Interview: Lydia and Shane Hurlbut – A Candid Conversation With the Brains Behind Hurlbut Academy – Cinematography Education For Filmmakers

By Movie Geeks | October 13, 2020

Interview conducted by Gabe Sheets

Author’s note: The subjects profiled in this story helped to edit the piece before publication.

My generation has been educated in an entirely different way from filmmakers of the past. For many young filmmakers, YouTube channels, Blu-Ray special features, online blogs, and podcasts have taken the place of summer camps and even traditional film schools. My own endeavor into filmmaking started at 6-years-old, in the golden age of online content. The early 2010s saw the dawn of Film Riot, Indy Mogul, FreddieW, NoFilmSchool and, of course, Shane Hurlbut’s The Hurlblog. While many of the resources available to me, as a young filmmaker, often focused on guerrilla filmmaking with a shoe-string budget, I distinctly remember The Hurlblog as being one of the only outlets on the internet at the time that really showcased the actual processes used on big-budget studio films. With blockbuster titles like Terminator, Need for Speed, and Act of Valor under his belt, Hurlbut brought an extraordinary experience level to the online filmmaking community. Whether you were looking for nuanced commentary on the difference between a set of Cooke’s and a set of Leica’s, or if you craved more in-depth knowledge about the intricacies of blocking, The Hurlblog was the place to go.

Over the last decade, Lydia and Shane Hurlbut have taken The Hurlblog and turned it into a gargantuan informational machine with what is now Hurlbut Academy. Lydia, who serves as the CEO of Hurlbut Academy, has been the woman behind the curtain, if you will, working tirelessly with the brilliant Hurlbut Visuals team to create an ambitious platform for Shane’s experience and legacy. Having a decades long marriage and unmatched industry experience under their belt, Shane and Lydia make a lethal pair. Anyone who knows them would probably argue that their relationship has contributed significantly to the success of Shane’s career and certainly to the success of Hurlbut Academy.

Given the circumstances of a total pandemic lockdown, I wondered if both Lydia and Shane might be willing to take a moment to reflect on their journey together through the film industry. As a longtime pupil of Hurlbut Academy, I asked them to entertain the idea of joining me for a Zoom call to discuss their experience with marriage, leadership, and the age-old question of work-life balance. Coronavirus notwithstanding, their schedule has remained packed, but both happily indulged me in a wonderful and lengthy conversation at the end of May.

In my naiveté, even as a longstanding Shane Hurlbut fan, I figured that a “Zoom call” would mean that we’d be speaking through shitty web cameras in dimly lit rooms. But Shane Hurlbut being Shane Hurlbut had taken the time to create a well-lit and properly framed interview setup using his Red Gemini. I, on the other hand, keeping to Zoom-call tradition, was using my iMac webcam and had made no effort to light anything — other than ensuring it wasn’t overexposed. Even as we begin to catch up, Shane continues to tweak their setup by changing ND filters and raising the tripod head. Lydia sits relaxed, clearly accustomed to Shane in cinematographer mode. Internally, I am both thrilled and somewhat embarrassed I haven’t put nearly as much mental energy into my own setup. Luckily, neither Lydia nor Shane seem to mind my choice of framing or attire.

To start, I wanted to rewind to the very beginning of their relationship. While, anyone who knows Lydia and Shane, is aware of their east coast roots, I think their origin is a very unique piece of their story. Unlike many in Hollywood, neither Lydia nor Shane came from a family of actors or entertainers. Instead, both grew up in a small, rural town in upstate New York. Shane, who spent most of his childhood on a nearly 300-acre farm, tells me that when he wasn’t planting fields, he was sugaring maple syrup. Lydia, on the other hand, recalls the pressures of growing up as the daughter of a preacher. When I ask Lydia if she ever went through a rebellious phase, Shane quickly responds, “Her rebellious streak was dating me.” Both reminisce over the fact that Lydia’s neighbors would pay close attention whenever Shane’s car was parked in front of her house and always kept track of how late it would leave.

