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Creativity isn’t tidy—it’s risky, chaotic, and full of surprises. It’s full of breakthroughs and breakdowns, moments of flow and moments of doubt. Join Mishu Hilmy for unfiltered conversations with artists, filmmakers, musicians, and fearless makers who thrive in the unknown, embrace imperfection, and create at the edge of possibility.
This is your front row seat to the self-doubt, unexpected wins, and messy emotional work of making something real. But craft isn’t just about feeling—it’s about problem-solving, process, and the devotion behind mastery.
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Mishu Hilmy (00:03.244)
Welcome to Mischief in Mastery where we embrace the ups, downs, and all around uncertainty of a creative life and that steady and sometimes not so steady journey toward expertise. Each episode we talk candidly with people I know, people I don't know, folks who produce, direct, write, act, do comedy, make art, make messes, and make meaning out of their lives. You will hear guests lay out how they work, what they're thinking about, where they get stuck, and why they snap out of their comfort zones and into big, bold, risky moves.
So, if you're hungry for honest insights, deep dives into process philosophies and practical tips, plus maybe a little mischief along the way, you're in the right place. For more, visit mischiefpod.com. Hey everyone, it's Michio and welcome to Mischief and Mastery. Today we're talking with C. Ryan Stempel, who is a Chicago-based colorist, online editor and producer with credits on more than 50 feature films, well as shorts, documentaries, television, and branded content.
After senior roles at Foundation Content and Periscope Post and Audio, he launched Quicksilver Color in 2021 and later co-founded Journey Work Entertainment with his wife Anna Christian of Anachrony Post, bringing all three companies under one roof in 2025. Dedicated to photochemical forward imaging and technical excellence, Ryan now also teaches color grading at Northwestern University while producing Journey Work's first feature film, Lion Cooks.
So it's a real delight to get to chat with Ryan and we chatted about post-production and how it's evolving with new technology, what it's like running a Midwest color and finishing house and the pivots that led into grading 50 plus feature films to producing his own. We also talked about optimism, AI and why post-production might be one of the more adaptable corners of the industry right now. You can learn more about Ryan at quicksilvercolor.com, journeyworkent.com and anachronypost.com.
I'll have all those in the show notes. You can also follow Ryan on Instagram at QuicksilverColor at JourneyWorkEnt, E-N-T, and at CRStempel. I'll have all that in the show notes, as well as their seed and sparks so you can learn more about their feature, Lioncooks, who they're also partnering to produce with Who's to Say Productions. So that's it for the intros. I hope you enjoyed the conversation with me and Ryan. Here you go.
C. Ryan Stemple (02:16.462)
I've feeling pretty good, which I realize is something that a lot of people aren't feeling right now. Right? I'm, I'm fully aware that people will characterize the industry as in a tough place. Everyone's having a tough time and getting work is a real honest to God struggle for a lot of people in the way that it hasn't been a struggle for them in the past. Right. And I feel guilty all the time that that has not been the case for us.
in our endeavors personally. And I feel completely blessed and humbled every day by the fact that we're able to just continually pivot in pivot in pivot as need be. And I feel like post production specifically, which is obviously what we do the most. We're getting more into production these days and potentially into distribution in the near future, but post has been our bag for a long time and
I feel like post lends itself to pivot ability in a way, in a way that, like being a, being a writer, being an actor, just, kind of doesn't. Right. And we're also, we're of all of the subclasses of film and video worker, we are most geared to benefit from continual advances of technology. Right.
Not to bring up the gigantic elephant in the room that is AI so very fast in our conversation. of any profession, of any micro industry inside of the filmmaking industry, we're the most primed to benefit from it. Because it takes a lot of the drudgery out of the things that we do on a daily basis that ends up being just repetitious crap, frankly.
It also opens up a space that we as a small business owners and workers at small business, frankly, just did not have available to us that the giant mega conglomerates always have had by the fact that they were willing to exploit people and abuse people. Like for instance, one of the things that's really changed
C. Ryan Stemple (04:35.256)
how we are able to work, how fast we're able to go. And frankly, how many people were able to have on staff and hire at a given time or certain advancements in, I'm not going to call it AI because that's been a thing for like since it was branded with the, the, the AI label, right? It's machine learning, right? It's machine learning. It's neural net engines. Call it what you will. People are calling it AI regardless because it's the big, you know, hype buzzword, certain things like say auto transcription.
which is available in both like resolve and in Premiere now. It lets us do script sync. People don't call it that anymore. They call it like, you know, AI transcription that used to be an I don't want to say it used to be a job, but it used to be a task for an assistant editor that they would spend days to weeks on depending on how long the project was. And everybody hated it. Right. It was.
a soul sucking task to go through every single take type out what the script was and make sure that you're like compensating for what's actually said versus what's in the script. And then time code label that in the avid we can we can literally do an entire day of dailies in five seconds. And it allows us to have an assistant editor not spend two weeks doing that job, but instead
cutting assembly scenes for our lead editors and actually like making substantive process, like progress on a long form content edit. So I'm genuinely feeling more bullish on where the industry is going to go for post-production specifically. Like even more specifically for small teams who run lean and who are able to keep up with the technological advances as they come and roll with the punches and pivot.
Which is kind of what we've been what we've been trying to do and in the last couple of months it's been is there a lot of feature stuff coming in? Cool, we'll do the feature stuff. If there's if there's not a lot of that. OK, cool. Let's see about like the short films from the colleges and like the short filmmakers. OK, there's none of that going on right now because of like a strike here or there. Cool. Let's pivot into corporate work and to add the people like that kind of thing.
