Cinematographer Meena Singh.
Meena Singh:
So I felt like I had to prove myself and know everything. But something I’ve learned from, I would say some of the more seasoned crew I’ve worked with is that things work. The work is better if there is no ego and everybody’s working together and you lean on your team for great ideas and you will get such better results if you do that. And I’ve found that is true with directors, too. And Wan Wright, who directed the pilot of Seasoned, he is very smart and he knows what he wants, and he’s also extremely open to talking to his creative team about if is there a better way to do it.
We would talk about things in the script even. It was a very open, collaborative and creative environment, and I think that’s the best. You’re talking about working with your friends, and I feel like that’s how it should feel. Everyone has a platform and can say what they think. I think that’s where the product becomes better, getting everybody’s perspective.
Gregg Morris-theWORD:
So do you ever think about becoming a director?
Meena Singh:
No, I don’t think, I mean, sometimes TV in tv, there’s people who are cinematographers who do end up directing sometimes. I could maybe see a world where that happens, but I am so dialed into the image and absolutely the story. But I don’t know if I’m ready to talk to actors yet. That’s a whole another beast.
Gregg Morris-theWORD:
I confuse things. I confuse TV series and films because TV series, for me, the best TV series, like your TV series, it makes me want to fly, get high and see it again and again. So what is my point? Oh, that’s my point. I tend to lump theater movies with TV movies. With that said, where is the industry going now?
Meena Singh:
I wish I knew. I love a good film. I love going to the theater. I mean, I love big movies. I actually love going to see not Blockbuster movies in the theater. I saw past lives in the theater, and it was such a joy to just go watch a good movie in the movie theater and not in my home. But we don’t have that luxury as much anymore. I have kids and we end up watching a ton of movies on our TV at home. We do a lot of streaming. I think that series are, there are some really incredible series out there.
I just saw one recently, Dying for Sex, which moved me so much. Kind of like you’re talking about our pilot. I mean, it’s sort of mostly in terms of if there’s a really great book out there, it’s hard to make a feature film out of it. But if you do a six part or a 10 part series, limited series on streaming or something, I love that because you can dive into the world, and what I like, I’m just telling you what I like. No, no, I have no idea where it’s going.
I like when there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end to a series. I don’t like it when series. I mean, the whole point of a series for some series is to just keep going on and on and on. So that’s not as exciting to me. But yeah, I don’t know. I also hear about 62nd verticals being a thing. I have no idea.
Gregg Morris-theWORD:
What’s a 62nd.
Meena Singh:
That’s a movie in a minute. And it’s on your phone.
Gregg Morris-theWORD:
Oh.
Meena Singh:
It’s like a one minute movie on your phone and you can just keep watching. But it’s kind of serial. You keep watching more and more and more episodes. So that seems like a new format that I definitely have not dived into, but …
Gregg Morris-theWORD:
That’s like some kind of YouTube thing … I mean I couldn’t imagine.
Meena Singh:
I think it is for me.
Gregg Morris-theWORD:
And then I am sort of a little, I’m going to say paranoid. I can’t imagine sitting in my apartment watching my cell phone. And when I’m out on the streets, I’m watching everything, people coming up behind me, the distance and I’m thinking and imaging and anticipating stuff. But I could see my students, I teach at Hunter College in New York City, so teaching in the film media studies. I could see them getting into it because it’s digital and it’s new, it’s cell phone and they’re masters. When it comes to cell phone, I fumble and fumble and fumble and stuff.
Meena Singh:
My girlfriends and I joke that we can’t take a decent selfie, but her 13-year-old daughter can take incredible selfies of all of us. I don’t understand. Yeah, it’s not my format yet. I don’t know. I’ll play with it and dabble in it, but I … I don’t think the movies are going to go away. I don’t think that streaming is going to go away. Just new formats.
Gregg Morris-theWORD:
Well, I sort of hope not too because I am going to watch films until the light at the end of the tunnel catches up with me. So, are there any films that you will recommend? This question might be loaded because if you recommend some films and you don’t recommend others, people get upset or miffed.
Meena Singh:
I think, honestly, it’s also that I have two young children and I don’t get to see movies often enough. It’s so sad. But I think I don’t, what was the last movie I saw in the theater? It was, yeah, it was like some of Oscar nominated films of last year.