Lydia and Shane say they’ve always enjoyed a uniquely intimate relationship, having started dating each other around Junior year of high school. On meeting at a young age, Shane says, “We shaped the mate that we wanted to be with.” But despite their personal connectedness, both were pursuing starkly different paths in life. In college, Lydia dove into the world of pediatric nursing, while Shane explored more creative outlets, quickly becoming caught up in the magic of cinema. Initially, Shane admits that he didn’t originally want to be a cinematographer: “I just knew I liked being in the movie business and I liked the technical side of it.” So, out of college, Shane got his start working anywhere he could in the industry. He began at rental houses in Boston, putting together orders, loading equipment, and driving trucks. He argues that this gave him invaluable experience working the less glamorous jobs and really let his work ethic shine. But after a while, Shane says he eventually hit the ceiling of his local, East Coast film industry — and became eager to take his career to higher places. To him, this meant making the move to Los Angeles.

I think everyone in the film industry has faced this decision of moving to Los Angeles at one point or another. And clearly, it’s much bigger than just a career decision. While, yes, there’s opportunity and infrastructure that make L.A. appealing, there’s also the cost of living and lifestyle adjustments that come with adapting to a heavily populated, concrete jungle. Depending on your tolerance of traffic, desires for raising a family, and how much disposable income you prefer, deciding where you want to live is a big decision. Considering that Lydia and Shane have now been in Los Angeles for most of their lives, I was curious what the decision to pack up and head for the opposite end of the country was like for them. And considering the lightning pace of life in Los Angeles, I was also hoping to get a better understanding of how they found their footing and managed to start a family amidst the chaos. 

Shane tells me that moving out to Los Angeles was a pretty simple decision. It came down to the simple fact that “If you want to make movies, you go to Hollywood”. Luckily, Lydia was also fairly enthusiastic about the idea of moving to the West Coast and felt secure in her ability to find a well-paying nursing position. So, in 1987, after signing a lease and furnishing an apartment, they made the jump from coast to coast. But unfortunately, right upon hitting L.A. in July, Lydia received a phone call from Children’s Hospital informing her that she wouldn’t be able to start until October. Now, with a two-month gap without income and no savings to fall back on, a hole was blown right through their young, Hollywood ambitions. Shane adds that he was in no position to stabilize their income because moving to Los Angeles forced him to start at the bottom of the food chain all over again. He says, “When I was in Boston, I had reached a very high managerial position within the rental company and I was going out and driving trucks. I was able to balance [that and] had a great salary. When we went to L.A., I threw it all away and started right back [at] $5 an hour.”

“When I say we were tight with money, it got down to counting quarters at the grocery store,” Lydia adds. In fact, when I jokingly ask how long they were stuck eating Ramen, Shane’s eyes widen and Lydia quickly responds with: “Oh… a long, long time.” In the early days, she tells me that they always brought their laundry money to the grocery store just in case of an emergency. But on one such occasion, not even their laundry change was enough to meet the total. They both vividly remember the panicked moment: “We’re sitting there picking what is going to go back while the line is getting longer and everybody’s getting pissed off.” Reflecting on the complications they had during their early days in Los Angeles, Lydia says that:

“You really never forget those experiences in your life. I think, today, people are so used to being helped if you’re younger, and part of what we try to do with our kids is really put them in the deep end of understanding what it’s like to be on your own because it’s so important to understand that surviving those moments makes you resilient––not turning to your parents and asking for their credit card number. I think it’s the same thing for being on set. You’re going to be in those moments where you’re stuck, and you don’t know what to do. That’s where you learn to trust yourself and figure out how to navigate it so that then the next time it won’t be so panic inducing.”

Shane nods in agreement but interrupts to say that while it’s important to take risks and learn through failure, it is also important to establish some form of stability, getting started in this industry: “Don’t get me wrong, you want to get to work, but if you do not have a comfortable living environment where you can go home and decompress… That is a huge part of making your career successful. You have to have that brick and mortar.”

Today, Shane and Lydia are the parents of Kyra, who just graduated from college and Myles, who just graduated high school. But given the uncertainty and lack of stability that is often a hallmark of working in this industry, Lydia acknowledges that it took them a while to decide that they were ready to have children: “Shane and I were really unsure about having kids for a very long time… We finally decided that we didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity of being a parent.” Lydia also says that her own relationship with her mother weighed heavily on her desire to become a mom herself. She explains, “My mom was not there. My mom was very sick, and she didn’t have the opportunity to do a lot of hands-on parenting with me… I was raised by grandparents and by my dad the majority of my life.” For Lydia, having children was more to her than just a desire to be a parent, it was also a source of healing from the loss of her own parent.