Mishu Hilmy (06:54.06)
Right. Yeah. mean, I think with the two elements like a post being the nature of what it is, is like, it has momentum, right? Like whether it's a commercial or a feature or any kind of TV project, like it's already gone through the momentum of being produced. Like the raw materials were gathered, the project management was managed.
There's more optionality as like a post-production house to be like, yeah, I'm here to serve your momentum. But as for like, yeah, new technology, think also post-production has always existed with new technology from, know, Steenbeck's coming into the play in different, you know, editing stations. So I think that historically has had to evolve with it and the companies that don't slowly fade out, which is just sort of the unfortunate nature of new tech, you know, displacing people who are able to, are willing or interested in kind of using it for their advantage.
Yeah, and boy howdy, do we also benefit from the strange alchemy of it all. How do you properly use a particular kind of film emulation plug-in and not make it look like you turned up your contrast knob way too high and to make it actually look correct and also going through a distributor's specification sheet and knowing what does it mean when they ask for a 16 channel ProRes
Quad for HQ, which by the way, isn't the thing, but everyone calls it pro res 444 HQ. Yeah. Yeah. And like, like navigating all of that, we, greatly benefit from the eldritch language of technology and being able to parse that kind of stuff. Because it's, it's not a language that a lot of producers, directors and writers and people like that, it's just not a language that they are quite versed in. we, we're always going to have some kind of work there.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like finishing, right? It's mastering. It's finishing. And like most people they've done all this work and to find someone they can trust who's like, yeah, we'll take you there. We'll help you finish regardless of whether you're advanced AI technology. It's you have the understanding of what most, you know, industry level companies want to finish and distribute versus, you know, people who are writing or acting or producing might not have that level of expertise.
C. Ryan Stemple (09:04.014)
Absolutely.
So yeah, overall you're feeling privileged, grateful, optimistic. And yeah, I know you've historically had a post-production house and you find yourself moving toward production. How does that transition would go for you?
fun. It's been a learning curve, quite a new learning curve of like navigating different kinds of paperwork than we are used to navigating, having to navigate union paperwork, know, like specifically SAG paperwork is a of a thing that we don't really have to deal with in post-production in Chicago specifically because they're in Chicago, like anywhere outside of
Uh, LA in New York city, there's really not much of a union post-production presence. Oh yeah. Part of, part of that is just that historically Chicago has been an ad town and ad post-production people are taken care of well enough that they haven't needed a post-production union up to this point. But it's, it's, it's been, it's been interesting and fun. And I think that we wouldn't be getting to this place had we not taken on a greater portion of post-producing roles as well.
And taking, on the initiative through working on feature films, like the Christmas movies that we do with, very merry entertainment. And then also through feature films like single car crashes and good guy with a gun, good guy with a gun was the very first movie where we were like, Hey, we've literally been doing this from the ground floor. We made, we made your dailies. We did your cuts.
C. Ryan Stemple (10:40.056)
You've been in our literally our house before we even had an office. You pulled me into to work on color during the edit. Then you pulled me in to do the, to do the color work. Then I'm like dealing with this row. And we were like, Hey, do you mind if we get post producer credit on this? We're not going to ask for, we're not going to ask for any, any additional equity or anything. We just want to like get the credit we deserve. And that team was like, absolutely. This is what you guys deserve. And that kind of changed the game for us of like, okay, we can take on an ownership.
feeling for this. do we, how do we use that? So like you say, momentum, how do we use that momentum of like feeling like we have some kind of ownership over where this progress, this project goes, how well it does out in the world. And that's helped to make our transition into producer own content is getting a sense for how the word isn't freeing, but motivating. I guess I should say how motivating it is to own.
not just your labor, but the fruits of your labor as well. Right. Which is part of the reason why we, by both Ana, my wife and I, who is also my business partner in three separate businesses that we run together, why we decided to go out and work for ourselves in the first place is we love the idea of owning our labor and everything that comes from it, even if it ends up being a whole heck of a lot more work in the doing.
Right. Cause you basically go from being a vendor to sort of, least when you're working with others producing. like how, how was that before going to just straight up your, production company? I'm curious, like what's the difference between the feel or the actual actions from say, just being a vendor to a vendor with producing credits? Like what, what's the main difference for you because of that.
Yeah, it's a great question. It's something that we have to sell a lot of, like, cause there are delineations between in the post production realm of like, okay, are you going to be editing this and coloring this and doing DI producing and post producing, or are you just the editor, just the colorist and you're not taking on that kind of ownership role? Right? Part of it, part of it is choice on our end of saying, we think that this project has some serious legs.
C. Ryan Stemple (12:53.76)
And we're willing to take on additional labor to get in on that like ownership, equity pool of, and sometimes that comes with an additional upfront capital for us. Most of, most of the time though, it comes with a lot more labor and it stays with us for a very long amount of time in exchange for additional amounts of equity.
without anything else upfront in the movie, right? Which is like the classic way of doing independent filmmaking, right? Of like, you take more on the back end than you take on the upfront capital. When it works out both ways, that's really chill. That's really cool. And I think in that way, it prepped us for doing our own content of understanding that we need to be able to not take
almost anything upfront for our own content. understand that we're putting our, risk that we're putting on the line here is we're not getting compensated immediately for the labor that we're doing on the movie, but we believe in the project so much that we're willing to forego that amount upfront. And it's not a thing that you can do a whole lot.
You have to. Production company.
