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TJ: Hi Toby, thanks for taking the time to chat. I guess firstly, going back to the start, what was it that attracted you to the project?
TO: Well, I thought the script was a fun and appealing concept - a somewhat lost soul gets fired from her job as a realtor then re-discovers herself as a Dolly Parton impersonator with nutty results… But also, the chance to work with exciting up and coming director Gracie Otto on her first narrative feature, and the cast with the likes of Krew Boylan, Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale, what’s not to like? The other thing was I was coming from the 2020 covid lockdown in Los Angeles to relatively free and open Australia and the movie was shot in the beautiful NSW North Coast, Byron Bay / Mullumbimby area, so I jumped at it.

TJ: As you mentioned, it was Director Gracie Otto’s debut feature, how did you work with her regarding your approach to the visual style of the film?
TO: Gracie likes to be fully prepared and she has a great sense of fashion and style, so we did a lot of work on refining the color palette, drawing on film references like AMELIE (Jean Pierre Jeunet, 2001) and BIG EYES (Tim Burton, 2014) but mostly influenced by the work of Pedro Almodovar, with ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER, BROKEN EMBRACES and HIGH HEELS displaying his stylish use of bold design and primary colors that we referenced in SERIOUSLY RED. We also made the time to go through every scene in pre and shotlist the entire movie in detail, Gracie keeps an expansive spreadsheet document that includes ALL the information we need for the days shooting and we usually stuck to it! It was a pleasure being so prepared and working with Gracie in this way, and it allowed us to largely achieve what we had planned, even though the budget and time on hand was modest.

TJ: You chose to shoot on the Sony Venice, which you had used before, Correct? What was it that made the Venice the right choice for this project?
TO: Yes I had used the Sony Venice before on a movie for Lionsgate called BARB AND STAR GO TO VISTA DEL MAR, a US movie shot largely in Mexico. The Venice impressed me then for its reliability in tropical conditions and at the time, was one of the few cameras able to deliver true 4K anamorphic capture. For SERIOUSLY RED, the cameras were readily available from LEMAC, I knew it could deliver great pictures and it had two special features that I made good use of - the full internal ND system is a wonderful tool and a great timesaver on a fast-moving set; and the detachable RIALTO head gives the camera added flexibility…

TJ: And Lensing, there’s obviously a world of choices available to DP’s these days, you chose to go with the Zeiss Supreme Primes & Fujinon Premista Zoom. Had you used them before? How would you describe them & again what was it about them that worked for this project?
TO: With regard to the lenses, I had not used Zeiss Supreme Primes before but wanted a smaller spherical Full Frame option to pair with the Venice; on an earlier TV show DEAD TO ME I had used the lovely Cooke S7 FF Plus lenses with the Venice but they are quite heavy and bulky, for this one smaller, lighter and faster lenses like the Supremes fit the bill. They have a nice look, not too clinical and smooth focus roll-off - there is some breathing but not objectionable and the sharpness across the frame and perfect color matching is great. But you can’t beat the small size and weight. The Fuji Premista zooms are actually a good match in color and general look - and super useful to have the zoom at hand. Very high-quality zooms.

TJ: You mentioned that you used the Venice Rialto system to split the sensor block from the main camera body, like they famously did on ‘Top Gun: Maverick’. Obviously, this is a very different project, so could you describe how use used the Rialto on the film?
TO: Well, the RIALTO is a secret (not so secret now) weapon in the Venice arsenal, we used it on difficult or tricky rigs where the weight and size of the camera needed to be at a minimum, like directly overhead of the dance floor, and swinging around rigged on an old Hills Hoist in the backyard - but another very important (for oldie DP’s like me) point is you can use the RIALTO in hand held mode and it’s like holding a little camcorder, easy to attach some handles and swing it around in front of you like a DSLR. Kind of unique in that way, the grip can carry the rest of the fairly heavy Venice body in a backpack arrangement and follow the operator around allowing a certain amount of freedom, apart from the umbilical cord of course.

TJ: Is there a particular setup or scene that you are most proud of?
TO: The whole final performance sequence in the main stage of the ‘Twin Palms’ venue was very pleasing, we really didn’t have that much prep time, either with rehearsal with Dolly and Kenny, or especially with the house lighting technicians, but between myself and legendary gaffer Steve Monk we managed to come up with a sequence that looked good and worked for the finale of the story - it was one of the bigger things we had to deal with in the scope of a lower budget show and it turned out pretty well. Also, the couple of weeks we spent shooting the ‘Copy Club’ scenes at a small theatre in Brunswick Heads NSW was quite challenging, but the end results were also excellent.

TJ: You shot during the Covid pandemic. How did that go for you and crew? Where there any special considerations that you had to work around?
TO: We had to wear masks 24/7 through most of the prep and shoot, which does get boring after a while; but apart from that it wasn’t too bad as the NSW North Coast area had been spared the full impact of Covid at that stage. But at the time Australia was a go-to location for filming as much of the rest of the world was in lockdown, so my biggest hurdle was actually finding a good crew who were available! Luckily, I managed to pull together an excellent NSW/QLD combo camera team, headed by A cam 1st AC Riki Byrne, and B cam 1st AC Dan ‘Dabbs’ Abbot, along with operator Jake Iseu on B cam/ Steadicam and my long-term collaborator Martin (Fabio) Fargher as Key Grip.

TJ: Yes, a do recall it being very interesting working around the QLD state border lockdowns as we prepped between both states. Lastly, what is next for you Toby?
TO: After a long gig in New Zealand on a Netflix movie earlier this year I have enjoyed a bit of a break here in Sydney and looking forward to another movie shoot in the US starting early 2023.

TJ: Fantastic to see you doing so well Toby. It was great to have you back at Lemac, especially given that you were once a member of the Lemac team yourself all those years ago.
Thanks very much for your time, Tim.