Ultimately, Shane and Lydia waited a good ten years into their marriage before starting a family. Despite their early desire to become parents, both agree that waiting was the best decision for them, as it allowed them both to establish a sense of balance and stability before their lives were overtaken by the responsibilities of parenting. Shane alleges, “We knew that we needed to be set up, and we wanted to do it in a way where we were as comfortable as we could be in a very uncomfortable situation. We wanted to be in a place, and we wanted our careers at a place… where we could, if we needed to, go on autopilot.” Shane adds, “If you’re trying to make it in the business, and you have kids, and you’re competing against others… whether it’s updating your reel or networking… that’s like the perfect storm. You want to steer the frick away from that.”

Lydia expresses that she’s very grateful that she and Shane were able to find some level of success in their careers to create enough financial stability to make the prospect of children a little less intimidating. But in spite of having a solid foundation, Lydia admits that parenting in the film industry has still been a considerable challenge: “When Shane decided to continue with features, it was a lot on me and a lot on the kids… It’s about the quality of your connectedness with your children. Because the quantity, when you’re a filmmaker, [is] all or nothing. Either you’re home and you’re around all the time and then you’re gone for a big chunk.” The film industry is certainly not an anomaly when it comes to the balance between family and career. But the deeply personal nature of this creative field paired with its pressure-cooker environment and frequent travel demands make it a recipe for disaster. Lydia argues that every family has to find their own way of navigating these obstacles. Some families go on the road and embrace the chaos of set life. Other families might not be suited for the disarray of frequent traveling. Lydia says that “For our family that just didn’t work because my kids needed a home base and they wanted friends in our neighborhood and wanted to go to local schools… But, again, it’s so individual, and it depends on the personality of your kids and what they want because they tell you.”

Another learning curve for any family is learning how to leave work issues at work and preventing family issues from interfering with performance on the job. But this notion of “balance” can start to sound ridiculous when you’re working nearly 16-hour days, six days a week as a cinematographer –– a position in which you have to manage dozens of people and constantly solve technical problems while keeping to a tight schedule and budget. When it comes to the lifestyle of the film industry, Lydia says that it’s “not at all family friendly”. She compares being married to a cinematographer to that of being married to a firefighter, “they have to go when they have to go, and it’s not going to be convenient to the family.”

To illustrate how big of a nightmare this way of life can be for families, Shane talks about his experience working on We Are Marshall in 2006. At the time, We Are Marshall was Shane’s biggest film to date. The McG directed picture, featuring Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Fox, and Anthony Mackie, was based on a conspicuous true story and garnered an estimated 65-million-dollar production budget. There was a lot riding on Hurlbut’s shoulders with his job as director of photography alone. Yet, right in the thick of principal photography, Shane’s father was admitted into the ICU with pancreatitis and a bleak prognosis. Throughout the shoot, Shane remembers getting countless phone calls from his mother with his dad’s condition becoming progressively worse. At one point, Shane was able to take five days off in order to visit his father, who luckily pulled through.

But it was also during this time that Lydia herself was admitted to the emergency room with spinal meningitis. And unfortunately, by this time, Shane had already taken all of the time he could afford to be away from set. At this point, the production made it clear that he would either have to remain on set while Lydia battled a life-threatening infection, or the production would have to replace him to keep the film on schedule. Shane ultimately decided that he was going to stay and finish the film.

While not being at your wife’s bedside in the hospital might seem insensitive, Lydia defends his decision arguing, “We needed the paycheck as much as we needed Shane to be with me.” She uses this as an opportunity to emphasize the importance of not personalizing situations like this in the film industry, “You really need the right mate that is not going to hold resentment or is not going to constantly make you feel guilty about the choices that you make.” Unlike a lot of careers, taking time off to deal with family issues “just doesn’t work for production” as Lydia puts it. Shane and Lydia both agree that, in order to make a family unit work in this industry, a mutual understanding must be reached about the reality of how a career like this will interfere.