No, no, you've got to be you've got to be really systematic about how you do something like that. And it's and and you've got to have a way to supplement yourself. And the classic way of doing that in Chicago is to work in advertising, which I do a lot.
Mishu Hilmy (14:20.566)
Yeah. How have you balanced the risk reward of say, when you decide to partner and go like, look, I'm willing to exert more effort, more labor for either equity or more capital or with your own project, what's the risk reward determination maybe for both of those lines you decide to cross or evolve?
Big risk is actually not in will I have the available time to earn additional income. It's mostly how much am I taking on to the point to where I'm approaching full and complete burnout.
Yeah, yeah,
To be totally honest, because I can always supplement. It's a lot easier in post-production to be able to like put out enough feelers over the, that, that span into the course of a couple of weeks to a couple of months and, and book up some ad gigs and start saying yes to more ad gigs. I'm, I'm again, you know, very privileged position where I've been in this industry for, for, know, like over 10 years and people are now coming, coming to me. I've done my SEO game and everything and people are now coming to me instead of me having to hunt.
quite so much, but that's not really the problem. The problem is not, I'm not going to have enough time to do these paid gigs versus these gigs that I'm, that I'm accepting for less money upfront and more capital down the line, five, 10 years down the line. It's the job of doing.
C. Ryan Stemple (15:44.681)
The
crazy amount of brain equity labor that it takes to do full post producing and or even DI producing and we can describe what DI housing is in a second, which I for a lot of listeners who don't know that that means digital intermediate. We used to have a thing in filmmaking where you had to shoot on celluloid film and then it was scanned to digital and then that digital scan was then printed back onto film because that was the only way that you could
present it was on 35 millimeter film prints. We no longer very often print again, very often we still do scan the 35 millimeter that gets shot on set. But even more often we shoot on digital cinema, cinema cameras, and that we do all of the quote unquote, DI digital intermediate inside of a digital landscape. We still call it DI because it's a term that people recognize from back in the day.
But the, amount of labor that it takes to do either post producing or DI producing is intense because you have to care about it as if it were your own production, even if it's not. And then you also have to consider how are we going to schedule out the edit and then also schedule our time to be there for the audio mix review sessions to make sure that the VFX vendors, if there are multiple vendors, what
which shots they're getting, when those shots are getting pulled, when we can expect the turnarounds on those, who needs to be added to the frame IO account so they can upload versions who need like, at what point are we going to be classifying these as approved? Who are we going to for distribution? And do we already have their, their spec sheet on file? If we don't, what are they actually looking for versus what will they accept? Right. All of that kind of calculus takes
C. Ryan Stemple (17:39.392)
a lot and you effectively, when I'm on a project that we're doing post producing or DI producing, I'm kind of never not working on that thing for the duration. And sometimes I'm doing four of those, of those kinds of movies all at the same time. I'm currently doing four of those movies where I am either the post producer or the DI producer, as well as the colorist. Like I, I'm primarily a colorist, but these days I take on the post producer role quite a lot.
And I've got to be really careful about not taking on too many and trying to, again, do the mental calculus of, this, this one's entering edit in March. This one is doing its color in August. Do I have the bandwidth to be able to manage the post-production pipelines of those things? And ideally we're not brought on to a, especially a feature project. We're not brought on to a project.
when they're done shooting. is well into pre-production where we have been brought on so that we can manage the dailies, which is a whole other thing.
What's the difference between say post producing and DI producing in terms of is it where you are in the timeline or you know, is it more of the, the deliverables are?
It's the amount that we, that I, as an individual producer would care about certain elements and weighing in substantively on a subjective level and an objective level, like on a technical level versus an artistic level. What stuff do I weigh in on when I'm the post producer? am weighing in on edit both artistically, technically, will this pass QC? Is this hitting on a frame by frame level? Am I noticing?
C. Ryan Stemple (19:25.422)
in the background that there's reflections, all that's like soup to nuts in the edit. And then in color, I'm, I'm usually, if I'm going to be the post-producer on it, I'm usually the colorist as well, which means that I'm, team or me is also doing the online editing where we link back to the camera source originals. If we've been editing with proxies, then I'm also doing the VFX pulls, managing the VFX pipeline and, and the spreadsheet and
all of those timelines and then also interfacing with audio. If we're doing post producing on it, we're not only generating the turnover from editorial to post finishing audio, we're also gonna be weighing in on the final sound design and mix review sessions. We're gonna be there to watch it down with them and be there in the studio to say like, think that this is hitting, but it means
I need more walla here or I need that door slam to be less jarring that kind of thing. We're weighing in on that substantively. And then also once we get to the very end of the pipeline and we get to distribution, then we're the ones who are making the distribution masters for that, that will eventually go on, you know, TVA, David, all that stuff. And the difference between that and DI producing is in DI producing we
cut out the stuff that's not directly related to post visual finishing. I'm not going to weigh in on the subjective qualities of the audio because it's not my job to say, Hey, I don't think this mix is hitting for me. Right. That's not my job. I'm either not getting paid for it I'm not getting enough equity to weigh in on that. Same thing for the edit. Like they're not going to be sending me cuts to say, Hey, do you have notes?
on how we can make this better. Right. Right. That's the job of a post producer along with doing like the editorial workflow stuff. Arguably the workflow stuff is is more the post supervisor line than the post producer line. But when we are when we take on post producer, we're doing it all. And that's kind of the delineating factor is if it has to do with the with the post visual finishing, if it's VFX, if it's color, if it's conform, if it's rendering.
