta packs in the early 70’s.  Before you had to have a tethered camera that records to some one inch machine in a studio but then the 3/4 inch porta pack came out and it was an analog camera that recorded on 3/4 inch tape and a lot of artists, video artists, documentarians started shooting with that and it was all the same arguments that we’re using today.  It’s freedom, it’s independence, it’s greater creative control, and the Red Camera is definitely part of that evolution of technology.  And it’s come to the point now where in most situations or in many situations it’s completely imperceptible the difference between the Red Camera and 35mm.  And 35 mm film is the gold standard of picture quality.   

AnnieG: Well there’s 70.

D.Gregor:  Well, there’s 70 but who shoots 65?  That doesn’t happen very often.  And the vast majority of films are shot on 35 and that’s what we’re used to seeing that the look.  And now the Red Camera’s kind of converged and it’s really perceptually it’s not much even though it’s completely different technologies.  The digital technology is so close in resolution and latitude, its’ difficult to explain, but there’s just some qualities of it that are different that what digital and video technologies were in the past that made them look very different and perhaps aesthetically unappealing.  I mean one of the biggest digital films of all time was probably The Blair Witch Project:  a super indie low budget thing.  And it was shot as a mock documentary, it looked very much like minidv video.  You know there’s technically a lot of things wrong with that movie but it worked, it sucked the audience in.  It kind of felt like a real documentary and you got pulled into it and it had a big impact on people.  And then 10 years later you have Cloverfield which is the Hollywood version of The Blair Witch Project which I thought was a really scary movie.  It sucked your right in and it used all those techniques that an independent filmmaker had used in Blair Witch.   

Morning:  I think they shot it with three or four different formats and three or four different cameras.   

D.Gregor:  Cloverfield was shot with an HVX200 and a Viper and an F900 I believe.  A bunch of cameras.

Morning: I’d have to say that the biggest digital feature was Attack of The Clones.   

D.Gregor: Oh, Attack of The Clones.  Technically yes.  Lucas’s last trilogy was all HD.

Morning: No.

D.Gregor: Well the first one was 35 and the last two were shot…

Morning: On the Genesis prototype.    

AnnieG: Would you like to add anything to what’s happening? (To Morning)

Morning:  Well, I guess I see it as a third.   To me it’s not video it’s not film it has it’s own aesthetic.  I think that will be discovered more as more people shoot with it.  People will be trying to emulate film and that’s fine.  Just like with video you can get closer to film with digital cinema using Red but I think it will also start to work out its own aesthetic which will be interesting.  There’s a lot more directions people can go.  Some people feel that shooting a time base of 60 frames per second instead of 24 is going to give you more realistic motion but we’re so used to motion blur with the 24 frames per second that might seem, I don’t want to say disjointed but, disturbing in some ways.  I guess some people do that with a tighter shudder with action.

D.Gregor: Well if it’s going to look like Survivor. It’ll look like Survivor if you shoot it at that frame rate.  

Morning:  I’m not saying that’s what I want to do.

D.Gregor:  But if you want to look like Lost that’s a dramatic series inspired by a reality show.  Personally I think there’s something in frame rates that’s a very important aspect of story telling when you see something that looks like the news and reality that…

Morning: It pulls you in a certain way.

D.Gregor:  You have different expectations and you react very differently to it than when you see something that has the blur and softness of film because of the different frame rate and shudder speed I think it puts you in a state of mind that is more accepting to storytelling because of the lower frame rate.  I don’t want to get too technical.

AnnieG:  I don’t mind it’s up to you. I’m gonna put you’re who thing up there because I think it’s fascinating.

Morning: I think that indeed any artist has to be aware of the signifiers they’re using and that includes frame rates.  In terms of if there’s a history or not, creating in a vacuum, and there’s a history of film and video making, and that even becomes a tool in itself.  Comparably say in the music world Tom Waits seems to see genres as musical instruments and I think that’s true, I can’t think of any video or film artists right now but the audiences are much more sophisticated now and the artistry has to take it to another level as well.  And genres and signifiers come into play a lot more.