Ultimately, Lydia did pull through while Shane was able to complete production for We are Marshall. Lydia reflects more positively on the scenario, believing that it goes to show that no matter how horrifying a situation gets, “things work out”. But Shane does admit, “This is why the film industry is so hard on families because you’re constantly put in that scenario.” These are decisions that not everyone can make, and obviously nobody should have to make decisions like this. But decisions like this are, nonetheless, the price for playing in the film industry.

As a cinematographer, Shane is tasked not only with his own leadership responsibilities but is also required to collaborate with different directors with vastly different styles, tastes, and methods. There are directors who don’t like getting their hands dirty with technical stuff. And then there are directors who are famous for micromanaging the technical side and who think very much like a cinematographer. Over the last few decades, Shane has had the opportunity to work with many directors including McG, Rob Cohen, Gabriele Muccino, Bill Paxton, and John Stockwell just to name a few. I’m curious how Shane has learned to adapt himself to these director’s distinct processes. While earlier in his career, Shane says he expected the director to handle most of the heavy lifting with designing the look of the film. “When I first started out, I thought it was the job of the director to shot list, to come up with the blocking… But what I quickly realized is that there’s all different types of directors, and they work in all different ways… You have to morph into that person that’s going to be the best for each director.”  As he’s gained more experience, Shane has found that regardless of how any director likes to work, he likes to be prepared to present his own perspective and creative plan. Lydia adds that, “Every director kind of has their own personal genius and relationship with Shane.” She says that for every project and for each new director that Shane works with, they make it a point to take the necessary time to establish a process that works the best for the particular story the director is trying to tell. Lydia argues that these idiosyncrasies within each working relationship is what keeps the job interesting: “Shane has such an amazing time on every movie he does with the different personalities of each director that he’s worked with and the different working style… If it’s always the same, it doesn’t encourage you to grow as an artist.”

Shane nods in agreement, but also acknowledges that many successful directors tend to find a director of photography they like and stick with them — whether it’s Kaminski and Spielberg, Richardson and Tarantino, or Deakins and the Coen brothers. “I have that same relationship with McG, we’ve done five movies together, seven if he’s producing. But it’s nice to also expand out.” Overall, Shane tells me that he really just enjoys the challenge and adventure of mixing things up between projects, adding that “It’s like making a playlist as a cinematographer. That’s what we’re making, just mixtapes. It’s all been done before; we’re just taking little bits and pieces that grab us and our aesthetics and we put them together and shake it up and that’s Shane Hurlbut.”

Having the opportunity to speak with the CEO of an accomplished production company and a member of the American Society of Cinematographers, I was also interested in discussing some of the challenges and hard lessons that come along with such demanding leadership positions. Arguably, the two most consequential responsibilities of a leader are communication and navigating interpersonal conflict. Particularly on a film set, you’re expected to work amongst so many different personalities, opinions, and egos. It is an environment ripe for interpersonal conflict. As Lydia puts it, “When you have a bunch of Type As that really care a lot, you’re going to entangle.” In my own limited experience as a director, I’ve constantly faced the challenge of management and communication.

Shane reassuringly says that, “With every movie, you get better.” But he takes a moment to reflect on his own experience with this: “It’s taken me a lot longer to be a great leader. I moved up so quickly that, let’s say, my maturity level was probably not at the responsibility level of how responsible I needed to be… [But] as you get more experience and get comfortable with being uncomfortable all the time, that’s when you can start to mature as an artist.” One of the many growing pains of maturing as a leader is learning to manage people because management involves much more than just telling lots of people what to do. It involves learning how to navigate an overwhelming assortment of personalities and find the most effective way of communicating. In its simplest form, communication is about knowing when to be technically specific or conceptually broad. But when working with each individual person it’s also a matter of understanding their perspective and temperament.