C. Ryan Stemple (21:50.986)
and delivering masters. And if it's laying all of that stuff off to archival LTO tape, that's DI. But if it's weighing in on, Hey, is this edit hitting for you? Is this mixed, you know, too loud in this section? I'm not gonna weigh in on that. That's not right.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's also like a solid, you know, entry point into kind of like relationships with directing and directing and the teams around it. Cause it's like, you know, there's O'Toole theory, how, know, how do you navigate the relationship of say the team or a director when you also might have a skin in the game at the post-producing side.
What a cool question because I don't really know if artistically it changes all that much for me. I'm, let's say I'm coming on as a colorist, right? And I'm only the colorist. I'm going to get, do everything I can to try to understand who these people are, both as individuals and as a collective unit to get what they're trying.
to paint in the image that they are giving to me. Right. And I'm to do that, whether I'm the post supervisor, the DI, the, post producer, the, the DI producer, or just the colorist. When they're hiring me for, for that artistic quality, I'm going to give that regardless. But when it comes to, if they're going to hire me on as both a colorist and a DI producer, then I'm going to come in with a, Hey, we should consider doing this.
not just because it's the right thing artistically, but we should consider doing this because it's going to sell better for you. I'm thinking of this both in terms of, and in a way, sometimes you don't want your artistic guys to come in on a business level, right? Sometimes you, and that's another calculated thing that I do sometimes of a like, these guys are coming to me because I have a particular kind of taste and style in my color grading.
C. Ryan Stemple (23:55.17)
And they don't want me to play it safe. And I think about that even if I've got skin in the game, right? Case in point, like there's, we do a lot of Christmas movies because that's what we, it's what sells a whole lot, right? And sometimes it's the right call to play it a little bit more hallmark lifetime, depending on the story, depending on the level of, right? Not like, like,
high tier or low tier level of writing, but depending on the tone of the piece, right? It's more correct to do a like rec 709 plus grade. And I'm not sure if everyone's going to recognize what that means, but like something a little bit more like TV with a little bit of a oomph. then other Christmas movies are like, okay, we're going to make this look like the Holdovers. We're going to make this look like a classic 90s Christmas movie and make it look like it was shot on 35 millimeter film.
I would venture to say that most of the time we're going to actually be doing the former than the latter. But I will, regardless of whether I'm coming on as a DI producer, a post producer, or just a colorist, I will try to give them what I think is artistically the right move for the movie and what they're trying to try to be the ombudsman for the image and for the film.
Yeah, I mean, also there's a degree of effort and energy because it's like you could theoretically make every Christmas movie have a filmic vibe, but there's also a degree of effort and like the client might not even be thinking about that or looking for that. So it's like, all right, do something that pops, that's maybe warm and colorful, but you're not, you're not necessarily putting your entire sort of thumb print on it.
Totally. I mean, this goes for not just Christmas movies, but it goes for every single project is you have to learn how to speak that particular creative's unique creative language to understand what exactly it is they're trying to get out of the image. And to this day, like I've been doing this for like 15 years now and I haven't found a uniform language yet.
C. Ryan Stemple (26:09.506)
that people use to talk about color grading and imaging. Some people describe an image as needing to look buttery. You describe to me what buttery looks like, because I have like at least three ideas of what that could look like. And part of that process is pushing it back and forth, back and forth, up and down, up and down, left, right, you know.
temperature this way, tints that way and figuring out what does he mean? What does she mean when they say steal? When they say, you know, like, just like give us an oomph or like, like make it a little bit like milky. Like what do those things mean? Like we had generally accepted ideas of like in terms of like technologically, if someone says like, I don't mind if it clips out. Right. That's a technical term.
But when you say that you need something to look buttery or creamy or milky, like we're going to, we're going to have to find that out together. And, um, and that's, I I'd say that's like fifth fully 50 % of the job.
It's not like the collaborator or the client's job to like, no, speak the language. If anything, it'd be more of a impediment if they're like, yeah, the gain, gotta change the gain on this or the, it might get too technical.
Well, I find that to happen a whole lot, actually less in imaging and more about giving notes for audio post-finishing. Very, very often I will be a post producer and will, and we'll listen to a mix down and somebody will say to me like, they've put too much noise reduction on the vocals or something, right? Or there's too much gain.
C. Ryan Stemple (27:56.628)
on this or the bass is turned up way too, way too high. And I try to coach people who are not used to being, who are not technical people to say, don't give a technically minded person technical advice. Just tell them why it's not working for you. If it's sounding like they put too much noise reduction on the vocals, just say it sounds tinny to you. can we, can we make it fuller? Right.
If the, if the image is looking overly smooth, don't say you hit this too hard with neat video, say they look kind of, you know, blurry to me. What can we do? Right. Yeah. The language, the, language of talking to, to your vendors is something that I, and how you best communicate your creative vision.
to the other people who you are trusting to be your direct collaborators. And this is not a unique original idea, but filmmaking is one of, if not the most inherently collaborative media out there. And I find this to be one of the most fascinating aspects of filmmaking in general is how do we most effectively, most efficiently and most accurately translate
what we each have in our heads through language into the other person's head such that they do the thing that we want to happen on screen or in or, you know, orally or visually. Right. And have it and also understand that it's actually better, genuinely better if it's not exactly what you had in your head. And in fact, it is better.
for them interpreting it and adding in their own secret sauce into the mix.
