On this episode we talk to cinematographer Jalen Ramseur-Williams about his work on White Meat: Appetizer, his influences, and the challenges of shooting on an iPhone.

Listen to “The White Meat Podcast” on Spreaker.

Here’s the transcript:

David Dylan Thomas: Hey everybody. Welcome to the White Meat Podcast. I’m your host, David Dylan Thomas. I am the writer and director of White Meat, which is a film with the following premise underneath Washington Square Park in Philadelphia lie the bodies of hundreds of enslaved people. What if one night they all come back from the dead of zombies, but they only eat white people?

So we have completed the short film White Meat Appetizer that we are hoping will get us to the stage where we can make the feature. A bunch of people have seen it already, really like it. We’ve had some sneak preview screenings. We have a few more coming up. So on Sunday, this coming Sunday, the 18th, I believe, maybe the 19th check your calendars.

But this coming Sunday we’re gonna be at BarCamp Philly where we may or may not be able to do a secret screening. You sort of have to show up to find out, but it’s a really cool event either way. But basically people show up at the beginning of the day and they write down what they wanna talk about, and that becomes the day’s schedule.

It’s a really, it’s called an unconference. It’s a super cool event, but it’s BarCamp Philly. It’s gonna be in Philly. Just Google, BarCamp Philly 2025. And I’m sure you’ll find all the information, but we plan to be there. Are gonna write down on our little card you know, secret screening of White Meat Appetizer.

So if you are able to make it to the events, you might there’s a good chance you can actually see the movie and we’ll have a q and a afterward.

A couple other events I want you to know about this Thursday the 16th. We had Wi-Moto on the podcast last time and she is holding this immersive kind of horror event at Awbury Arboretum. It’s kinda like a campfire storytelling. It’s called Black Women Are Scary Live. That was the name of her podcast. This is a live kind of variation on that called Black Women Are Scary Live. If you just Google that in Philly or Awbury Arboretum, I’m sure you can find the details. But I’m gonna be going to that and checking that out. I’m, I’m hoping it’ll be. You know, I, I think it’s gonna be awesome.

So the other thing is tomorrow, so I’m putting this out today, Tuesday, the 14th the 15th. I am doing a a live broadcast of a talk I give called No Seriously Fuck Engagement: Building a More Human Web. And it’s all about how the web has become this very mercenary place where we kind of like, you know, very cutthroat because it’s all based on profit and what would it look like if we built a web that was more based on human understanding and trying to help each other out.

And I use examples from some Indigenous cultures to kind of give us a picture of what that might look like. Anyway. It’s a talk that people really enjoy and we’re gonna do a q and a after. So if you wanna show up and support white meat, so all the proceeds from it are going to white meat basically finishing funds and festival funds.

So so yeah, it’s gonna be like 20 bucks a pop. So if you, again, just Google no seriously fuck engagement or go to our insta at whitemeatmovie, it’s in our link there. And it’ll, it should pop up just fine.

So anyway all of that to say we got a lot of fun stuff happening in the near future as we head into the spooky season for today’s episode, we are talking to Jalen Ramseu r-Williams, who is our director of photography or DP on white meat.

And we get into what that means and, and, and what that. Involves. It’s a great discussion. We get a lot into the craft. We get a lot into kind of the special things we did with the cinematography on white meat, which was all shot on iPhone. So you get to learn a lot about how we did that. Anyway, it’s a great conversation and we’ll take it, take you to it right now.

[musical interlude]

David Dylan Thomas: I was gonna say, what do you like more, documentary or narrative fiction?  

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: I think I, my preference is definitely narrative. You know and telling those sorts of stories.

But I feel like in the world that we’re living in today with like AI becoming more and more prevalent, I think documentary filmmaking will definitely have a big sort of like resurgence in the next coming years because I feel like more people are gonna be looking for just like more like real.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Stories, you know, with real people and stuff like that. So yeah, so I definitely, ’cause when I was younger I didn’t really have like a big appreciation for documentaries. I was definitely more just like narrative, narrative driven. But over the years I’ve grown a really big appreciation for documentary storytelling and it’s always fun.

And I think, and I think, I think it helps you and I think it makes you a better filmmaker when it comes to shooting narrative projects as well.

David Dylan Thomas: Awesome. So Jalen why don’t you tell the good folks here what it is that you get up to?

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: What is that?

David Dylan Thomas: What it is you get up to?

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Oh. Yeah. So, hey, hey, hey, hey guys.