Shane acknowledges these challenges, but argues that it is our job as leaders to set the tone and establish the working relationship ahead of time: “Throw a potpourri of people together and all of them have different personalities and all of them have different perspectives of how it’s going to work. They’re taking it from experiences they’ve had on other movie sets. But you need to change the channel. You need to tell them how it’s going to work on your set. And that’s the biggest thing that I’ve started to do.” Shane says that before shooting begins, he gathers everyone from the camera, grip, and electric departments in front of the trucks during prep. “I take each department, I put the grips all together and say, ‘I’m going to make this short and sweet… One, not everyone is going to get a trophy.” Shane clarifies that he loves singing the crew’s praises when big accomplishments happen or after a particularly hard day, “but by coming in, and swooping a light in just in time before we roll, that’s your job.”

Shane also explains his philosophy for responding to mistakes when they inevitably happen on set. Whether a crew member makes a small mishap or a large one, Shane says “I have no short-term memory. If you screw up, I’m not going to remember it. All I’m asking you is to try to do better the next time.” Shane argues that this has to be the precedent for working in this industry. You cannot hold grudges or resentment against the people you work with, and part of creating a healthy work environment is nipping that right in the bud.

Overall, Shane strongly believes that clearly communicating the way things run on his set and setting the right tone with his crew is imperative to his success as a cinematographer. Not only does it establish a sense of confidence and authority, but it also creates a great environment for camaraderie between the crew to flourish. On some level, it comes down to a sense of trust and honesty. If you are transparent and candid with your crew right from the starting gate, you’re bound to have a much easier time getting along with everybody when the rubber hits the road. According to Shane, this habit “has morphed my crew into bonding together like no other time I’ve ever seen, and they will take the hill, and they will take the next hill, and they will climb the mountain.”

Though, Shane does readily admit that leadership was no straightforward learning process for him. He makes somewhat of a concession that as a younger cinematographer he might’ve been “hard on people”. But with a smile, he assuredly says, “I’ve finally matured… at 56.” Shane’s candidness here really meant a great deal to me as an eighteen-year-old director. I wouldn’t be pursuing a career in directing if I wasn’t incredibly passionate about what good leadership is capable of. But the pressure put on leaders to perform is immense, and frankly overpowering for those who are inexperienced and ambitious.

Lydia graciously addresses the insecurity that often develops for budding leaders by saying, “I think when you’re younger you feel like you have to be perfect, or do things perfectly, or you can’t ever make a mistake because you just want to do so well. And I think as you age you realize that it’s not about the perfectionism and that it’s not about the fear that you’re feeling in those situations when you really don’t know what to do next.” Instead, Lydia says that maturing as a leader happens when you find the courage and vulnerability to take a moment and welcome uncertainty. “Shane is a phenomenal individual and cinematographer, but there are times when he’s on set where he has to take a moment, ground himself, and say, ‘Oh, wow, I really don’t know which way I’m going to go here, let me take a minute’. And I think when you’re younger and you’re just trying so hard to prove yourself, you don’t give yourself that grace.” Lydia feels that rather than getting hung up on snags and missteps, it’s very important for young leaders to embrace their mistakes as part of the learning process and to not be afraid to simply take a moment to try and center yourself before addressing problems.

Lydia’s insistence on the idea of “taking a moment” initially felt a bit impractical to me. For one, film sets are often required to move at warp speed just to make our days, and as a director, you are expected to work as efficiently as humanly possible. Accordingly, I express to Lydia that displaying any form of hesitance or uncertainty can often deteriorate your crew’s confidence in your ability to do this. Lydia understands my objection, but pointedly disagrees with my assertion, saying that “Just because you take a moment doesn’t mean that you’re not displaying confidence to your team.” She actually argues the opposite, saying that “The greatest leaders that I’ve ever seen will say, ‘just give me a second to think about that’… I think that’s a very important, and subtle, point because… if you look at these great directors throughout history, a lot of times when they slow down a second, they come up with something in that moment that’s so much better than what they had planned.” She says that any great leader must first understand that a rushed decision, that is the wrong decision, is far more detrimental to the interests of the crew than the implications of simply delaying a decision so that you can adequately assess the various options.