AnnieG: So just to add do you think we’re going to have a resurgence of what people did with French New Wave and what people did with Italian Neo-Realism where people are gonna focus more on aesthetic to tell the story.  Do you think digital is gonna allow independent filmmakers to take that route?

D.Gregor:  I think it’s gonna bring in a generation.  Cameras like the Red because the production value is so high with it the sophistication of the next generation of filmmakers is going to be so high and so developed because you’re learning on something that has some of the best production value around.  It’s not like you’re learning on a little inexpensive camera with horrible picture and technically so many things wrong with it. You can learn in a format that Hollywood directors work with.  So it’s going to make people, I would think, more sophisticated in their filmmaking.  And audiences are far more sophisticated too so it kind of goes hand in hand.  It’s difficult with HD delivery at home and with DVD and Blue Ray, people are much used to higher quality standards.

AnnieG: Just with HBO and television.

D.Gregor:   Television has totally raised the bar.  

AnnieG: For films.

D.Gregor: For films, I completely agree.

Morning: I find it interesting culturally. I find it goes in cycles at least for North American culture.  I personally find that when I’m disappointed in feature films coming out then I’ll kind of look around TV and there’s often suddenly a renaissance in television and then peeterss out and then hopefully the films come back.  It’s interesting because I don’t watch broadcast TV anymore, well I do but on DVD. I’ll wait till the season’s over and I’ll rent the DVD’s.  I used to really love waiting for that every Thursday night at 8 p.m. and you get to see your next instalment that’s a great experience but the way my life is right now and I’m sure there’s a lot of people who’d rather watch it when they want to.  So there’s not that global experience.   

D.Gregor:  I think there’s a generation that watches broadcast television at that set time.  But there’s a definite generational break where people will watch–on the internet you just go to that channel…

Morning: Or they PVR or TiVo it.

D.Gregor:  They PVR or TiVo it, or if it’s a series they totally missed online they can rent the DVD’s and watch it as one serial storyline.  Six Feet Under was my first series that I watched on DVD and it was one of the most satisfying viewing experiences I’ve ever had.  It blew my mind.  A feature film is like a short story to me and a really good series like that is like reading a novel.  You sink right into so many storylines and characters  and it’s so rich with detail that you can’t have in a two hour movie.

Morning:   Well they’ve allowed themselves to have storylines and arcs that go beyond the one episode. Where as the CSI’s everything has to be wrapped up it just becomes like a boring it’s been played out.

D.Gregor: It’s so formulaic.

Morning: It’s been played out so much that it just becomes a formula.   And I think that gets back to a point and gives way to a point where it really starts with the word.   It starts with the writing.  No matter how much technology can bring quality to the masses if the technology is not supporting something that has integrity it’s just smoke and mirrors in the end.  So you really have to have either a solid script or solid actors that can improv really well.  In the end it’s better to have a script you can throw away than try to make a go of something.  Start with a good idea based in a good script working with good actors and a good director and even a good art director and then you can find a cinematographer.  No I’m just joking.   

AnnieG:  So we’ve talked about that and we’re looking at independent filmmakers and all the different genres and all the different levels.  But with Red Camera and an independent film festival like this we were talking a bit inside the workshop about economics.   How does this translate to new filmmakers and people who want to get involved with a festival like this.  They have a plethora of knowledge available to them.  And it really is, it’s the information age and anybody can learn.  How do you tell people to get educated to put out good quality product with these tools?

D.Gregor:  What Morning was saying every good film starts with a good concept.  You need a concept first and I see people get seduced by technology and neglect the story and the concept.   And you can watch a lot of different Hollywood movies that look beautiful and have the best production value but they’re really bad movies.  They’re boring, they’re not interesting, or they don’t make sense, or y’know you just don’t buy them.  So as a cinematographer my job is to know and understand technology and how to get the most out of each format.  But I’d much rather watch a great story that’s shot that’s not so well shot rather than a beautiful looking film that I don’t find interesting at all.  You can educate yourself all you want about the technology but at a certain point you have to stick to the basics: story, script, characters.   You need the meat, the substance of your movie to work otherwise it’s just eye candy and it’s not very satisfying.