My name’s Jalen Jalen Ramsuer-Williams. I’m a DP and camera operator in the Philly area. I do a lot of work in. Like I said, the Philly area and Jersey some work in New York. A lot of stuff on the east coast. Really passionate about. Just filmmaking and storytelling. I would say I lean a lot more to like visual storytelling.

I think that’s why I have a really big passion for just wanting to be a DP and behind the camera. When I, when I was younger, I always knew that I wanted to make movies in some form or way. So at first it was, all right, maybe I’ll be, I’ll be an actor. And then it’s like, no, that’s, that’s not gonna work for me.

And it’s like, all right. How about I’ll be, I’ll be an editor and I, I, I, I have a great appreciation for like editing. And then editing. I was like, nah, I don’t think this is what I wanna do. Then I was like, or maybe directing and it’s like, no, I don’t think this is it either. And then I realized, you know what?

I wanna be behind the camera, but I wanna be creating these images. Now I wanna be painting the painting with light painting with color painting with the subjects and the locations that I have at my disposal, and just making everything come together for the overall vision of the piece.

I feel like a lot of filmmakers might say they have like a certain style per se. I think if I were to describe my style, I would say I lean heavily on just like natural lighting. I am really big on wanting to enhance and draw from what is already there and present in a, in a space, especially when I’m like DP’ing.

So I would say like it’s like an enhanced realism

David Dylan Thomas: mm-hmm.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: In a sense, you know to give it more of just like this, per se, like heightened filmic look per se.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. And so, so for those who don’t know, like what does DP stand for? Like what do you actually do on set?

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: So DP stands for Director of Photography.

So it’s my job to bring the director’s vision to life and to sort of be the head person on set, which is figuring out how we want this film to come out vis on like a visual level. So I’m looking out for the lighting, I’m looking out for, I’m, I’m in big collaboration with production design when it comes to like, color like color theory and all that jazz.

But mainly like painting with light and and just using you know, the camera and moving the camera within, within the space, within the scene. And all that jazz.

David Dylan Thomas: So you’ve used that phrase twice now, painting with light. Can you, can you sort of unpack that for us a little bit?

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: So, painting with light I feel like the big thing when it comes with being a DP and what separates being a DP from being like a videographer or something like that, is videographers they you can have a camera and you pretty much shoot what’s given to you. You know but a DP, not only do you have the camera at your disposal, but now you are, you’re bringing in lighting into this space as well because you might walk into a scene where, or a location that’s really dark, right?

But the scene needs, it isn’t meant for like a really dark overall look or tone. It needs more light, it needs more vibrance. So then it’s my job to bring in certain lights to give it that, that feeling and overall look, that that scene’s supposed to have. So painting with light’s referring to, you know, bringing in certain light so we can see what’s happening within the frame.

Lighting is really good at pointing focus to like what’s mo like most important within the scene, so. You know, like, like the camera and lighting sort of all like melts together and it’s like a DP because like, yes, as a DP I can have like a certain frame and composition, but then also the extra little cherry on top is that lighting. And the lighting can also be really good at drawing focus as to like what’s most important within the frame. And to just like add shape, create contrast just add more more like depth and layers within the scene.

David Dylan Thomas: Now it’s interesting to talk about work in documentary and this idea of like wanting to work with natural light and something that occurred to me, ’cause I’ve done, I’ve done documentary, I’ve done fiction. And when I light documentary or when I, when my DP lights documentary or what, what, like, I am not usually thinking about where is the light coming from? Like when you shoot a fiction, like you’re shooting in a restaurant, it’s like you light the scene, but then like on some level, depending on what style you’re going for, like if it’s a realistic style, you’re sort of have in your mind, okay, this light is actually coming from a big, you know, light. Like in theory, quote unquote, it’s coming from the sun or it’s coming from the restaurant light or whatever.

When you’re shooting documentary, do you think about that at all or are you like people just understand like, no, it’s a documentary, it’s a talking head. You lit the person. They all know.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: I think, I think, I think it depends on the project. You know, I think, I think it really depends on the project and, and what you and the director are like really going for.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: ‘Cause you might have a certain project that’s really run and gun and really, broken down and like you’re sure like working with like a skeleton crew, so there might not be a lot of time to like go on a location scout to see what you’re working with lighting wise beforehand.

