BELOW THE LINE PODCAST

There are plenty of opportunities for visual showmanship in Tuner, but the trick is knowing how far to push them. Elaborate camera rigs, rapid-fire inserts, expressive lighting, and playful montages give the film its distinctive visual language—but the technique never becomes the point.

Cinematographer Lowell A. Meyer joins Skid to discuss his collaboration with director Daniel Roher on Tuner, starring Leo Woodall as a gifted piano tuner whose extraordinary ear proves equally useful for cracking safes. The film moves between romance, music and heist storytelling without treating each as a separate stylistic exercise—an approach that lets the characters and their worlds carry the shifts in genre.

With three clips from the film guiding the conversation, Lowell takes us inside the creative choices behind some of Tuner's key sequences.

Topics include:

Building the film's montages from an enormous volume of imagery, with macro photography, B-camera work and a dedicated insert day supplying shots that may appear for only a few frames

Designing a spinning fisheye camera rig that lets the audience experience a safe dial from the safe's point of view

Translating Nikki's heightened sensitivity to sound into images, culminating in a club sequence where lighting, camera movement and shallow depth of field make his surroundings feel physically overwhelming

Finding a consistent approach to the film's shifts between romance, music and heist storytelling without "pouring hot sauce" on every stylistic choice

Working with Dustin Hoffman, whose stories, humor and spontaneous piano playing made him the shoot's much-loved "fun uncle"

With roughly 28 locations in 28 shooting days, Tuner demanded both ambition and efficiency. Lowell's stories reveal how much invention can happen within those constraints—and how preparation, collaboration and a willingness to experiment helped turn a demanding schedule into opportunities for creative problem-solving.

🎧 Press play and go Below the Line on Tuner. For more, visit belowtheline.biz.

The world of Influenced is one of luxury, exclusivity, and Manhattan's Upper East Side. Bringing that world to life on an independent film budget meant balancing creative ambition with production realities: making every location, every shooting day, and every production decision count.

This week on Below the Line, Bruce Edward Hall joins Skid to discuss Influenced, the independent comedy directed by Rachel Israel from a screenplay by Jill Kargman. Together, they explore the planning, coordination, and adaptability required to bring an ambitious feature to the screen, and how thoughtful preparation helped the production make the most of every opportunity.

Among the highlights:

Scheduling a 23-day feature around child actors, animals, celebrity cameos, and a one-camera production

Using Jill Kargman's relationships to secure extraordinary Upper East Side locations that would normally be beyond an independent film's reach

Making intimate locations and crowded luncheon scenes feel far larger than the budget allowed

Coordinating celebrity cameos and guest actors whose schedules left little room for rehearsal

Navigating everything from neighborhood disruptions to approaching thunderstorms while keeping production on track

Throughout the conversation, Bruce offers a behind-the-scenes look at the work audiences rarely notice, revealing how countless production decisions combine to make ambitious filmmaking look effortless on screen.

🎧 Press play and go Below the Line on Influenced. For more, visit belowtheline.biz.

By the penultimate episode of a serialized mystery, every decision matters. Screenwriter Yona Speidel takes us inside Episode 7 of The Boroughs, where the show's many storylines converge as the season races toward its finale.

This week on Below the Line, Yona Speidel discusses her work on The Boroughs, the Netflix sci-fi mystery series created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews. Together, she and Skid explore how a modern television writers' room operates, how Yona's specific episode evolved during development, and how real-life experiences helped shape key moments in the series.

Among the highlights:

How the writers' room collaborated to break down the entire season before a single episode was drafted

Why Episode 7 became the show's "heist episode" and the process of bringing multiple storylines together

Planning a complex action sequence inside the Manor before any actual sets had been built

Drawing on family history, retirement communities, and personal memories to shape key moments in the script

Balancing a writer's creative contributions with the vision of a show's creators and showrunners

Throughout the conversation, Yona offers an inside look at the collaborative nature of television writing, revealing how ideas move from the writers' room to the screen while adapting to the realities of production.

🎧 Press play and go Below the Line on The Boroughs. For more, visit belowtheline.biz.

A station wagon ride. A movie theater. A bathtub drain. In IT: Welcome to Derry, some of the most ordinary places become the source of the show's most memorable nightmares.

This week on Below the Line, Film Editor Esther Sokolow joins Skid and co-host Gianni Damaia to discuss editing the pilot episode of IT: Welcome to Derry. Building on the world established in IT Chapters One and Two, Esther breaks down how the creative team crafted the pilot's most memorable scares while exploring an earlier chapter in Pennywise's history.

HBO provided four clips from the pilot episode, giving Esther the opportunity to break down:

The station wagon sequence that transforms a seemingly kind family into one of the pilot's most disturbing nightmares

The theater massacre and the editorial decision to anchor the chaos through Lilly's point of view

Teddy's encounter with the living lampshade and the practical effects hidden within the scare

Lilly's bathtub vision and the subtle editorial tricks that make Pennywise's presence feel unnervingly wrong

Beyond the individual scares, Esther explains how horror editing relies on audience empathy, carefully controlled perspective, and a deep understanding of what viewers fear before the monster ever appears. From sound design and pacing to practical effects and performance, she offers a fascinating look at adapting Stephen King's world for television while creating an identity uniquely suited to IT: Welcome to Derry.

🎧 Press play and go Below the Line on IT: Welcome to Derry. For more, visit belowtheline.biz.

How do you stage prison riots, cliffside fights, and high-speed chases when you only have a few hours to shoot each sequence? For Stunt Coordinator Victor Paguia, the answer starts with preparation, collaboration, and a willingness to solve problems on the fly.

This week on Below the Line, Victor Paguia joins Skid to discuss his work on FBI, the long-running CBS series now heading into its ninth season. Having been with the show since the pilot, Victor breaks down three standout action sequences from Season 8 and explains how his team delivers ambitious stunts under the demanding schedule of a network television production. 

We discuss:

Planning and executing a truck-to-truck jump at 40 miles per hour in eight-degree weather

Pulling off a crucial hot-rod entrance with a single take before the street reopened to traffic

Teaching actors fight choreography on the day of shooting, a few moves at a time

Designing a prison-riot fight around a dramatic overhead camera move

Finding stunt doubles for guest stars cast only days before filming

Creating a cliffside rescue sequence using real locations, stunt performers, and a custom-built set

Throughout the conversation, Victor returns to the same challenge: balancing ambition with reality. Whether he's coordinating a vehicle jump, choreographing a fight, or hanging stunt performers over a real cliff, every creative decision must account for time, budget, safety, and the practical demands of episodic television. The result is a fascinating look at the planning and problem-solving that make action storytelling possible. 

🎧 Press play and go Below the Line on FBI. For more, visit belowtheline.biz.