Mishu Hilmy (29:58.646)
Yeah, agreed. I think, you know, I'm big on language learning and it's like zero translation. It's better to move from a process that's not literal and translating to interpretation. And I think that, you know, and it depends on who you're working with. You know, you might have directors who are very literal and they're like, no, this is my vision, capital capital V, my vision. Instead of like, I think we've worked together and I think we're more aligned on like, let's interpret this and let's play around and discover. Maybe it's the years of improvising that I prefer discovery.
approach than like, no, this is what we need, Ryan, we need to do it this way.
No, I mean, in our time working together on things like A Political and we took a very Zen approach to it. We weren't necessarily so adamant that the whatever film emulation that we were doing on the piece was like photochemically accurate, Kodak film. Because at end of the day, who cares? Does it look good? Right.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. I rewatched it recently and I was like, damn, Ryan did a great job.
Dude, it's so funny, I actually like before we came on this podcast, I was on your website and I was looking at stills from, I was looking at the poster actually specifically and I noticed that you pulled stills from the movie to make the poster. I'm like, damn, that's a really good poster.
Mishu Hilmy (31:11.416)
All this time in sort of the momentum of post-production where you're essentially given at least raw material or mostly, you know, finished locked material. How are you dealing with the growth or maybe even the growing pains or the growing joys of starting from scratch with pre-production? Like also like what was the risk decision on choosing a project to produce?
The decision making was really simple for us. We are again blessed to be surrounded with extremely talented individuals in every department that we are building. I mean, in our professional and personal lives in general, we are surrounded by the best of the best of Chicago filmmaking. On this project specifically, it was easy to select what we wanted to do for our first feature film that we're producing because one of our full-time employees
just happened to mention to us that in January of this year, she wrote a feature film script. we were like, cool, Mary Jane. Can we read it? That sounds awesome. Let's, you know, maybe we'll love it. We read it. We loved it. And we were talking about it with one of our frequent collaborators, Jen Jelsima, who is an actor and a producer in Chicago. And we just mentioned like, Hey, we're all going to be hanging out at.
coming up pretty soon. Hey, Jen, would you mind if we like do like a, I don't know, an improv table read of this feature film script that, that one of our girls at the office wrote and we did. And the entire time we were guffaw laughing and there were several times that Anna and I caught eyes during table read and we were just silently saying to each other, yeah, we're going to be doing this. This is it. This is, this is the thing. So.
That process was very easy of finding out what we wanted to do. And it has kind of just been, it's been a joy all the way down the line. It's also become like a bit of a family affair for both the company and for Mary Jane. Mary Jane's family is helping tremendously, both with the sea capital funding, but also with graciously lending their house as a home base for our production, which is just 10 minutes away.
C. Ryan Stemple (33:26.552)
from our shooting location. The shooting location is also like one of the things that like really convinced me that this was the right project to do. So this, the movie is, I won't get the entire synopsis or anything, but it's, it's called Line Cooks and it's, all takes place in a Mexican Korean fusion restaurant, a la Seoul Taco. And it's about a recent high school graduate's summer before she goes off to college, having a summer job that in a restaurant that is run by teenagers and ex-convicts.
Right. And, the hilarity that ensues from, that happening. I loved immediately that this was a production that could potentially be Corman-esque. I am a very big fan of the works of Roger Corman. Not just, not just in style and tone, but also in business model, business model and work ethic. The idea of setting lighting up.
once and just treating it like a stage play that happens over the course of two weeks is very attractive to me on the business level. And the idea of just like cranking these things out, get getting paid at least enough to make the next one and keeping your constant troop of similar people who are definitely talented individuals paid consistently until they grow and become big shots. That's what I want to do. Right. That's what I want to make. So we're really blessed in that.
Yeah
C. Ryan Stemple (34:53.419)
We're being offered the dear family home just like 10 minutes away from the one the single place that we're that we're shooting at. And it is and everybody who we have worked with and it seems like. Every single person who we have most loved working with is coming not out of the woodwork, but is so willing to collaborate with us on on this project. I am extremely thankful to have Chris Burano as our DP.
to have John Mossman as our director. Jen, Jen Gelsma is going to be our lead actress and she's going to come on as a producer as well. And we're currently filling out the rest of the cast list and the rest of the crew list. And I am just thrilled and blessed.
Yeah. I mean, that seems pretty rapid too, you know, from reading in January to crewing up, seems like a pretty rapid development, which is exciting, especially, you know, at the indie level, you're working with the resources you have and the network you have. And that's a lot of, you know, sign of goodwill that you've made over, the years.
Yeah, we're shooting in six weeks.
Ed, how are you sleeping? Jeez, post-preproduction anxiety is real.
C. Ryan Stemple (36:02.562)
This is only one thing that keeps me from sleeping. Let me tell you.
That's well said
I know if I mentioned this, but I'm also post producing four other feature films right now.
Yeah. So like, how are you like as an EP, like how are you and Anna kind of handling the pre-production and the work given that you both probably also have a slate of, you know, just regular work you're doing. So what's that been like?
It is always, it is a perpetual. I keep saying the word blessing, but it really, it really is a perpetual blessing to partner in business with your partner in life. And I know that a lot of people will not necessarily agree with that. And a lot of people couldn't do that, but I am grateful for me single day of my life to have somebody who I can lean on and who can lean on me to pick up.
C. Ryan Stemple (36:55.38)
certain amounts of slack that one or the other of us might drop from simply having too much on our plate in the, in the one individual moment, who also is very caring of that individual person's artistic interests and general work ethic that they will do everything in their power to, make sure that things do not fall to the wayside. And it's not a tit for tat.
solution, right? Because we're all in on this together in a very like reciprocal, reciprocally giving sort of way, right? It, it very, it works out very, very well, very naturally, very easy for us. And I am, boy, am I ever grateful to be married to genuinely one of the greatest artistic talents that I've ever had the pleasure to meet.