And pretty much you’re just showing up on set and just shooting what you can get. You know as a DP and for like a lot of the work that I’m doing now, I preferably wouldn’t wanna work in a scenario like that, you know, because that doesn’t give me a lot of room for I guess my, my art per se, you know, for, for me to create and, and do my own thing in the kitchen, like allow me to cook per se.

So ideally, and especially for like a lot of like the documentary set that I’ve been doing recently. We’ll, we’ll either have a location scout, or at least beforehand I’ll get photos beforehand. And then from there I am looking at the space as is, seeing what’s happening naturally.

What’s in the space, where are the lights coming from? Is the light coming from the window from the sun? You know are there no windows in the space? And is the light mainly coming from like overhead lights, you know. Is it just mostly like practical lamps in the space or, or what have you? So figuring out what the primary light sources are within the space, and then from there, seeing how, depending on the mood or the tone that the interviewer, the scene is going for.

Changing and enhancing those specific lights in certain ways. So that means replacing those practical lights with my own bulbs that I can control and change the color temperature to, and, and exposure intensity to. So it gives me more leeway with my camera and my camera settings. That’s like, that’s like a big thing, you know?

Or if it means I have to like, block out all the lights on one side of the room because I wanna create more contrast because I want to motivate the light that’s already coming from the sun by the windows. So. We have that ambient light coming in, but it still isn’t enough light, so now I have to bring in my own light to push even more light onto my subject.

You know, so it’s, it’s a, it’s, it’s a nice little dance, you know? In light, you know,

David Dylan Thomas: I mean, you reminded me of something that happened on set where day one we had a perfectly sunny day. And the, you know, the, for those you know who don’t know, the movie basically takes place in a restaurant that has one giant bay window at the front.

No other windows at all. And so the, the motivated light, if you will, like the light is coming from the,

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: primarily from that window

David Dylan Thomas: and the restaurant. Then of course the sun is sort of providing a primary light. Day two, it rained. Yeah. Like a lot. Sure it did. And so we have a completely different kind of light coming through the window.

Like how did you deal with that? Was like that a panic or was that like, oh yeah, I’ve done this 20 times. Switch this to that and switch that to that?

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: I think, I think what really. We really lucked out on day two. ’cause yes, it was raining, but when we were getting those window shots, it wasn’t pouring.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: It was a really light drizzle.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: And because we were shooting on the iPhone. The aperture settings that it, that, that it offered us was like F 2.8 and F 1.8. So those are really shallow.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: So we’re focused on White Boy Kyle at the window Uhhuh. Right. But everything that’s behind White Boy Kyle is out of focus, you know?

So we’re, so we’re still good. We’re okay. Thankfully, you know, you can’t really even tell that it’s raining outside. But a big thing that I knew that I wanted to have since I knew we were gonna be working with white boy Kyle at that window and we were gonna be getting a lot of coverage from that angle was making sure that we had ND so when we got that camera, when we got that little like iPhone camera rig there was also like that ND attachment that, that, that I had us get so that way the outside lighting wouldn’t be like super overexposed.

David Dylan Thomas: d And just again for folks who don’t know, what is, what is nd and like, what does it do for you?

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: So ND is like, it’s called, it stands for like neutral density filter and pretty much what it allows is to, you can keep the same so there are these things called f stops on, on a camera or, or T stops if you’re working with like a cinema lens. And it all has to do with like the amount of light that you’re letting within, within your lens.

So. If you’re at like a F 2.8, that’s a lot of light that you’re letting in your lens that that’s, that would be considered wide open, right?

And then an F 16 would be considered your lens is really closed down. So not a light, not a lot of light is coming into your, into the lens. So because of that, if I want to shoot a 2.8, because I want shallow depth of field in the background. I’m shooting by a window. The lighting that’s inside and the lighting that’s outside are two very different exposures, right?

So if I want to, I’m going to set my exposure to what’s happening outside in order to do that. And I still wanna main my 2.8. aperture, I have to drop some ND on so I can properly expose to see what’s happening outside. So for instance, when I’m saying like over exposure, that could mean, for instance, it could be clouds outside, but because it’s so bright, I don’t see any clouds outside.

It’s just white, you know? Nothing. So I’ll put some ND on and now I can see the, the white clouds and the blue skies, you know you’re able to just make out a lot more detail and shape into like what’s going on in your overall image. So you would, you would set that exposure first for what’s happening outside and then like I said earlier, like the interviews, then I would bring in my own lights to light for the subjects that are inside the space.

