Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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.
Subscribe now for weekly episodes that celebrate the unpredictable, the playful, and the deeply human side of making things. Join the mailing list at mischiefpod.com
Email anytime at podcast@ohhmaybe.com and follow us @mischiefpod
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 mo-
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, this is Mishu and welcome to Mischief and Mastery. Today we're chatting with Isaac Izzy-White, who is an award-winning director of photography.
who occasionally steps into the director's chair when inspiration strikes. From cranking out short films nearly every month to shooting for Fortune 500 companies and music videos with millions of views, they thrive on unorthodox creative problem solving and running sets that are ethical as they are efficient. So as a delightful conversation, Izzy and I got into what it takes to keep up that momentum as a DP when client work might slow down, the shift from making monthly shorts to focusing on bigger quarterly projects as well as
the lessons of juggling cinematography and directing on the same set, how to do both at the same time. We also talk about collaboration, decision fatigue, and how hyperfixation can turn into a creative blessing. You can learn more about Isaac at IsaacWhite.tv as well as follow them on Instagram at IsaacWhite underscore DP. And I'll have all that in the show notes. So.
without any more waiting. Hope you enjoyed this conversation with Izzy and myself.
Isaac Izzy White (01:54.098)
Last year was like the tail end of those like monthly short films that were kind of a big thing. so because they're the tail end of that, I found like it was my busiest year. I say it's because of that, but like it might have been a coincidence. I don't fucking know. But just like that was my busiest year. Had worked out the wazoo. I was flying out to like Idaho and Ohio and all these other places for various jobs. Most of them will probably never see like the public's light of day because it was like
Yeah
Isaac Izzy White (02:23.416)
you know, internal industrial stuff that pays the bills really well, but that sort of thing. And then this year there was, let's say I had one or two jobs through from January to May. was, it was dead basically. and so that's, that's never like great on your psyche, you know, but at the same time too, I was like trying to keep myself occupied.
because shifting towards trying to do like quarterly films instead. the issue with the monthly ones and we can go on a long tangent about that, it was just like because of the time scale of them, it was all to really like bring in other people. And one of the things that I really wanted to do that wasn't as quite as much on
too small.
Isaac Izzy White (03:13.472)
Zoes-less at the time as far as I can tell, was to work with more people, was to try to like get specialists who like who knew how to do this thing way better than me or to like try other directors out or even like try directing myself sort of thing. Just a bit more like fluidity but also like chance to build it up. Because of how slow my stuff was, like I was going full force into that and working with Kate Napoli, she's been sort writing all the projects so far. She and I work really well together.
And we wrote a full project that was like, putting into reproduction and we two producers drop out. And so, and we were like, you know what, we'll table this one for a bit. We'll start Q2 instead to start the first like of the quarterly films. And just to kind of like have a bit of a head start, I actually pulled from a project that I had written back in college called Meteors.
And we kind of looked it over. It's like, you know, there's some merit in here. So she like, she took it and rewrote it and it sounds so student filmy and like did a beautiful job with it. And it's this, it's this fun. It was a fun challenge of like nonlinear storytelling, like com. It's basically one conversation over two different periods, two different times, but they're all kind of about, they're all about the same thing. And it's this fun, like interweaving of people's emotional state and perspective on the situation at the time. like, she did a great job on that. And then just.
more and more people were like, hey, I'll help. Hey, I'll help. Before we knew it, like the days of the shoot came up and part of what works so well for the monthly ones is like, we were like, we're only do a single day of production. Like one day of principle and then you get in get out. Cordeons were like, okay, we can blow it up a little bit. So it ended up being two days. The story takes entirely place at night. So we had two overnights. wow. But the fact that like every single person that we asked
It's like, Hey, would you be willing to hop in on this said yes. Then others were like raising their hand to hop in as well to the point that day of I need to go through the list again, but I want to say there are probably 20 people on set.
Mishu Hilmy (05:15.953)
Yeah, that's a pretty sizable set. You're just like a kind of quick quarterly project.
Yeah, exactly. Like tons of people involved in it. And then even after the fact, now that we're in post, we do have to do one pickup day. But even after it's in post, like the editor kicked it out so fast that I was able to like reach around to additional post houses for like finishing stuff. And Harbor Picture Co. is taking over color and audio mastering on it. And then Banda Tree and Co. is doing all the VFX stuff. Because that was the other things I wanted to like try to start putting VFX into work because it's something I've always wanted to do, but it's like, have no idea how to do it.
As much as I try, like I will hop into Blender and try to learn how to do the 3D modeling and stuff. I'd learn like geometry nodes, but that's more so the ADHD getting obsessed with something for a second. Right. then learning. Yeah, exactly. It's the hyper fixation, but I've tried to like weaponize that in a bit to work.
installation.
Mishu Hilmy (06:05.902)
I watched a couple of Jerry Gonzales's shorts and I think you've developed one right now too. So it's like, he does his own VFX too, right? So it's like, does that time that you like learn, learn all that.
Yep. Yeah. I think, I think Jerry mostly worked in, it works in After Effects. And I did too for a while until I started to like just bar Adobe out of my life for many reasons.
Yeah, right, right. got it. I'm on my way. I just use it for editing, but eventually I'll just fully be in resolve.
Not when I moved up to Chicago in 2019. I had to like cut out as much overhead as I could and then switch over to Resolve 2019. I've just been on it ever since. The only thing I'll do once in a while if like there's a project that has to work in in After Effects or has to use Photoshop, then like I'll buy one month of it and then immediately cancel it.
They last year, not only doing your monthly projects, but also just general client work versus this year. Some of the client work really dried up. like, how challenging was that? Because you predominantly do cinematography, director photography work. So for this year, given that it might've been one or two gigs from January to May, was that a matter of just like older clients kind of quieting down? Like how much lead generation do you typically do as a DP to create new
Mishu Hilmy (07:22.872)
pipelines of clients or for this year, you're like, I just don't have the energy for new leads. So I'll just kind of hopefully rely on some older older.