Right. Yeah, it's great. That's yeah. I mean, I'm also curious, like the balance of like, what do you end up talking about over dinner? You know, there, you get time to sort of take care of each other at sort of a personal casual level rather than like all you're talking about is logistics and business.
It fires us up so much that we end up talking about business for pleasure. Right. Really, really often, especially when we're talking about things that we want to create, whether it's logistical things like we're very process oriented. That's why we can do things like post producing, post supervising, and DI producing. We're very into systems and making systems that are not more labor intensive than, and it would be to not do them.
Right. That's one thing that we have been like very proud to have built is a, is a set of systems that genuinely help us do less work than it does to do more work. And it takes the active thought and shunts it away to passive thoughts. And so that frees us up to have conversations that are like, I had this crazy dream that I think could be adapted into a novel or, or, Hey, what if we make a card game?
C. Ryan Stemple (39:05.038)
that's like this, which by the way, this is another thing that we, that we do all the time is we're serial. We might, we might have an entrepreneurship problem between the two of us. it's kind of our hobby is to make new business ideas, which makes it more fun. I, I always, I always tell people that like, when they ask us like, Oh, what do you guys do in your free time? If you're always working. Um, look, most of our business decisions that we have made, like our biggest business decisions have been.
Generators
C. Ryan Stemple (39:33.838)
in the bathtub. Like, we'll have the best business meetings between the two owners of the company while in a bubble bath. Right, right. So it's kind of we live and breathe it. And, sometimes we do have moments where we're like, OK, my love, I'd like to not think about work for like 15 minutes. Let's just talk about Magic the Gathering. Right, right, right. Let's just talk about Dungeons and Dragons.
Yeah.
C. Ryan Stemple (40:03.51)
Which are two of our biggest hobbies that we do all the time.
Right. got to have a hobby. think, mean, the curse of creativity is like, it's just a generative mindset. And I think when it gets dangerous is when you associate guilt with generation or it's like, I have 300 ideas. Some of these seem really exciting, but I'm not executing on them. So I feel guilty versus like, all right, we can generate it. We have a shared doc or a shared memo.
Yeah, that's something that we have to tell ourselves every now and then is like, can be okay with creating things for us and that will never be sold. This is just for me. This is not for mass market publication. I am just making this so that I can care to care for my soul a little bit. And if it eventually becomes a thing that I care about enough to be like, I would like other people
to play this game, would like other people to enjoy this lot. I would like other people to enjoy. Then we can, we can talk from there, but sometimes you like, have to create for the benefit of no one else other than yourself. Right.
Yeah, mean, it's exhausting. It gets exhausting.
C. Ryan Stemple (41:11.918)
And if it's not benefiting you and if at the point where it becomes additional work, then you need to put it away for at least a little bit. I'm like this with journaling. I really, really love the idea of keeping a detailed journal of being very gracious to myself about it, but it becomes a job in itself. It's another thing to do on my to-do lists. Right. And to that end, I just, at this point, my journals are my to-do lists.
I literally... What did I get done in the day? I don't have to write prose about my day. I can just look back and see like, yeah, I got all these things done in the day. Bully. That's awesome.
Yeah, I'm a big, I'm a big journal, but I do agree where some days when I'm exhausted, it's like 30, 30 minutes to write about it. But it's yeah, I think, yeah, it's good. It's good practice, but to know also like when you're out of balance or when you're not present with it. Cause yeah, I think sometimes when it comes to create, creating it's like, yes, are you thinking about money, the marketplace, or is this out of just the joy of doing it?
Yeah, let me ask you a question actually, speaking about that. Like, and this is something that I found in my own, cause I've also started writing because of course I have, why not? Something I have found in writing my own work is that motivation follows action, not the other way around. I need to sit down and just bang out nonsense words for about five to five to 10 minutes. And then once that's, once that train's rolling, then I can actually do the thing that I sat down to do in the first place.
Yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (42:48.066)
Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I've ever been inspired to do anything. It's like, need to do it. You know what I mean? Like if someone asked me like, what inspires you? It's like everything inspires me, but it's not necessarily going to get me to act. The only thing that's going get me to act is like to do it daily consistently. And I think I've talked to other folks, which is like literally one minute of writing this sucks, this sucks, typing this sucks, this sucks is more likely to get you to do a page or a page and a half or half a page than thinking like, all right, how's my schedule today? What's my energy levels?
Am I in the mood? Like none of those questions are going to get you to do the thing. The only thing that's going to get you to do it is to like trick yourself to sit down and start.
I think it's the same way on color grading too. When I have you sit down and you have between like 800 to 2500 shots to color. is a, it's a daunting task. is, it's a mountain to climb. The thing is you, you don't climb a mountain all at once. You climb a mountain one piton at a time. Right. Right. And even if I'm just like literally slapping the lot on and then just messing around in clips.
bopping from scene to scene and laying down like totally off the wall ideas like well, well, clearly this is going to suck. And it's like, like this movie shouldn't look like the Joker. You go, but you, know, you, you go and make it look like the Joker and you're like, okay, yeah. But what if it was just a little bit, let's contrary contrasting. What if it was like a little bit cooler and suddenly you're off to the races.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's the spirit of play through action versus like thinking in like, it's the biggest, the biggest like inhibitors, like this might actually be good versus like, all right, I got this shot. got these shots. I'm just going to pop around and just doing it to trick myself. It slowly becomes playful. And then it just, the goodness of it's ultimately out of your control. Cause like the client might love it. They might hate it or the audience might not even notice it. So it's like to worry less about goodness and focus more on like.