David Dylan Thomas: So this is obviously a very technical field, and this is, I think, true of movies in general. It’s one of the most. On the one hand, super technical, on the other hand, super artsy like things you can do. How long did it take you to learn the technical side?

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Dude, I’m still learning. What do you mean?

I’m still learning. Film, film filmmaking is, it’s it’s, it’s all one big learning process. You know, you’re constantly learning new things every set. Every shoot that you’re on filmmaking is one big, just trial and error that you are, you’re going to make mistakes, but when you make those mistakes, you just wanna make sure that you learn from those mistakes and grow, you know, and be, yes, you’re growing, but just because you’re growing doesn’t mean you’re not gonna make new mistakes, you know?

So, in actuality, in a weird way, you wanna make mistakes because the more mistakes you’re making the goal would be to learn from those mistakes so you’re not making those mistakes again. So, so you’re just growing, you’re growing, you’re growing, and you’re just building on your craft, and you’re just becoming better and better.

But you always want to have like a, an open mind, to you know, new ideas, new concepts that will help you grow as a storyteller and as a filmmaker. So like right now I’m just, I’m 23 right. And I.

David Dylan Thomas: Shut up! No, I was, I was talking just, just aside for a second, but just, I was talking, we had a, a preview screening the other day.

And we had the post team.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Okay.

David Dylan Thomas: And two thirds of the post team were recent graduates from Temple, like the previous year, our editor and, and colorist graduated from Temple and they are like. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they’d been in the business for 10 years. Like they’re that good. So shout out to Temple, I guess.

But it’s like, I’m sick of hearing how young everyone on set is!

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Yeah. I mean, listen, like I’m, I’m still, it’s weird because like, I don’t, I wouldn’t consider myself like, like a baby in the industry, you know? But I, I’m still, I’m still new. I’m still growing. I’m still learning new things. You know, I still have a lot of people that I look up to as mentors that I’m trying to gain and learn more information from.

So, so I, so I can improve and get better at what I’m doing. So for me, like. Again, when I was younger, I, I, I knew ever, ever since I was little in elementary school that like, Hey, I wanted, I wanna make movies. Like I, you remember, maybe not, may say that again.

David Dylan Thomas: I was gonna say, do you remember what movie or movies kind of put that in your, your heart?

Oh, yeah,

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Absolutely. I think like when I was one I, I I, I, I would consider maybe when I was one years old because like. My, my mom and grandmom, they would say that when I was one, I would just rewatch Finding Nemo on repeat. So apparently that was like my movie when I was little. You know? And it still is.

I still consider Finding Nemo like my favorite. Pixar movie, you know?

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, it’s a fucking masterpiece

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: And one of my favorite movies of all time, like, I, I, I love Nemo, I love Dora, I love Marlin. I love Bruce. I love, yeah, I love, I love crush. I love all the characters. Mr. Ray. I can name ’em all. Yeah. But from there just at that young age, just knowing, wow.

I, I love movies. I love. I love how this movie makes me feel, you know? Like the sense of adventure, you know? And then from there, I would say the next movie that really like got its hooks into me deep was Jurassic Park.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: So then Spielberg, you know? So then I had, I had, when I was younger, I used to love, I mean, I still do, I love Steven Spielberg.

I would say he’s still easily like my top three favorite directors of all time. Because of just like, there are so many movies that I’ve seen from him that just have such a special place in my heart. Just like the sense of wonder.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.  

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: I feel, you know, like Spielberg I feel like was really big on that.

So again, because of, because of Fighting Nemo, because of Jurassic Park, ’cause of Jaws. And then, as I’m getting older now, I am getting more and more appreciation for like comic books and superheroes. So then, you know, I was watching like the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies. So like Spider-Man one, Spider-Man two, Spider-Man three with Venom, and then all of a sudden The Dark Knight comes out.

And then I’m like, whoa. Like I, and, and if I’m honest, that that was the movie when I was watching it, I was like. I need to do this. Like, I like this. There’s something special happening right now in this theater. And I don’t, I don’t know what, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know. I don’t know how to describe it.

I, but there’s this feeling that I have right now, and I have yet to have that feeling again in theaters. I like that feeling has come close for sure. But nothing has like, like a light bulb went off in my head and it was like movies. This is it. This is my calling in a sense, you know? So ever so ever since the dark night came out, like Christopher Nolan, it was like, all right, I wanna make movies.