I don't think I've ever quite understood what people mean by lead generation. It's one of those catch-all terms of like, it can be anything from like just that you worked on the same set with someone and you happened to talk about it and that leads to another job. And like, I'll send out a hundred emails here and there, but that's usually direct to client stuff. It's not terribly often that like a production company will reach back. I think what I found at least for kind of part of the cause of that is I've
I'm kind of sitting at this weird level between like phases is kind of how I've interpreted it. And maybe that's just my own perception of it. But it definitely has felt like I've gotten up from one sort of like level of my cinematography stuff, but not quite at the level to where like I'm people's first call. There's like two production companies, like I'm their first call and they were really slow as well. But for the other ones that I do a lot of work for.
I'm like maybe third or fourth down their list. so be it political, be it socioeconomical, like for whatever reason that just the industry as a whole was slower at the start of the year. That meant that like the people usually would get sort of kicked back from because they were busy and the next person was busy. Are you not busy enough to turn down some jobs? Like, that's kind of least how I've come to it.
Yeah, yeah.
Isaac Izzy White (08:52.078)
Totally. And I think that's kind of been just an interesting sort of perspective for me on like where I am in that sort of grand scheme of things. like I'm finding like I'm making more connections that are like, oh shit, like you've got like a lot of reach and the upper echelon sort of thing. Like the whole reason that Harbor jumped onto the Meteors project was because like after the Filmmaker Friday where they did their panel. Oh yeah.
We went to the after party and then Ocean, I, guy who was doing the actual like host of the panel, he and I got talking quite a bit and just like really sort of gelled as we got coffee the like, I think the next week or something like that. And through just normal conversation, like the project I was working on came out and he has to see it. So I sent it over to him and then like within 15 minutes later, he's like, yeah, no, I'd love to do color on this. Then he offered, then he additionally offered it's like, we also have some like sound mastering, uh, people who were like getting started that would love to jump on this as well.
That's good
Isaac Izzy White (09:48.27)
So it's like, there's as much as I don't like to sort of toot my own horn. Like I'm doing something right. I think, I hope.
Yeah, would agree. I've seen your work and I also think the spirit of like volume is the best way to just keep developing a your perspective and also like more variety to show like what you can do as a cinematographer or a creative artist because Meteor is you also directed, right?
Yeah, that was in hindsight a mistake, not because I didn't feel capable of doing so. The thing that I wasn't prepared for was the volume of questions. Like as much as I really pride myself on like, chin to schedule and like working with the first AD to really have like efficient game plan for the day. as much as like I knew that story kind of from heart because I wrote it so long ago and it's more of thing like I actually
yes. Yeah.
Isaac Izzy White (10:42.414)
attempted to make it twice before. So like I knew this thing in and out, but when there are 20 something odd people all have questions for you, like that was just decision fatigue more than anything. Totally. And that's where you start running up against like the, like the economies of scale to where like in hindsight, I probably should have passed off cinematography for that one. As much as like it was like my baby to work on, like I probably should have passed off cinematography to like JLo or. Yeah.
or someone else I know.
you got your grips and gaffers asking questions and then you got asking questions and you got your first AD asking questions. it is a lot. I mean, it's a good lesson to learn and also like to know like what kind of projects would you want to sort of take that from both points. But also as just someone as a director who has a vast amount of experience through cinematography, you can still hire DPs and go like you have a shared language. So that'll make things ideally a little bit more effective rather than having to carry the burden.
both ways. And given this was this meteors was like by just two days, you know, and it's also like a smaller set too. So like you don't have as many people, department heads on set, I imagine to also field those questions.
Yeah, exactly. And even then, like lot of those questions were coming from department heads because just the normal communication has to come there. And maybe that was just because it had a little bit of bloat in it in terms of just the scope got a little larger, which I should have seen coming. But you know what? You live and learn.
Mishu Hilmy (12:09.902)
Totally. And I wonder like if you're setting up plates for like VFX shots, that can also be a challenge. exactly. Because it was a not smaller budget, just a short, short shoot. So like what...
It was paid all out of pocket for me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. mean, that's like, that's great. I also do that. And I don't mind, especially for projects you're kind of like really care about any, guess, other discoveries from being like director and DP things that beyond just questions like other things you learned about yourself, like the joy of the process or being on set, you know, wearing the director hat versus the cinematographer hat.
I don't necessarily like new revelations. I know like one of the, I almost hesitate to call it like superpower, but like the way that like my ADHD manifests, because I have more like the inattentive ADHD, is that like the more crazy a setting is, the more I lock in. And so like, as much as decision fatigue, like I felt 100 % like the entire time to the point that like,
Kate and everyone else was saying, like, have you eaten? I'm like, no, I don't need to, I'm not hungry. But like, I think that was one of those scenarios to where like, it became almost a detriment of like, luxury of being able to like, breathe for a second while you're working. Even if like, you can kind of lose your focus on it, I think is pretty undervalued.
Mishu Hilmy (13:32.461)
Yeah.
Like, I run to a lot of, especially producers, think can be especially guilty of this of just like trying to get the volume, like get as many shots in as possible, or quantity. Like you're trying to get like high quantity and get as much stuff covered as possible. But the amount of times that like I've been able to bring us back from being an hour behind schedule, because I like grab my first AD and say like, all right, let's take like five minutes. Let's just sit down, figure out what these shots are.
I've grabbed the director obviously as well. So for instance, with Hamster in my head, one of the last days of the shoot that we had, we had this strip club sequence and there were two areas that we were filming within. The VIP room, was the main bulk of the day. And then there was the front end of the room. And Jerry originally had a bunch of shots made out for that front room, because it's one of the first scenes. The first bit is the main character walking in the strip club, looking around and blown away by all the people and all the love thrown around.