Mishu Hilmy (44:43.822)
Did I do two shots today? Did I do one shot? I level? Did I do the upies and downies on one shot?
Bees and Downey's is what it is, isn't it? Yeah, I love that perspective of like keeping a playful mindset. It reminds me a lot of the the Zen idea. I've said Zen a couple of times, but I have listened to a lot of books on Zen while color grading. Weirdly, like it motivates me so much like either is in the art of archery and Zen mind, beginners mind. That one I've listened to several times while color grading. Because it's all about approaching something not as an expert, but approaching something as.
a raw beginner every single time you do something.
That's great. Wonderful. I listen to Alan Watts every once in a while, but I went through a period of just like Alan Watts on the background.
Dude, me too. With those space sounds in the background too? Yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (45:35.074)
I think I had a couple of questions around like for this project, do you have a credo? Like, do you have an expectation set? Cause there's a lot of personalities, right? You have the writer, you have you and your partner, you have the director. So do you have a sense that you're all starting on the same movie or have you actively thought about like, is, what is the belief system? are the expectations? So you don't end up in post-production being like, well, this is what I want it to be.
Yeah, I would say that as long as what we are doing is intentional while also having as much fun as we can while staying within the bounds of the intentionality, right? Then we're golden. Yeah, I want to I want to create a safe, fun, thoughtful set. And I think probably in those in those orders.
C. Ryan Stemple (46:24.398)
Yeah. Right. And then the last one would be efficient. Right. Like it's if we don't make the day, the thing doesn't get done. But at the same time, we have to be able to approach the thing from the perspective of let's not box ourselves in too much to doing the thing that we thought was going to be that was going to work. And it's not and it's not working. Let's be able as much as within a certain amount of, you know, bounds of limitations, let's allow ourselves to
be flexible. Right. Well, also let's allow ourselves to be kind of silly because this is going to be a mockumentary comedy. Right. We want to bring the silly time. I this is a single camera shoot and we have to think about the fact that Chicago is full of improvisers. Right. Right. People from Second City and people from I.O. and that's going to be a large part of our cast. And.
We got to be able to edit this thing afterwards. Right. And it's all got a match. So, but at the same time, I don't want to stifle any zany off the wall ideas. And I just want to make sure that if we're, that if we're improvising and we really like that one, that improv thing, do it consistently every time on the mark. I, and I don't, and I, do not think that putting constraints and limitations
on any kind of artistic process has to be a limiting factor. And in fact, it can be more freeing than it is limiting very often. this is kind of a sidebar from production and more in terms of like how we run our post-production facility. Every single job we do, whether it is a corporate job or a short film or an ad or a feature film has the exact same folder structure that is uniquely designed by us to work.
both for offline editorial and online finishing editorial and color grading and delivery and all that stuff. Everyone's project file also mimics the folder structure. So if a file is in this folder inside the folder structure, it is also in the same bin as in resolve. And that seems really hyper granular micromanage.
Mishu Hilmy (48:37.539)
Yep.
Mishu Hilmy (48:43.502)
Gotta have system, gotta have a system.
You got to have a system and it's got to, it's got to work for everybody. Everyone like, and if I become sick and Zanthi, our other colorist needs to come onto the project, I don't want her to have to ask me, Hey, where did you put the credits? Right? No dog. It's in the, it's in the online finishing GFX titles folder or credits folder or whatever. Right.
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. think maybe it's less about kind of getting the day, but I'm curious, you know, producing wise, the note process of you have a writer, like, how are you getting your kind of notes on potential revisions? How are you filtering the director's kind of sentiment on like what they might want to revise? So like, I think for me, it's like having a credo or a ethos in what we're making can at least get us excited. But like, how has that been so far with your input on actually this is at
85 % would love to kind of push it up to 90 % on the rewrite.
That's interesting. And it's something I haven't like thought of officially, officially thought of, I think, because the writer is also one of our employees, but she's also one of the producers on the project and she will be on set and she is effectively acting as our script supervisor. So if there needs to be writerly duties that happen on set to rewrite a scene because of the realities of the production.
C. Ryan Stemple (50:08.536)
She's willing to do that. She's literally going to be there. And we've actually, we've already had to rewrite part of the movie based on, Hey, this is the location that we, that not only could we get, but we really love, but there's no refrigerator here. There's no walk in refrigeration. And at one point there was a walk in refrigerator that was centrally important to the plot of the movie. And we were like, okay, what if it was a pantry? Done.
rewrite all that for pantry and make it not in a cold place, like maybe it's like, you know, hot kind of thing or something, something like that. and all that. And I think in the same way that we run our post companies being both pivotable and intentional at the same time is going to be the name of the game.
In terms of maybe risk or subversion, with your creative process, like how actively within your creative point of view are you thinking about taking swings or subverting, you know, expectations, taking risks, injecting a little bit of, know, cheekiness? Like, is that a part of your creative perspective? Did you think about risk taking, subversion, et cetera?
Sure. Do you mean more in terms of like artistic subversion and bucking? Yeah. I mean, I'm a guy who my taste and style tends to go more towards. And this is color grading specifically, because it's the thing that I do the most often as an artist, right? It tends to go towards classic 1970s, 1980s film emulation, whether it's super, super 16 or 35 millimeter. That's kind of my thing, which sounds.