So then that’s how that process started. That was talking about from the beginning, it’s like, maybe I wanna be an actor. You know? It’s like, no, me, I wanna be an editor. No. Me, I wanna be a director. No. And it’s like, no, it’s, I wanna be a cinematographer. I wanna be a DP. I wanna. Because I just, I love, I love the camera.

You know, I, I love the camera and again, I’m really big on just like visual storytelling. ‘Cause like back in high school I majored in, like, I went to, I went to CAPA, which is like the creative performing arts high school in Philadelphia. And it, it was a great experience because you’re able to like, take these majors.

So I was able to major in MDTV, which is pretty much like their film program. So that’s where I first started really learning. It’s like, yeah, I wanna be, I want to be a DP or camera operator. ’cause like a lot of the projects that I was working on and like my own personal projects I didn’t have any dialogue in them because I didn’t consider myself a writer.

You know I wasn’t, I was never really good at putting like pen to paper or anything like that, but I felt like I had really good concepts in my head, but I don’t, I never felt like dialogue was really a good, strong suit for me. So I, I would write these outlines, you know, but all my stories. Films would pretty much be like silent films.

So that would require the visuals and like the visual language to really carry and push that story forward so audiences and viewers would be able to understand what’s going on. So now it’s like, that’s when it’s clicking. Like boom, there, there, there is a line of work in filmmaking dedicated to this.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: You know, and that’s the DP in my opinion, that is the cinematographer.

David Dylan Thomas: It’s, it’s interesting. I’m glad you had that experience. I think that’s something every filmmaker should experience is making a silent movie or making silent movies, plural. Because it does force you to tell a story visually.

I think that’s the most important skill for at least the director. But I think anyone on set just to sort of understand how far you can go, just visually How much information you can communicate visually, and it’s always more than you think. I, I made, my first narrative fiction movie was a short, I made in the late nineties called The Least Dangerous Game.

And it was an action comedy, but it was all silent and.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Action comedy that’s silent? How about that?

David Dylan Thomas: Yes. Yeah. And, and I mean, in a way it was easier ’cause so much of was just like, once you set up. The motivations for the character. Because it was very simple. It was about the game assassin.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Okay.

David Dylan Thomas: Where, where you kind of like people play it on college campuses where like you get a name, you have to find them and quote, unquote assassinate them with like a water gun or whatever you chosen weapon is. And so once you communicate that visually which you can with like just a little note or whatever, because I did, I didn’t have like interstitial titles, but I had effectively that in some of the the notes and stuff in the, in the film. So you find ways to do it, but it is such a great experience for. Letting you know that you don’t need a dialogue. And I’m someone who loves dialogue. Fully the last third act of our movie is dialogue.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Dialogue.

David Dylan Thomas: But I also really love, I love knowing when I don’t need it.

You know what I mean? It’s sort of like, you don’t need to be learn music theory to be a great musician, but it’s fun to know when you’re breaking the rules and why, you know, that kind of thing. Right. So, I’m so glad, like I feel like everyone, and I know back in the day, at least USC, like your first whole semester you don’t even touch sound. Like, they’re like, no, you learn, learn, learn, film first. Like you’re not you’re not even gonna let you use sound. Alright. Anyway. No, I think that’s, I think that’s amazing. So you say like on each set you learned something new. What did you learn on White Meat?

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Whew.

I think White Meat. And I think the one, the big things that I learned from White Meat and one of the main reasons why I was so excited to like hop on this project was the, because of your script and the way you wanted it to be shot. And that was, you know, it was all from Randy’s perspective ’cause he was on.

He was live streaming, he was on, he was on his phone. So for me, I think the big major challenge for me was how, how do I as a DP want to shoot this? You know, what do I think is the best way to tell this story? To make sure that what you have down in the script is what we are seeing on screen, you know?

So I feel like I definitely went a bit outside my comfort zone. Because I’m, I’m so used to shooting with like these really nice, big, you know, like cinema cameras or whatever, you know, but then on this project it’s like, no, we’re just gonna, we’re gonna shoot an iPhone. Like, like, that’s what we’re gonna do.

And it’s like, what? I’m like, yeah, let’s, lets try this out. Let’s see what happens. You know? So I, so I, so I think that was the biggest thing for me, like that I feel like that really made me go outside my comfort zone and just making sure that I was using the right tools that I felt like would help assist us and make sure that we got everything that we needed to get in those two days of shooting.