But Jerry had a lot of shots for it and we were maybe, I want to say we were running up to being like an hour and a half behind schedule. And so like I grabbed him and I think Mia was ADing that day. I think I can do this entire sequence in one big orbit shot. Like it'll take us longer to get the shot set up, but like I think it's going to look better. It's going to be more interesting and like draw people in.
And it'll catch us up on time. And maybe that's kind of the answer to your original question of like what I sort of, one of the things I like learned during Meteors. And I think it's something that's been reinforced a lot lately. It's a lot of that old adage of like plan for the best, but expect the worst sort of thing. And then like my little adage onto that is like, don't be afraid to throw out the whole fucking plan. It's not to say that like the plan is important. Like I am one of the biggest proponents of like plan every fucking minute down you can.
Mishu Hilmy (15:22.498)
Yeah.
Isaac Izzy White (15:29.838)
Because then you have a better idea of what parts you can throw out and which parts you can coalesce or co- and that was one of those scenarios.
Yeah, it might be a sort of semantic play versus like preparedness versus planning, right? Like the more prepared you are, you can have a lot of flexibility because you can prep, you know, five different points of view for one sort of setup. Like, all right, I know, like I know five alts we can do for this. But for example, the orbit shot, whether it was sort of through experience or improvisation, that's like a degree of sort of.
thinking, preparedness that can become by just spending five minutes and using that creativity. So to not necessarily be so beholden to a plan, but really doing that prep work. Because I think also, I imagine if you didn't have any rehearsals, you know, before the two day, two, three day shoots, you're going to get more questions, especially from the actors. I think that's the main benefit from read throughs and at least one rehearsal. Even if it's just taped out sort of sets in a basement, like you can at least answer some of the more question questions, motivation questions, then
when you're on set and everyone's asking kind of technical questions.
Yeah. Yeah. I definitely do want to implement more like rehearsal days into shoot stuff. That's probably my biggest regret from Meteors is that we didn't have a rehearsal day for, well, we, yeah, we didn't have a rehearsal day for either day. Um, but like we only were able to do a tech scout for the apartment location and then like the rooftop one, like I was able to go scout it out, but that was the only thing we had time for. Right. Um, or that's, I should say that's the only thing that I made time for that we, that like,
Isaac Izzy White (17:00.652)
as a group we made time for.
Yeah. Yeah.
Cause that would have solved a number of problems. And that was like this more stressful day. Cause for one, you're dealing with like everything from noise to weather. It started like a trickling rain midway through.
Exteriors.
Day one was all exterior, day two was like 50-50.
Mishu Hilmy (17:22.414)
Yeah, the weather changing. makes it tough. So this currently is in post with Harbor and Co. So that's really exciting. was this as one of the goal for being one of your quarterly projects for this year or was this sort of a separate, like this is more of a, just want to direct this thing.
It was originally supposed to be one of the quarterly ones. We had a different VFX person on originally someone that I met, like they do good work, but they were more confident in like fire simulation. They actually were capable of the, the assets that they were sending didn't have any simulation and which like, wasn't going to work for what I was going for. So like we talked.
And what do mean by that? The assets didn't have any simulation? Were they just still assets or what's the simulation mean?
So within, for the purposes of like this film, one of the major assets is this large meteor that's like on fire as if it's like slowly tumbling through the atmosphere. Yeah. The assets that he was sending me, like as he was like testing out like how to make it work, like what it could generally look like. Right. We're mostly just using like texture and bump maps with like, which I'm pretty certain was like water.
which may not mean anything to anyone that doesn't, hasn't dipped their toe in any sort of like VFX or blender stuff. But essentially all it was doing was just changing the like luminance and shadowing on an existing topography. So it wasn't going outside of the actual bounds of it. like there weren't flames looking out. It just kind of looked like lava. Which isn't, which wouldn't work for the purpose of the film. Could, but I like diagnosed tinkerer.
Mishu Hilmy (19:02.366)
Yeah, okay.
Isaac Izzy White (19:11.202)
And if it's not close enough that I come happy with it, I'm not gonna let it go out.
Yeah. And then I guess I'm curious because you have the background through cinematography. Was it a pretty easy move to just like let go and let other folks edit your work as a director? Because I come from the other side where like I just built through directing and I would edit my early projects and then it was a bit of a leap to just like find editors to let go. So was that a pretty easy practice? Have you historically just been, know, yeah, I'll let the post team do what they do.
It was, it was different and I would say like it was probably a little bit easier for me. But mostly just because like I had such confidence in the person that I'm not sure if you've ever met Alexis Lopez, Jonathan Lopez at all. So he's, he's my usual like usual go to gaffer. I call him JLo, but his brother does editing and like I didn't even know that JLo had a brother for like the first two years that I knew him.
I don't
Isaac Izzy White (20:10.222)
Because that's all Lexis does. Like he edits day in, day out. It's one of those like sort of gremlins that just stays in the closet sort of thing. But like he's edited some of the trailers for like some Netflix comedy specials like really has a keen eye. So like I felt pretty confident on it. And when I originally asked him about it, like he even expressed like he was looking for or he's looking for narrative projects to edit because he hadn't really like he had tons of trailer and like.
corporate things, but like didn't have as much narrative stuff. And I knew that he had a good skill for it. Cause obviously like he's getting hired by Netflix and things like that.
So as far as like letting go of the editing side, it was easy for me on that, but I could have seen with any other editor, it'd be a lot harder. Cause like even with the monthly projects, which like I'm generally happy with how they turned out for how scrappy they were. The way that we kind of worked with that, cause it was myself and Zozo Sak, he has a lot of contacts with like the, well you met Zo. Like nice guy, he's very, very sweet and like we worked really well together, but.