Shane also uses this as an opportunity to emphasize the importance of time management and preparation as a leader. For a recent commercial Shane filmed in New Zealand, he tells me that he decided to step up his game with planning, by prepping the shoot the same way he would prep a full-fledged feature. This meant flying out a week in advance to scout locations before the client, developing all of the lighting and blocking schematics, and creating a comprehensive list of crucial gear ahead of time. He says that this extra preparation saved the client a lot of money and allowed them to achieve so much more of their vision with a smaller, more focused crew… “All because I had done much more work than I should’ve done but is what’s now required as a cinematographer. And I’m never going to do it any differently.” Shane says that it has taken years of experience to learn some of the smallest, but most crucial parts of planning a shoot — whether it’s more detailed schematics or just understanding who needs what information sooner rather than later. Shane harkens back to Lydia’s earlier point, saying that effective planning also comes with experience and failure. It’s about seeing what works and what doesn’t and drawing on past experimentation to make the next project more economical and, ultimately, more successful.

The last topic we have time to talk about is handling interpersonal conflict. Conflict is one of the least appealing but most common aspects in any leadership role. Shane is no stranger to conflict, his experience made public through the infamous leaked audio of Christian Bale yelling at him on the set of Terminator Salvation. When I bring this up, Shane immediately says that “there are many valuable lessons from the whole Christian Bale encounter.” But ultimately, Shane decides to speak more broadly on the issue of conflict. Despite the popularity of highly publicized celebrity outbursts, he argues that onset conflict is generally “much more based in schedule, budget, and things [not] moving fast enough.” And he further contends that preventing conflict comes down to having the right organizational skills. “When somebody doesn’t know what’s going on, what do they do? They react, they feel uncomfortable, they feel out of control. Well, you have to control them by giving [them] the information, so they can do their job. When the grip and electric and camera teams come in… There is a plan that they get every day. It’s a shot list, it’s the scenes, it describes the light in the room, it tells everyone if there’s a lighting gag, if there’s specialty grip gear… We’ve diffused the bomb before it’s even created.”

Shane also says that preventing conflict on set comes down to building the right team. Especially when it comes to hiring department heads, Shane concedes that “Sometimes you find the right ones and sometimes you don’t.” As an example, Shane refers to a problematic gaffer he once worked with who often ignored many of the decisions made during pre-production and instead had the crew execute a different plan on the day. This led to unnecessary delays and conflict that Shane was ultimately responsible for resolving — “It’s like a logjam.” Although Shane admits that the gaffer was incredibly talented, he says their processes simply didn’t align. 

While Shane’s points about preventing conflict are legitimate and valuable, conflict is still bound to happen regardless of how much organization and planning you do. As Lydia puts it, “We’re all very passionate about what we’re doing, and we all want it to be the best that it can be and sometimes personality tangles happen.” Given this fact, I’m much more interested to hear what they have to say about managing conflict when the conflict has already started. In matters of conflict, both Lydia and Shane agree that it’s critical to be able to let things roll off your back, especially if things get heated. In order to keep production rolling, it’s important to prevent any kind of resentment or animosity between people that can be carried throughout production. So, when conflict does happen, they say it should be resolved quickly and you have to find a way to clear the air. As Lydia puts it, “You’ve got to have a reset button that gets hit… because people need to be heard, number one. And then you’ve got to create an opportunity where it can be reset for everybody, so that moving forward, everybody feels good.” Shane returns to a concept he mentioned earlier, saying you have to have “short-term memory loss” onset. When confrontation happens, or things get heated, you have to be able to forget about it once it’s cleared up and be prepared to jump right back into the work.

Still in the midst of adolescence, my experience as a director is still very limited. But I’ve worked on enough film sets to know how quickly catastrophes can happen. What Film Riot, Indy Mogul, and even The Hurlblog were unable to teach me was that what it takes to maintain a career in filmmaking is so much bigger than just the gear and technique. There’s financial insecurity, self-doubt, interpersonal conflict, and uncertainty that are at every stop of the way. During our conversation, Shane and Lydia seem to validate this sentiment and readily admit that there is no golden ticket to bypass the complications and confrontations that are inherent in our line of work. Yet, throughout our interview, both of them continually elicit a sense of optimism. That despite the impossible choices, difficult situations, and seemingly endless pressure, it is still possible to build a meaningful life within the film industry. Whilst they concede this lifestyle might not be suitable for most, the Hurlbuts have certainly proven that this dream of living and working in the film industry might just be possible for those willing to take a shot.