Like it would be like the norm for feature films. It's kind of a little bit subversive in and of itself for a couple of different reasons. Number one, folks are scared of doing something that has a whole lot of texture. Right. Well, if you sell to someone, hey, we shot this on a 6K on a, you know, a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema camera and it's completely clean and beautiful and pristine.
C. Ryan Stemple (52:16.462)
And oh, by the way, we're going to slather this with super 16 grain that is like super soft and gritty. And there's a ton of like saturation in the grain and everything. People get a little squicky about throwing on a lot of texture onto things. But it might just be the grammar that the movie needs to effectively tell its story if you're going for that kind of period PC kind of vibe.
Right. Or even if you're not going for a period piece vibe, if you're going for that kind of artistic movement, shall we say of like the 1970s, it might just be right for it. That's something that we did on a movie that I finished last last week was it was the very this particular movie was a very simple ensemble piece about early 20 somethings in Chicago, in a Chicago neighborhood, learning that their whole lives have changed because they're no longer
in college anymore and they have to make it in the real world and their relationships are going to inevitably change because of that transitionary point of view. Right. To me that really begged for like a 1970s, 1980s even like a refined 1970s kind of vibe to the grade and the producers and director thankfully absolutely agreed and we got to a look that was
something like early Noah Baumbach. Like a kicking and screaming if he made it in the seventies. So I just look, yeah. And it turned out, it turned out super well, but you suggest that on a Christmas movie and you might get fired. Right. Right. Can you imagine a super 16 emulation on Hallmark? It's just not going to happen.
kicking and screaming.
Mishu Hilmy (53:57.304)
Yeah
C. Ryan Stemple (54:12.11)
Cause Hallmark isn't going to buy the thing. Same thing for advertising, right? I do a whole lot of dog food commercials and cat food commercials. And there ain't no way we're doing super 16 grain on that. We might do a little bit of 35 millimeter grain if that's part of the overall artistic direction of the piece from the very beginning. if it's not, then we gotta keep it.
nice, neutral and clean. And I think that you can use that kind of small amounts of subversion.
to great commercial benefit as well every now and then. Even in the advertising space. I worked with the production company Summon Pilot recently and back to back two productions specifically wanted a film emulation on it. It wasn't as hard in the paint as a Super 16 emulation, but we made it look like classic 35 millimeter cinema and it shines for being
different than the other clothing brands, right? It looks prestige. and that line between prestige and pastiche is real fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, well said. then, think, given how sort of uncertain the entertainment industry is, like how have you been staying connected or motivated to it?
C. Ryan Stemple (55:45.656)
Ooh, the inner, the entertainment industry, but by and large, I read a lot more recently. know, I, I used to be a really big reader when I was a kid, read obviously the classics, you know, your dunes, your Lord of the Rings, but I also got really into like the, you know, classic literature and I, had designs on being a novelist and maybe going into, into being a comic book writer. There's time. There's, there's still time. I could do it, but.
There's still time.
C. Ryan Stemple (56:15.404)
I read a lot these days.
to not just to try to find things to adapt, but also try to, guess, remind myself and especially like new things. I'm trying these days, because I, in, when I was reading as a kid, I was always reading like the classics, either of science fiction or of literature or a fantasy. These days I'm trying to tap into what are people writing new right now that is actually innovative and fun and.
maybe channeling these kinds of anxieties that we have. And increasingly I'm trying to read stories that are not just fantastical. I read a lot of fantasy, but reading things like local Chicago authors who are writing stories about this city that I want to tell myself, right? experiences that I had growing up and coming up in the city in like, say like,
you know, Logan Square in the early 2000s before Red Brew was even there. Right. What, what, is that kind of experience? Like I recently read, this is like in the last year I read Joe Meno's office girl, which is all about like 1990s and Humboldt park, believe like, riding around bicycles. And it's kind of like a Chicago Omelette. And I'm, fascinated by, by novels like that, that, tell simple stories about, about a time and a place and a vibe and a feel that ultimately become.
timeless. I guess that's that's how I'm I'm keeping the inspiration up and keeping motivation up is constantly reminding myself that regardless of how hard the media tells you everything out there is and it is very hard for a lot of people. That is not an exaggeration. It is very, very difficult for a lot of people out there. But regardless of that reality, you can still put in the time to make something new and original.
C. Ryan Stemple (58:15.086)
Can it is still possible? Do we have an ever changing technological landscape that is very threatening to sometimes? Absolutely.
But I like to believe in the power of creativity and in the power of...
I got sitting down and doing the dang thing.
Yeah, agreed. Well, Ryan, this is a real pleasure. I'm glad we got to chat and I look forward to getting to hang out again.
Yeah, absolutely,
Mishu Hilmy (58:55.672)
Before sending you off with a little creative prompt, I just wanted to say thank you for listening to Mischief and Mastery. If you enjoyed this show, please rate it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your support does a lot. Until next time, keep taking care of yourself, your lightness, curiosity, and sense of play. And now for a little mischief motivation. Little prompt called this one a pivot log.
Maybe once this week or a couple of times if you're feeling up to write down three moments when your day or work took an unexpected turn and unexpected pivots and instead of labeling them as setbacks, try and jot down how each might have opened a new option or a new way of thinking. I think this is vaguely related to cognitive repraisal, which is a resilient skill that can help reduce stress and increase problem solving. So take a moment, reflect about how things might have turned or pivoted.
and how those changes might've opened up some new thoughts, some new options, some more creative decisions, some learning. Okay, that's it for today. I'll see you at the next one.