I think what worked about it for us was that like he's a first 30 % person and I'm a last like 60, 70 % sort of person. So like we'd film everything, then he'd take it and get the initial edit out and he'd send it to me and like I would change so much about it, but I could never get that first like 30 % start.
Yeah, it's very hard. You got all the footage. You got to lay out the initial foundational sort of mathematics of what a potential cutting pattern can be and then you can get more creative and shape it.
Isaac Izzy White (21:46.446)
Exactly. Yeah. So like I could never like get things started in a timely fashion, but because he could always like churn that out in like a week. And then I would spend the next like two weeks tinkering and getting it to where we wanted it. Or as good as we get it with, again, being a month timeline and limited amount of experience and like intrigue in that. like other than that, though, typically projects were like, I'm producing, I'm also editing. Or at least that's been the way in the past. I think that's finally changing some. So any other editor I'm
It probably would have been a little bit harder, I'd say. like Alexis's first draft he sent me, my initial thought was like, fuck you. That's like as good as like my fifth cup.
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen first cuts where I'm like, okay, I gotta just start hiring editors because yeah, they're, they're really onto something. Yeah.
Exactly. It's it's I always love there's a quote from an old chief justice where it was some some Supreme Court case that had to do with like that involved like the definition of porn. I'm trying judge it was. Yeah. And his response is like, I don't I can't tell you what it is, but I know when I see it and like I feel like that's how a lot of directors are. It's like there's always going to be that skill towards like.
they don't have enough of their own experience or like dexterity to do it themselves, but like they know what they're looking for. And that's kind of what the editing side kind of feels for me. Like I know what I'm looking for. I don't know how to get it there. Yeah. I'm looking for.
Mishu Hilmy (23:13.678)
Yeah, I think what I realized for me with editing is sort of the the impulse of kind of cutting to the the listener I think sometimes I'm a little bit rusty. I'm like, this would be a great moment Just like cut back to the listener Even for just protection. Yeah, it's it's great when you see it because so for meteors is that like Picture locked and now it's just going through sound and color
It's like a soft picture lock because we have, I think it's four shots in total that I want to grab on pickups. Because basically like there's a shot or two where one of the talent is like standing in front of the meter, like talking to their friend. Of course, like the two ways you go about doing that is you either you do it on a green screen, looks like shit, and you have to do like way too much rotoscoping or you do it on the volume.
Okay.
Isaac Izzy White (24:02.414)
And our original plan was to use a screen that CineSpace, not CineSpace, CineCity had up for like an expo that was coming up. we were, I don't remember what the expo exactly was, but they had like a, I think it was like a 12 foot tall by like 16 foot wide wall, which would have been perfectly fine. Cause it's mostly a straight on shot. We're not trying to do any crazy movements or anything like that. And I'd been working with that first VFX artists to like get those assets ready for the day of the shoot. Right.
And they weren't. And so we ended up having to cut those shots for that day. But I do think that in its current state, like it could be released in its current state. Like once it gets through color and audio, but I wouldn't be happy with it. Right. I mean, once it gets through like the rest of the effects and audio, but like I wouldn't be happy with it without having sort of that, that big, the world on fire behind them shot sort of a thing. So as much as it'll probably cost way more than I want to, we'll be doing the shots probably at smash later in the.
in the, I think in September, I think we're doing it. So yeah, like the original hope for release was going to be end of July. That quarterly thing. now it's like, okay, is this going to up being like a bi-annual film thing instead?
Yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (25:08.654)
Hmm
Mishu Hilmy (25:16.0)
Yeah, exactly. Because I think you challenged yourself last year to do the monthly project, which was like, I'm so, you know, I really do love and like the sort of the volume spirit. And we might have talked about it last year briefly. But in terms of your approach, I know you had your producing partner, Zo, you said. So like what what was sort of the the impetus, the inspiration to go, we're just going to do a monthly project. And what was some of the kind of
takeaways, experiments, things that you were really able to discover about yourself or your process through doing 10 to 12, you know, shorts in one year.
So it two years ago now, I think, is when we started the project. And we ended up doing 10 films in 12 months total. And generally the timeline was like, we meet at the beginning of the month, figure out what the script was going to be about, write the script, shoot it, and then edit it, and get it released by the end of the month. And the sort of inciting incident for that, it's not really a specific instance, I just run across a lot of various like YouTube filmmakers that I like respected their work that
we're working with basically nothing and doing on a pretty high volume. And so between that and then also like culling through one of my old hard drives, I was having to like switch over to a new backup system and like finding all the old ones I had done through college and realizing like, shit, like I did 10 times more work through college than I ever, than I've done like since then in terms of like narrative stuff. So my sort of thinking was like, we have this whole.
title that we call ourselves like filmmakers, but I'm not making films on a regular basis to feel like I that title. And so that was kind of it. It's like, you know what? A lot of these like really crummy little student ones I had done back in college, I know how I could have done that nowadays in the same timeline, but gotten a much better result. like, let's just kind of go off of that. So it really was just more so for practice and like getting things out.
Mishu Hilmy (26:52.364)
Yeah.
Isaac Izzy White (27:15.326)
than it was for any sort of like portfolio thing. There's only a few shots within that entire collection that I would probably want to like put on my portfolio. Or I feel like are going to stay on the portfolio for any length of time I should say. But it's also like one of the first things I recommend every single person who's like struggling in their career to do. Because it was such a boon for everything from just like my own mental case to my career as well.
Yeah.