AnnieG:  And you Morning?

Morning:  I guess schools are a good way to go.  I guess with the Scarlet it’ll be tempting just to buy your own camera because it’ll be pretty cheap.  But renting is also great because you don’t have to watch it depreciate and you’ll always have the greatest and the latest.  It’s tough and that’s why going to school can be great too because technology is there and you have kind of free labour surrounding you and you get to try out all the different departments if you want to because you have that kind of access.  Hopefully, you can find a mentor too.  I think whether you go to school or not that can be a really essential thing is to find someone who you admire that can give you some guidance because you can go so far but you can run into a lot of unnecessary pitfalls if you’re just going it alone.  Some people are self taught too so it’s hard to come up with one rule for how to learn it and I think that’s what I’ve found really interesting about filmmaking in the first place is that there are so many ways to find a path and so many different avenues.   And it’s just getting wider and wider and more versatile in terms of how you can express yourself and how you can find an audience.   But I guess really it’s a marathon in the end you just have to really really want it.  And it’s something that even in the darkest of times will not leave you.  I mean if you curse at it and tell it to leave you alone, it’s not for the dabbler for sure.  

AnnieG:   And lastly, we’ve talked about the evolution of this craft, and the different levels of it, and how Red Camera fits into it, and just the experience here at Mississauga Independent Film Festival.  What does a festival like this, I mean given the landscape in filmmaking in Canada right now and how hard it is for anyone to break into the industry or to make an impact on the culture, why is a festival like this important to indie filmmakers?  

D.Gregor:   A film festival like this gives filmmakers an opportunity to watch their films with an audience that’s not their friends and family.  You can get a more genuine reaction.  Y’know learn and grow as an artist.  An artist needs an
audience especially a filmmaker.  It doesn’t make sense to make films for just an audience of you.

AnnieG: It’s therapy.

D.Gregor: It’s therapy, it’s a very expensive therapy, yeah.  Well I mean I’m sure there’s therapeutic aspects to all creative art forms but if you want to go out and be able to make a living and a career at it you’re going to have to make films that appeal to more people than just yourself.  You’re going to have to find things in common with an audience.  This is kind of a support network for nurturing filmmakers and y’know this is where people can try things that more commercial projects wouldn’t.  You can experiment a bit more when you’re an indie filmmaker.   And as an audience member it’s great to go and watch projects like that, that kind of break the rules and try things outside the boundaries.  Film festivals like this serve both independent filmmakers and audiences too.  It’s a great place to see the next generation, who’s going to be the next big director.   

AnnieG:  And you Morning?

Morning:  I think it’s great to go out to the cinema and I think it great, well internet allows us to access…What?

D.Gregor:  (laughing) I think it’s great to go out to the cinema (laughing).

AnnieG:  It think that’s really sweet!

D.Gregor:  (laughing)

AnnieG:   It was really sweet and genuine.

D.Gregor: Yeah?

AnnieG:   (To Morning) I’m on your team. (giggles)

Morning:  I’m just thinking…

D.Gregor:  That’s just wierd.

AnnieG: It’s all in context, you guys are great.

Morning:  The internet allows you to access for culture globally which is great as well but there is something about being local and having your local cinema and getting awareness and not having to go to Toronto Film Festival, or New York, or L.A., or where ever.  There should be festivals in every major metropolitan area because it’s still a socio-cultural event.  And it also allows as Gregor said a filmmaker to have an audience but it’s also, I think, about the cultural experience.  Artists in some ways are a filter through which we can see the times we live in and I also think that is the area we live in and the culture that we have is partly based on our geographical locations.   So to have festivals in your home town is essential for filmmaking or any art really. 

AnnieG:  Thank you guys so much.

For more information about D.Gregor Hagey you can check out his website at www.dghagey.com .  And for more information about Morning Glory you can check out www.rubedo.ca

© all photographs and related media provided by AnnieG in co-operation with D.Gregor Hagey and Morning Glory and are the property of their respective holders. This work may not be transmitted via the Internet, or reproduced in any other way, without written consent from AnnieGMovies.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 8:33 pm and is filed under Behind The Lens, MIFF 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.