Roger Deakins Now Has His Own Podcast to Break Down Everything About Filmmaking

What do you do after you win your second Oscar for Best Cinematography? Start a podcast. Roger Deakins has officially launched the “Team Deakins” podcast along with his wife and longtime filmmaking collaborator James Ellis Deakins. The podcast has debuted six episodes as of May 3 that cover a wide array of filmmaking topics: Composition, practical lighting, the switch from film to digital, and more. Deakins took home the Best Cinematography Oscar this year for “1917,” his second Academy Award after “Blade Runner 2049.” As James Deakins told Collider, the recent global lockdown inspired the cinematography duo to finally sit down together and start recording episodes.

"We have been doing our website for years now and love connecting with people who are starting out and sharing our experience with them,” James Deakins said. “Over the years, we have done many Q&As and, afterwards, answered individual questions and realized that we often answer the same questions. So the idea of a podcast came to me late last year and Roger thought it would be something interesting. I didn't really get a chance to start moving forward until January and then the shelter in place time took away any excuses I could have used to put it off.”

Deakins continued, “We have so many ideas for episodes now and are being joined by people in different areas of the craft. We find ourselves continually coming back to the collaborative nature of the film business and this makes us want to delve into all the areas of making a film. We also discovered that having a young cinematographer, Matt Wyman, join us in this really added to the podcast and its relevance.”

Episodes of “Team Deakins” range from 36 minutes to over 90 minutes depending on the topic. Deakins has not announced any follow-up projects to “1917,” and given the industry shutdown the podcast could be the only new Deakins material for quite some time. The most recent episode debuted May 3 and features Roger and James Deakins in conversation with Beverly Wood, former Executive VP at Deluxe and Managing Director at eFilm. Per the synopsis: “We discuss the transition in Hollywood from film to digital with one of the industries foremost experts on the science behind it all. We discuss how film emulsion actually works, color science, and films like ‘Skyfall,’ ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou,’ and more.”

Listen to the “Team Deakins” podcast on Apple podcasts.

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