You know what I mean? Because there, there’s a lot going on with like hair and makeup production design and, and cameras, which is like, and like all the extras that we have on set. And we only had two days to do this, you know? So it was like, how, how can, how can I make sure that I’m not only being a team player, you know, to make sure that we’re able to like rap on time and all that jazz, but also make sure that we are getting the right visuals for this project.

And so for me, and I think me and you both talked about this, like, it was like, we’re gonna, we’re gonna shoot this on an iPhone. Like that’s, that’s, I think that’s the best way to do this, to tell the story.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. And tell us a little bit about, ’cause we had a period before we shot where we were kind of experimenting ’cause.

We knew that on screen we knew we wanted that vertical aspect ratio. And it needed to appear as if it was coming from an iPhone. But we did have this period where it’s like, okay, it needs to appear as if it comes from an iPhone, but it might not necessarily be an iPhone. It might be.

Shoot it some other way, but then like block things out or whatever. Mm-hmm. Tell me about like the journey of figuring out, okay, yes, it should be the iPhone as opposed to this other kind of camera with like masking or something.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: I think for me, what it really came down to was, I knew that for half of shooting our, our, our main, our main talent, our main character was going to be holding the phone.

And it was gonna be from their perspective, you know? And then I feel like a lot of things also come down to just budget and like other hands that like we would need to have on set. Because I feel like if we weren’t to have shot it on an iPhone. I feel like we definitely could have maybe shot it on a maybe like an FX three or some sort of like a mirrorless camera.

But the big thing would’ve been getting the right lens. You know, we would’ve really needed that nice wide angle lens, but also we would’ve needed a wide angle lens that can also zoom.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: So that was the big thing. It was like we would need to find a, a really special lens that could do that.

And I don’t think personally, I wasn’t able to find any, any lens that could, that could do that, that movement for us. So then it, so then it, so then it really just came down to, all right, do I want the actor to be focused on this on this, on this camera? You know? Holding in, in their hand for their performance and do we have the right amount of people for the right lens, the right tools to have us operate this, but also the right people to operate those tools with me. You know, because then we would’ve needed not only someone to pull focus, but also someone to pull focus on the on the actual zoom range.

You know, going in and out from those perspectives. So it was, again, it’s picking the best choice from, I feel like what you had what we had available to us at that time, you know? So that’s why I felt like, you know, the iPhone was. What’s the, what’s the best route to go down?

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. I feel like we should getting money from Apple.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Honestly, like sponsorship question mark. I’m saying iPhone a bunch. And I’m like…

David Dylan Thomas: Get, get them get them Apple dollars. Mm-hmm.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Honestly Cinematic mode. Question mark.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Like seriously, like, do, do, like for us, this was a very expensive movie for Apple. That’d be like, oh yeah, we spend that much on pizza in five minutes.

So that was actually one really interesting aspect for me, and I’m curious your experience with this. So. So for those that don’t know, like the movie takes place, it’s all shot from the perspective of a content creator named Rand-D. And he either has the phone pointed at himself when he is talking, or will flip the, the phone to like where it’s pointed outward at the surroundings.

And when the phone is pointed at Rand-E, that’s actually the actor Davon Davon holding the camera. So he’s the camera operator. And then when it’s pointed outwards, that’s you. And you are at once the camera person, but you’re also. Rand-D. Like you are playing the role of Randy, so you, even though you didn’t wanna be an actor, guess what?

You’re an actor.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Yeah. Right.

David Dylan Thomas: Tell me about that experience, because I know we had a couple rehearsals where we tried to work through. Like, think about that at least. And play around with that, that notion of like, you are also playing this role, so how are you gonna, you know, embody that.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Yeah. I think, I think the big thing for me was, I feel like a lot of the time especially I feel like just like filmmakers in general but also me, just like a DP like I, I really strive to be like a perfectionist.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: You know if I am, if I’m creating a shot, if I’m creating a frame, like I want it, I want it to be or look the best it can be, you know? But that to me is a DP, you know? Out externally telling the story, but.

Now, in this instance, I’m a part of the story because like you said, I am in turn now, Rand-E, you know, holding this camera, you know, and I have to put myself in those shoes. And it’s like, all right, Rand-E isn’t a DP. You know what I mean? He’s just some regular guy on the street. And so his framing and him shooting a bunch of different shots isn’t going to look the best.

You know, it should be, it should be off kilter a bit. You know, and not everything should be perfectly centered, you know what I mean? Like, like it should look like it’s just your regular average Joe filming what’s going on. So I feel like I took and like we had these conversations, I took a lot of inspiration from like those videos, you know, like, we’re like, like someone’s like recording a fight.