Isaac Izzy White (27:44.846)
because within six months of starting those projects and getting them turned out, I saw a huge increase in the amount of work that I was getting. Now, part of that could have just been the confidence built from like, I'm getting stuff out. But a lot of it was coming through like, hey, I saw that short film you did. I've got a project coming up. Do you mind helping out on it? And so it's like, even though those projects were probably 50 % of what we could actually produce in one more month, the...
visibility that it provided, think is more valuable than I was willing to give it credit for.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. mean, it's the sort of the invisible web of synchronicity, right? Like when you create things, you're developing relationships that sort of might, you know, network or spider web out to different, you know, other people who are like, yeah, you know, actually I worked with Izzy on this thing and it, you know, they might be great for this project, et cetera. And like, you wouldn't do that without that volume. And it's not like that's your intended purpose. It's just sort of the organic nature of like the creative communities we create and work around with.
Yeah, exactly. And I think probably beyond like the benefits of it, the biggest lesson that I took from it was probably more than anything just like to stop being so precious about shit. Seriously though, like the amount of times that I've been at like a big panel to where they're like talking to big experts, there's inevitably one or two people that always ask the question of like, how do I protect my idea? And I'm like, fuck your ideas. Like ideas are a solution of where it matters.
Yeah, yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (29:11.146)
Shit. Yeah.
And I don't mean that to like poop on someone's idea. don't like, I'm sure it's a great idea, but great ideas are a dime a dozen and it's execution that actually matters. And who cares if someone has the same idea as you, everything's a remix anyway, but no one's going to do it exactly like you. No one's going to like have your exact perspective on your exact voice on it. And so I think that that's probably the biggest lesson that I took from it that I keep kind of like preaching to everyone else is like, stop being so precious about projects. There, you can be really like,
Yeah.
Isaac Izzy White (29:42.4)
excited about and passionate about it, but like also recognize that for one, this is a very collaborative medium. Two, it's a medium that absolutely does not allow perfection.
Right, right.
And three, like the more you embrace that like chaos of it, the better it's going to be. I love your name for this podcast, the Misdifference Mastery. It encapsulates a lot of just my own sort of approach with stuff. like, love creative problem solving, especially when it's unorthodox. Like the more posts I can get on shitty rigs, the happier I am.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, because I wonder like, I imagine there had to have been but were there specific creative choices or choices that you would have not made had it not been for the sheer volume of those, you know, 12 months of like, because yeah, you said you got two shots out of it and like, you know, were those two shots have existed had you not been kind of pressured into just making things so quickly? Like, what were some of the discoveries around just like?
that creative choices you normally wouldn't have made because it was so time constrained.
Isaac Izzy White (30:50.062)
I mean, I had a little bit of a leg up because the prior year, I had been doing a lot of work for this one guy who was trying to get a web series out. we shot, I think, 10 episodes of this web series that I don't think is ever going to get released. But literally, he was just paying me. It was me doing everything. I was doing camera, lighting, audio, all that. But what the monthly film sort of reinforced from that was
embracing like simpler lighting, embracing fixtures. So like some of my favorite shots from that whole span of work from the monthly stuff are either like no lights at all and just really like strategic placement. Or like a single light and then intentionally like mucking up how the camera's taking stuff in. So like we did one that was this shot of like a woman, she's on the floor of the bathroom and she's having sort of like a nervous breakdown. And we wanted to show that like
to our
Isaac Izzy White (31:46.902)
she stays there for hours, it destroys her. And so we wanted to do a sort of like day to night quick change shot without like doing any time lapse thing. But we also didn't want to like do a whole like point at the window to show it. We just wanted to show it like basically a cut in camera. And so rather than waiting till the sun went down, I just cranked my white balance way over to like way it's like 10,000. That way all the window light was like this deep, deep blue.
and then use the one light that I had overhead and shoved it the other way. Or I guess that was reverse, sorry, like 2700 on the white balance on the camera, the 2700 on the light overhead, and then like outside was just like this super blue. I can never remember which way the numbers go, so I could be wrong. Don't at me. So like things like that of just like, again, it's that unorthodox solutions to problems that arise. Sometimes the amount of times now to where like nowadays on set we'll be looking at a shot, it's like this lighting isn't quite right.
And so then the gaffer is like, let me go move that light. I'm like, wait. And I just like take the camera, shift it over and inch. It's like, that was it. Right.
Right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Gosh, I don't remember where I read it, but I think that's sort of the similar kind of sentiment of like before you change anything on set, sometimes like you just need to take a moment and move the camera. Well, even before even giving a note to an actor, I think it was in the in relation to actor performance. Like sometimes it's not the actor. Sometimes it's actually just like move the camera. I think that's from Rob Sparrow's book, Film, the Film and TV Directors Field Manual. OK, move the camera.
I get better about reading like other filmmakers books. I'm so fucking bad at it. I think I've read one or two of them and even then I don't know. But then there's the like ego side of me that's like, you know what, that's part of my process. I don't read other people's shit. I just take in where I take in. like I ingest way too much like highly philosophical like game critiques, weirdly enough. There's this one guy on YouTube that I follow, Jacob Geller, that will start
Isaac Izzy White (33:49.942)
with these, he's mostly looking at like horror games or something. Or it'll be like some random, mostly popular in Japan, like fighting game. And it starts with the premise of like getting a perfect parry, an absolutely like perfect parry and like ghost of Tsushima or whatever that game is. And then it turns into this long philosophical talk on like perfectionism and the state of a person's soul. And like, that's where my inspiration comes from a lot of times.
Mm-hmm.
Isaac Izzy White (34:19.35)
And then I'm just and then everyone will mention like some film that apparently is like a cult classic. I'm like, what? Right.
Yeah, yeah find what sort of fills up your well for sure because I think there's also the risk of like comparisons and I know when I was doing a lot of Comedy and theater work I went maybe years without seeing a single comedy TV show or movie because I was like I just Don't want to be influenced by a lot of contemporary sort of pieces I'll listen to a lot of like, you know comedy records from like the 30s 40s 50s 60s But try to avoid that so it's like ultimately whatever kind of fills you up with your point of view your themes that you're excited
about. Yeah, that's that's a lot of it for sure. I am trying to be a bit more intentional of like, if I have a really slow like week of work, then I'll always say like, okay, today, I'm going to watch this film I mean to watch for a long time, but have it because I know it's going to be either like boring or depressing. Right.
