Mas­ter cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Roger Deakins has turned mas­ter podcaster

The great cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Roger Deakins has seen it all: the sprawl­ing exis­ten­tial waste­lands of the Coen broth­ers, the sleek noc­tur­nal worlds of Denis Vil­leneuve, the assort­ed adven­tures of Sam Mendes. At age 70, the Oscar-win­ner has a life­time of wis­dom and expe­ri­ence to share with we grub­by denizens of the Inter­net, and now he’s doing just that.

Last week saw the launch of Team Deakins, a new pod­cast fea­tur­ing the peer­less direc­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy in con­ver­sa­tion with one James Ellis Deakins, his reg­u­lar col­lab­o­ra­tor and wife since 1991. Togeth­er, the Deakins­es share mus­ings on the nuts and bolts of their shared pro­fes­sion for the edi­fi­ca­tion and amuse­ment of pro­fes­sion­als and ama­teurs alike.

It’s love­ly stuff, with each episode (some a half-hour, some a full hour, the lat­est nine­ty min­utes) dig­ging in to a par­tic­u­lar top­ic in film pro­duc­tion. One sees Deakins and Deakins going through the basics of prac­ti­cal light­ing, anoth­er delves into loca­tion scout­ing, a third is all about com­pos­ing a frame for max­i­mum dra­mat­ic and artis­tic effect. It’s a vir­tu­al mas­ter­class, for free and at home.

The rap­port between the two hosts ends up being one of the podcast’s sec­ondary treats, as a pair of experts with plen­ty of famil­iar­i­ty com­fort­ably ban­ter between sub­stan­tive hands-off lessons. And of course, this allows for plen­ty of col­or­ful anec­dotes from Deakins’ rich CV, whether that’s a fond rec­ol­lec­tion from the set of The Vil­lage or The Shaw­shank Redemption.

With every­one cooped up at home, famous types have bus­ied them­selves keep­ing the gen­er­al pub­lic divert­ed, and for cinephiles, no one’s con­tri­bu­tion to this effort will have more val­ue than this one. Where else can a per­son learn how to deploy a dol­ly shot for max­i­mum artis­tic impact while savor­ing the arch, reedy tones of Roger Deakins?