And like we were talking about how like when when the, when the, when the, when the zombies attack, it’s like all right. Every time when someone’s like recording a fight, we wanna see the fight. When the fight happens, the phone isn’t looking. It’s like, Hey, we wanna see what’s going on. We can’t see.

Let’s show us the fight, show us the fight and we can’t see. And that was always so frustrating for me, but I feel like that’s such a I feel like a normal thing to do, you know, as someone who isn’t you know, like, like, you know, a camera operator or something like that, you know, your average Joe is not gonna know, oh, I have to use my rule of thirds.

Make sure know my eye line, you know, my exposure. Right. You know, no, they’re just taking out their phone, boom, and they’re just trying to get what they can get, you know, and they’re not worried about all that, so I know. Especially for like, the attack we really want to play around with that. So like, it’s like, like I need to be shaky, you know, not so shaky to the point to where like, we can’t see what’s going on, but we, we, we wanna feel that behind the camera.

Like there’s something really like traumatic happening.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: You know, and we need to sort of feel like that trembling nature, those nerves. Coming from the camera itself. So yeah, I think, I think, I think that was really. Really interesting.

David Dylan Thomas: And thing that we talked about I thought was kind of neat, was this, this notion that, you know, the camera was the way you mentioned trauma, camera the camera was the way that Rand-E protects himself from traumatic things. Like even the whole going to that restaurant. And see if they’ll kick him out. Like, is this moment of I’m gonna take this fairly common trauma for black people and I’m gonna use the phone to kind of distance myself a little bit.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That. I think, I don’t know, maybe it was at our, our, one of our like first table reads. But I, I remember you brought that up. How, in a way, also like this camera is shielding him from all the craziness that’s happening in this scene and this sort of way, he’s sort of like dissociating in a sense, maybe.

You know, because at the end of the day, like all, a bunch of people are dying, but at the end of the day, it’s like, oh, I’m getting all my likes and views. I just need a new record.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: And it’s just making sure that all, all those margins are being hit. But also how when it comes to just things that happened, you know, to Black people and like people of color in the real world. It’s like when we get pulled over, you know, and like maybe we’re getting pulled over by a cop or something like that. We, we feel like having our phone with us recording is like the shield that we feel protect us like the phone, the phone can protect us in those instances, you know?

And sometimes it’s able to, you know, sometimes when like an officer sees it, you know, they’ll, they’ll get themselves together, you know? They’ll get themselves in check. But sometimes when that phone comes out, they’ll become even more hostile.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: You know, and it’s, it’s, it’s this strange thing. It’s really, it’s really crazy.

So I just, I also felt like. You know, Rand-E having this phone as sort of this shield, this protection, you know, that’s shielding him from like all the, all, all, all the pain and all the blood that’s happening on that outside so he can protect himself was also just like, it was really unique, I feel, you know?

And I feel like, I feel like it’s very it felt very timely.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: So you’d mentioned before like Spielberg is one of your top three. Who are some other of your favorite directors?

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: All right. All right. All right. So number number one is definitely Nolan. I’m definitely a Chris, a Christopher Nolan guy.

I love, I love the nonlinear storytelling. I love putting those puzzle pieces together. And again, he made my favorite movie of all time. That’s The Dark Knight. So like, he’s definitely top, top tier for me. Love Spielberg because of, you know, Jurassic Park, Jaws. So I feel like there’s a lot of nostalgia there.

For me I feel like the next director that comes to mind for me, I really love Fincher. I really, I really love thrillers. So, Seven, Zodiac. I feel like Gone Girl. Like. I, I, I love those Fincher movies. And then I would say another, another director that I’m really growing a really big appreciation for is Coogler, Ryan Coogler.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh yeah.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: That’s the guy he’s cooking right now. I mean Sinners. Mm. He, he was in his bag for that one. Then, you know, he has Fruitvale Station, Creed, the two Black Panther films, and then he comes out with Sinners with another original piece. I mean, it’s great. He’s, he, he is on the right track.

You know, and I am, I am rooting for him. I’m in his corner. I am. I am, you know, I, I want him to succeed. You know, I want him to keep growing as a filmmaker. I feel like. I feel like he’s he has, he has the potential to do, to do something that has never really been done before.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think he’s already started.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Yeah. Like.