I know it feels like homework sometimes you gotta watch the sort of art classics and you're like oh my gosh am I gonna be wrecked? Okay.
Well, it's a whole thing of like at the end of the day, you usually want to watch an entertaining movie. You might not want to watch a good one.
Mishu Hilmy (35:24.494)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was looking at my letterbox, I think yesterday, and it was like, what's my most watched versus highest rated? And it's like most watch, it's like fun, satire, gags, comedies for heroes. And then highest rated, it's like death, war, humanity, poverty. I'm like, okay, all right, see what I like versus what I watch. And there's a bit of a gap.
That's not to like look down on any that stuff either. I know I've been guilty in the past of like looking down on like popular media. Being like, you like Star Wars and just like, fuck me. Like there is merit in there and it's like, if you enjoy it, great. I don't, but that's fine. Not the same. I don't enjoy like any modern Star Wars stuff, like original trilogy all the way.
Totally, yeah. think sometimes there is a sort of, it's entertaining, but there's also sometimes like a soullessness or just like a plot becomes a thing and there's not the best sort of characterizations. Like I think I used to work at the Art Institute and I remember learning about sort of museum experiences and one argument was like treat a museum not like a buffet, a menu. So instead of trying to get all the shit on your plate, I got to see all the paintings and you spent three hours there and you're super exhausted. It's like, all right,
like a nice menu. What are the three or 10 art objects that you want to spend 10, 20 minutes with and galleries versus doing it all. So similar to filmmaking in the food category of like, I'm not going to eat a five course, $200 meal every day of the year or every week of the month. As nice as that would be. Sometimes I just need pizza. And like I think a lot of movies are just like, all right, I'm getting my pizza for the day. Maybe not the healthiest, but you know, there's the fine, the fine meals. And I do.
the food analogy for media stuff. One of my old friends from high school will often say he needs a Snickers bar of a movie. It'll be tasty, not worth the time or energy or calories that it gives you, but it'll be fun.
Mishu Hilmy (37:21.804)
Yeah, yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (37:28.078)
Yeah. It's like you forget it. with the, like, or like Twix and Reese's, um, you get the two little cups and it's like, Oh shoot, I just re I ate both of them. I forgot I ate the second one. I was looking forward to having my second one, but I already ate it. So it's like, you forget about it. Yeah.
Yep. That's when you know you're a real fat ass nut. I say that full well knowing like when I was... If you look at like any pictures of me back from like 20... let's see, and back, I was much heavier like literally the last like year kind of got that under control for many other... Yes. ...reasons, multiple reasons beyond just like taking care of myself. But no, I was the person that would like I would go get the...
entire pack of the like little Debbie's nudger bars. I the entire fucking thing in one night. Yeah. Depression, guess. Probably.
because
Yeah, I don't know. Depression, you know what I think it's like, cause I'm nonviolent. I think it's meeting a need and usually like junk food to me is like it meets that need for comfort. think there's something that's very comforting and pleasing. It's like pleasurable. It's like pleasurable and comforting to eat that. So it's like, well, what are other ways to like self soothe and comfort, you know, maybe going dancing, maybe going for a walk or, know, I think I now it's like, maybe I'll just watch sort of, I think binge watching is very similar to like binge eating just like 20 bags of Doritos. That's fair.
Mishu Hilmy (38:46.058)
So I don't know. think there's a mix of just like you're trying to maybe it's comforting. It's enjoyable.
This is going to be like a hard left turn, you bring up a topic perspective, I guess, that I think is kind of relevant in that scenario. Because like a lot of the stuff that like I was working through, you know, years back, a lot of like the overeating and such definitely was self-soothing. But a lot of that was also like when I was really getting into some of the more like creative creation side of things as well. Because I actually got started in stills photography. That was where most of my work started. Did a lot of like portraiture stuff and then
Right?
Isaac Izzy White (39:22.062)
eventually started doing these kind of like more scene related ones. There's some like really like I'm proud of past self like some of the stuff that came out of there like there's some beautiful photos in there but like during that time a lot of I would usually say that like when I was saying like photography but when I started shifting more into like film that would say this as well but then if like blank art is like my therapy like photography is my therapy film is my therapy and I don't think that's that's actually a healthy way to look at it. don't.
agreed, I agreed, I agreed. Yeah, yeah.
And it got summarized so well from an absurdist philosopher that I follow that I can't remember their name suddenly, but they were, they do these like little stories that kind of get across that an interesting idea within like absurdist philosophy. And he had one character speaking to another and one of them was like trying to make the best art possible for the purpose of like healing themselves. And I think they're talking to like basically a dying star.
And this particular one. And the response that the star gives is art is not about healing oneself. It's about showing others you're broken so they don't feel as alone. Interesting. And that sort of shift perspective for me was huge. For one, because like a lot of my earlier stuff with a film and photo was very like seclusionary, very like I need to be a hermit to do this.
Yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (40:42.567)
yeah
But nowadays, I'm trying to bring in as many people as I can. And as much as that can be scary, first getting started. And this kind of goes back to your original question with things that I learned from the monthly stuff that I do now that I probably wouldn't have done before then, is bring other people into the fucking process. Talk, have that camaraderie, butt heads even. There was one of the films that, as when I worked on, we butt heads on the script hard.
Seriously, like we had like a call where like we could both tell we were about to like yell at each other for it and funny sort of bit with it as well is like for the monthly films we kept having this thing of like if a project starts becoming too precious then we table it and leave it for later on and this was like edging to that bit of like is this too precious do we need to let this one go but like we managed to talk it out and through that talking out like we found better ways to work together as well and I think that a lot of people kind of at least from my perspective I feel like a lot of
people who are having trouble like finding that footing that may part of it.