Gregg Morris-theWORD:
So back to TVs then. Let me stay with TVs. Let me stay with series, get this movie thing out of my mind. So cinema cinematographers, who are primarily involved with a TV series and cinematographers who are primarily involved with movies. Is there a difference? I mean …
Meena Singh:
Yeah, I think there is a little bit of a difference. I mean, even in the world of series, there’s so many different kind of series. There’s network series, which I think still operate kind of how they have always. But then there’s the limited series or HBO series, the streamers that are doing the series in kind of a different way. Usually there’s multiple cinematographers for a season of a show, and that’s because they shoot them back to back really fast.
And so you’ll have a block and another DP will have another block, and that’s how it goes. But there’s some series now where it’s the same director in the same DP shooting the whole thing. And I think that’s really cool. There’s a little bit more of an artistic stamp on it. I would say the same vision throughout and on. A lot of, we were talking about the kind of more traditional series, are they swap through directors often?
So it’s the same cinematographer on a whole series or one or two couple cinematographers. So it’s kind of like the cinematographer is the one who’s keeping the look as the through-line and the directors come in and have some interaction with the actors, but the visuals are really being upheld by the cinematographer, I would say.
Hopefully I don’t make anyone mad. And then in movies, it’s so different. It’s like the director’s visual. It’s very much comes from the director and then it kind of stems outward to the cinematographer’s work with the director, the production designer’s work with the director. It’s all like the director’s vision. And the cinematographer is highly involved in the creative. And it’s just about you’re building it from scratch and sometimes on a series, you come onto a series, it already has a look, so you’re meant to just keep the look. So yeah, there’s a difference. I feel like maybe it’s more of a difference for the director than the cinematographer.
Gregg Morris-theWORD:
Are you ever going to do a memoir?
Meena Singh:
Oh God, I don’t know. I don’t have too much to say yet, but maybe I will later in a couple decades.
Gregg Morris-theWORD:
Right? You’ve got probably 20 or 30 or 40 more movies ahead for you.
Meena Singh:
Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, absolutely. I’m just in the beginning.
Gregg Morris-theWORD:
What could you recommend, if you were talking to a class of my students, let’s say film, no, let’s say TV series students, what would you tell? Yeah, I want to get my head right on this. What would you tell them? What should they do to get into the business?
Meena Singh:
Okay. Actually, to be totally clear, I’ve made mostly films, and this is the one pilot I worked on. So I’m a film …
Gregg Morris-theWORD:
Wait minute. We can do film.
Meena Singh:
So let’s see, let’s see if it’s cinematographers, I’m going to say shoot as much as you can and just shoot anything. Even if it’s like there’s no money for it. It’s a low budget thing. You have to shoot on an iPhone, whatever. Just figure out a way to keep shooting and to keep translating stories, scripts onto a visual medium. You just have to keep doing it. And you learn so much by working and doing it about the technical stuff, but also about collaborating with different people, all the different directors you’re going to meet, all the different kind of political situations.
You’re going to get yourself into learning how to collaborate and disseminate information to your team. You have a whole crew of people that you are managing also. And that’s a whole other skillset. So I think just shoot as much as possible. And then I think if you’re a director, my emphasis would be on experiencing life. Go out and experience life as much as you can, because I think writing, the best writing I’ve ever read comes from personal experiences. And I think that one has to draw on their own.
Don’t be afraid to draw on your own experiences because that’s when authenticity feels like. That’s where a project really feels authentic. And that’s when it feels like you’re really telling something. You’re telling really a story. And that’s where the connection comes in. And that’s the whole point of it all, is to connect each other.
Meena Singh:
Whom do you think is going to read this? I have something to say to incoming, somebody considering a journey into the film industry as a potential livelihood.
It’s a strange time to enter the industry. I’ll say that. But I think ultimately, maybe I said this already, but I think ultimately it’s all about engaging people and connecting people through stories and hopefully changing people’s minds about things. Hopefully allowing them to see the other point of view about things.
And I think as long as people are doing that, finding whatever medium it is, that is, a tool for them to tell stories about people’s experiences. I think that is what’s important is that we continue to understand there are differing perspectives and we continue to see the universality. I think of all humanity. That is what is important. So I hope that people use the visual medium to do that. Even on iPhone vertical, 62nd verticals.