David Dylan Thomas: Like, like there’s, there’s elements of each thing he’s done that is first of its kind.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I, I love how authentic he is to himself.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: And as to like who he is as a person, you know? I feel like, a lot of times when you know, Black people, we might see ourselves in like these white spaces, you know, so we might feel like we have to like you know, conform. To then adjust, change who we are, change how we talk, change how we speak, change how we move. And Coogler’s like, no, I’m just going, I’m just going to, I’m gonna talk how I talk and

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, exactly.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: And I love it. I love it so much. I’m like, hell yeah, man. Hell yeah. So, yeah, I, I love Coogler

David Dylan Thomas: Hard agree on all of that. Nolan, so you talk about The Dark Knight kind of helping you realize, okay, I gotta make movies, I gotta do, I gotta be involved in film.

After learning your craft, have you been back? Have you revisited Dark Knight and been like, oh, I see what you did there. Oh, okay. You did this.

Oh, I still don’t know how you did that.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I feel like I probably, I probably watched The Dark Night at least if I had to guess at least maybe like four times a year. I would say maybe like once every, once every quarter maybe. You know? But no, constantly. Constantly. I feel like I feel like for the most part I’m able, I’ve like caught onto like a bunch of like the big things. I feel like all, all those little, like easter eggs are like, oh, originally I didn’t know what the shot was called, but now that I’ve been working, now I know that, oh, they were using a steady cam for that. You know, or something like that. Oh, they broke the 180. Why did they do that? But if I’m being honest now, when I watch The Dark Knight, I feel I’m just seeing all the mistakes. Like, like, like all the rules or like all like the. The goodness gracious. You need a script supervisor for it. What is that? Like the, not inconsistencies, but…

David Dylan Thomas: Continuity errors?

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Continuity errors. I’m just, I’m just picking up on a bunch of that now. Yeah. I’m just like. They weren’t standing over there before. You know, it’s like, that’s a different location. How did we get there? That doesn’t really make any sense, but it’s like, I, I, I love the movie so much that I was like, I don’t care.

You know? It took, I had to watch this movie like a hundred times to finally exactly what was wrong. You know, so I feel like, I feel like, and I feel like that’s a big thing also that you learn from like, watching movies that like you really love and that you really care about. ’cause you’ll watch movies over and over and over again.

And it isn’t until like the, the 10th viewing maybe that you pick on, you pick up on something that mm-hmm. Maybe shouldn’t be there. Yeah. You know? But I feel like that goes to show just like how immersive movies can be.

David Dylan Thomas: Well, yeah. Right. And there’s a, there’s, there’s a really great video essay out there I wanna say.

I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll look it up and send it to you, but like, there’s really good video I say out there about like how sometimes continuity errors, like aren’t errors, which is to say like the editor was looking and had a choice between the take that fit continuity and the take that was the most emotionally resonant.

And go pick the one that was the most, most res. Yeah. He uses the example of like Goodfellows and a bunch of Scorsese, Thelma Schoonmaker does this all the time of how Scorsese will often do the take that doesn’t quite fit right continuity wise, but emotionally is like the one where the actor just nailed it.

And he is like, yeah, I don’t care. Like this is, this is, the best take emotionally. And like to your point, you’re gonna watch Goodfellas 10 more times before you even notice. Oh wait, he wasn’t holding that before. What the hell?

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Uhhuh. Yeah. I feel like, and I feel like, I feel like that’s the, that’s the director’s, right, the editor’s right. To make that choice.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: You know what I mean? It’s like, this is your baby, this is your story. You know, you wanna make sure the story that you had on paper is, and that you’re sharing with people visually is, you know, is a story that you want to tell. So that’s, that’s the emotion that you need at that given moment. That emotion is more important than, oh, were they drinking that cup of water? You know, did they have that cup in their hand? You know, were, were they reading this book or whatever were they wearing that shirt? But no. Yeah, most definitely.

David Dylan Thomas: Awesome. Well, Jalen, it has been awesome. Awesome having you on the podcast. Where can folks learn about your craft, how you see your work, whatever?

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Yeah, so people can find me on ig on Instagram. My username is Jalen R Films 27, so that’s J-A-L-E-N-R films. And yeah, Jalen r films on, on, on IG and pr. Again, I’m, DP and camera operator in the, in the Philly area.

David Dylan Thomas: Nice. Thank you for being on the show.

Jalen Ramseur-Williams: Thank you so much, David.

David Dylan Thomas: And for the White Meat Podcast, I’m your host David Dolan Thomas, and we will see you next time.