Try to involve more people. If you think that your ideas get tainted by it, no, it won't. It will flourish. There's, it's by itself, that's how it festers. If it's with someone else, that's how it Quote Jake from Adventure Time. There's no good kind of festering.
Mishu Hilmy (41:52.888)
Yeah
Mishu Hilmy (41:57.506)
Right. think there's also that quote, like, if you want to move fast, go alone. If you want to move slow, well, not slow, but if you want to like move fast, go alone. like then if you to go far, yeah, we'll go with others. But beyond that, if you want to fester, go alone because you don't have you don't have those outside sources to kind of like give perspective. So, yeah, maybe you can move fast, but at what price? Because you also run the risk of like becoming too perfectionist about it and holding it too dearly. I also like the sort of Stephen King method of like what you were sort of doing of like
far. Yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (42:25.976)
do we need to shelve this and get that eight weeks of space after the first draft by the sort of on writing by Stephen King of like, all right, wow, we're feeling too close. Let's just shelve it and come back in a month and we don't even remember like, why were we so hung up on this? Like what? We can sort of revise it there.
Mm-hmm.
And kind of a fun point as well is like the meteor script is a great example of that because the first two times of attempting to do that were in that sort of darker time for me. And a lot of even like the story itself was far more just nihilistic or is like the rewrite and like how Kate and I brought it up. It's like, like this can actually be a kind of uplifting, like a truly like uplifting story for someone's soul if they really like think about it. As much as it feels depressing in the moment of watching it.
Yeah.
Isaac Izzy White (43:11.102)
The implications of what we're trying to say with it, I think matter a lot more now than before. Before it was just like, I'm sulky. I need to be emo and get this out.
Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And to sort of that spirit of like art as therapy versus art therapy. think art therapy is totally valid and it is self-regulating because things like painting are sort of rhythmic, right? And art there, that's like, the goal is to be in process and just like be present and out of your head, you know, whether it's painting or dancing or playing the drums. therapy is great, but art as therapy, I think is sort of misguided because it's like you're, you're, there might not be consent with the audience, but you're sort of putting your shit.
maybe unfiltered or unprocessed under the belief that like your unfiltered, unprocessed stuff is going to heal you. But no, it's just like, no, you're just, you're just festering. You're just festering. know, I love it.
You're just
Isaac Izzy White (44:02.862)
Art therapy versus art as therapy. Yeah.
Yeah, because I think that's also what makes an artist is the design of like, you might have had something that's very difficult to work through. And it's your design as someone who can kind of like objectively like deconstruct it and create some sort of narrative experience of your brokenness that an audience can kind of project onto and see themselves. But it's just not sort of raw, unfiltered, like, look at me, look at my struggles. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Like the approach of expression and like the preciousness and the darkness, right? Like I think I went through a string maybe in my early twenties where almost every long form text I wrote was about suicide or the characters dying. It's like, is alt, like why are altis so sad? And it was that sort of manifestation of like art is about sadness and failure and every character must be a loser. I've done a lot of like short film.
sort of watching for film festivals. Sure. And there's so many. Yeah, yeah. It's just like so many shorts are just about like sadness and people dying and suicide. And there's nothing wrong with creating stuff about that. But that's where it leans toward the near you're maybe dealing with the sadness within how you think your art isn't worthy and you're not worthy. I made a short about perfectionism and suicide. So I can't I can't complain.
Isaac Izzy White (45:21.784)
I feel like it's a rite of passage. Like, you gotta. I went to not a proper film school at all. It was this small liberal arts college out in St. Charles, Missouri that, like, I wasn't even among the second full round to go through. Like, it was a very, very new program at the time. But I mentioned them solely because they had put up a rule pretty quickly that for the first, like, basically from freshman to junior year, you couldn't make a suicide film because they were getting too many of them.
That's such a good rule. That's such a good rule. I imagine also like literary circles too, like where you're writing your sort of like those, lot of probably short stories that are similar kind of themes. I think it speaks more to sort of the subconscious state of the artist of like, I want to destroy what I make, therefore I want to destroy myself. But anyway, that's me just sort of BS psycho battle.
Isaac Izzy White (46:11.95)
There's always something there of like, I feel like half of art and film and photography or any of that is like interpreting your own subconscious. Or trying to in some way. And unfortunately, yeah, I think especially getting started, a lot of that does fall into like, oh, this is never gonna be as good enough. it's that whole like Ira Glass statement of like the gap of like, I don't want to get past the gap. It's like, just keep doing it. It's okay. Like you can be bad at something for a bit. In fact, the worse you are, the more you're gonna learn in the process. Just be cognizant of
it bad. you think everything's great, like you're doing something wrong. That's the one of her Zog that was like, you don't utterly like gag the rough cut, you're doing something wrong.
Right. Yeah, I do think it is maybe an easy metaphor for the exhaustion of perfectionism. Maybe that's kind of what it can come to represent. I'm just so tired of overthinking all this.
Exactly. I did want to ask you of like, because you come more from an editing and like a directing background. What have been some of the things you've learned in terms of like directing talent that have been kind of integral to your own work? Because that's something that I'm realizing is still pretty new to me just because it's not my experience. Like I've done a lot of direct photography work, obviously. spent a lot of time with directors. I watched some interesting methods and like I've
have the way that I approached it, but I don't have much experience with it. I'm completely honest. And so like, I'm curious from the perspective of someone who like has a, I would argue like kind of a similar voice of what they're trying to say. I'm curious like how you approach that.
Mishu Hilmy (47:49.294)
Yeah, thanks for asking. I think I do. Maybe it's a lazy answer, but like I do believe it's like 90 percent in the casting. If you if you cast the person who really shows their perspective in the audition, you're like, that's it. That's the point of view that takes up a lot of work. I think my two notes are typically faster and bring your chin down. Like that's the directing. I think if you're speaking more than 20, 30 seconds after a take to an actor, you're more you're fucking up. Like there's I don't I think it's sort of
human processing and bits, you know, like we can't process more than like seven bits of information. So if like you're giving a note that's more than 30 seconds, they're going to remember maybe a fraction of it. trying to really be good at when I'm watching the take, what is like red card, yellow card, green card? Like what's the one like the red card? Like what's one thing that needs to be fixed in this next take? Nothing? Great. What's the yellow card? What's something I'd like to
maybe fix and like take a note with you know on a yellow card if you have it. Okay I'd like them to maybe move a little bit quicker and green card is you know what's something I may be able to give a compliment if necessary but anything beyond that is just like intellectualizing so look at me intellectualize a you know for a minute and a half around how I direct but really faster chin down and give one note per the next take one note per actor per take nothing else.
That's good. like that. Especially the casting side. That was something that I was really grateful for. Yeah. For me, too. This is like, actually brought in someone to do casting for me. Nice. That's great. Or at least to like bring in a bunch of options. like we went through the initial round, they sent in like tapes and then we did actually a chemistry raid, which is something we did a little bit different just because like it was the
the entire short is two characters talking to one another. And there's supposed to be two characters that are like intimate friends. Like they've known each other like since as kids. So it was important to us that like they felt that and they got that connection. And by the end it was a really clear answer because one of the first names of hiring or casting, yeah, guy named Joey Surrealis. I'm trying, I can never pronounce his last name, but I want to say it's, I want to say it's Italian. But like he had
Isaac Izzy White (50:06.304)
He had literally had that sort of a conversation with his little brother growing up several times. And so it's like for him, he was just drawing straight on that. I think you're spot on with the casting side being really important.
Yeah, I mean, I stand by it. that's why casting is probably one of my favorite processes when it comes to directing. Like, know, A Political had 1200 submissions, headshots of the 1200, you know, maybe I think two, maybe 100 to 200 set one minute monologues. And I just love it. I love seeing it. All the perspectives. Most people give like a
just because where they're at in their sort of career, which is totally natural, like seven out of 10, it's very safe, very polite. But when you do see those eight out of 10s or nine out of 10s, people are taking swings and putting like their individual perspective, that's what makes it so, so joyful.
Yeah, no, I definitely can see myself getting more into the casting side, because that was really fun getting to see those people like, you're trying something very different from what we originally imagined, and I am here for it.
Like how have you been staying sort of motivated given how uncertain A, the world is or B, the sort of entertainment creative industry is?
Isaac Izzy White (51:16.472)
That's actually a really good question. And it might, we might be here another 30 minutes talking about it.
Ha ha ha.
No, like, so this has been like a conversation that I've had with my go-to gaffer a million times over. Like the amount of times we'll send each other like a clip from the latest like AI generation video, like VO or DeepMind or whatever, whoever the fuck is making stuff nowadays. And like the results are like, holy shit, that's incredible sort of a thing. But the more and more like we've seen those and talked and noticed like, there's some like...
telltale signs beyond just like, they get the teeth wrong or like it doesn't have any substance in the actual story. like we, we've started kind of looking at from the perspective of painters, kind of around like the, is it like 1640? I'm horrible with dates.
Mishu Hilmy (52:28.566)
You get the impressions.
Mishu Hilmy (52:47.756)
Yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (55:01.986)
Yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (55:08.044)
Yeah, yeah, it's it's interesting time. also think, you know, my hot take is I think we're about to enter golden age of theater like these next five, 10, 15 years. think people might be demanding as more A.I. slop kind of gets out there. Yeah. I'm sort of the real flesh and bones of just seeing people breathing on stage. Also with Impressionist, you know, I think there was a technological advancement in how oil paints could be stored in sort of tubes so you could actually bring them out.
side pretty mobly. So now you have painters who are outside painting without having to sort of bring these like very heavy sets. yeah, technology does kind of breed creativity, but yeah, how can you move from it?
Mishu Hilmy (56:09.379)
Right?
Mishu Hilmy (56:45.484)
Yeah, I don't.
Mishu Hilmy (57:09.79)
Yeah, yeah, you're talking about the singularity of merging man and machine and becoming one like a I these are large language models. Yeah You unplug it they don't exist
Mishu Hilmy (57:34.945)
Yeah, yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (57:44.366)
you're setting me off with a little
Mishu Hilmy (57:50.018)
make you enjoy the show from these characters.
Mishu Hilmy (58:08.142)
This prompt is just a love letter to hyperfixation as fuel, as inspiration, some focused attention. Take one of your hyperfixations, whether it's blender nodes or lighting tricks or camera moves or sketching or haikus, whatever it is, if it's a long hyperfixation or a new one, just give yourself one afternoon to go all in on it. Play around with haikus, watch YouTube videos.
And notice if narrowing your scope to that one thing sparks momentum instead of burnout. So give yourself permission to just do a deep dive on that one thing. Maybe you'll enter a flow state much like what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about and give yourself a little deliberate practice. We're focusing on a single challenging but doable task. We'll hopefully increase your chance of, I don't know, hitting that flow and a little heightened immersion.
boosting that learning and enjoyment. So give it a shot. If you've got a recent hyper fixation, it's color grading on DaVinci Resolve, poetry, drafting up little four, three aspect ratio frames, whatever it is, give it your all for one afternoon and see how that works versus stretching yourself across multiple days with a variety of different interests. See how it feels to focus in on one and if that makes a change to your creative process. All right, I'm rambling.
Thank you for listening this far, and have great rest of your day.