Key Grip Nicholas “Sodapop”Franchot

Ep 11 – Nicholas “Sodapop” Franchot

Brett Stanley: [00:00:00] Welcome back to episode 11 of the underwater podcast. And this week we’re getting a little technical with underwater key grip, Nicholas soda, pop franchise. And that’s a nickname he’s had since high school. So, I didn’t really go into it with them, but if you ever meet him, you can ask him. Why he’s called soda pop.

Nicholas works alongside underwater camera operators, like Ian Takahashi and Pete Romano, both whom have been on the show previously. And you can check out their episodes@theunderwaterpodcast.com. I checked with Nicholas about how he got into the film industry, why he finds vacuuming the bottom of swimming pools like meditation, how he got electrocuted in Brazil and how to avoid getting a rash from a P filled hot tub.

All the important questions. Again, it’s a little technical, but I don’t think you need to know all the jargon to enjoy the stories. All right. Let’s dive in. 

nicholas soda pop franchise. Welcome to the podcast, man. How are you?

Nicolas Franchot: [00:01:04] I’m good, Brad, how are you?

Brett Stanley: [00:01:05] I’m doing good. Yeah. Yeah. I mean to, this is like two months into quarantine. I am starting to lose my mind a little bit.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:01:13] I’ve I’m right there with you. My friend. Yes. Losing my mind. I’m just starting, my personally decided to start a remodel in December

of my house. Which involved a major remodel, which involved moving out. so I’ve been on the road for lack of a better term since middle of December and then all the COVID-19 happened.

And we’ve sort of just been playing it by ear. It’s very, very jazzy experience just going along and, you know, our, as usual, our construction took longer than projected and went over budget and I’m not working. And you know, so it’s been, it’s been a stressful two months, but we’re, we’re getting through it.

We’re almost to the other side. We just need it to open and then

Brett Stanley: [00:01:55] Yeah,

Nicolas Franchot: [00:01:56] we can get our kitchen mostly be done. I hope.

Brett Stanley: [00:01:59] Yeah. And so is that mean you’ve actually been like bouncing from house to house, like you can’t live in your house right now,

Nicolas Franchot: [00:02:05] Yeah, we’re out of our house. We rented an apartment not far from our house. and we were going to stay there till the end of April. And that was when our PR our project was projected to finish, but with the pandemic in life and all the rest of it, it’s. It took longer and it takes longer typically even without a pandemic. So now we’ve moved to a friend’s house in Venice and, she graciously is letting us stay there. She is a child, at the same age as my children and is a good friend of my wife’s and she’s letting us stay in her little guest place. And we’re sort of, you know, on the lamb, running, running from the Kobe and trying to get our house put back together.

Brett Stanley: [00:02:41] Yeah. That’s great. And so, so when you do go back to the house, it will, is it all going to be like totally finished or have you think gotta clean up and. And kind of put it back how it was.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:02:52] It’s well, the, the bones will all be there, but we still have to, furnish it, you know? which will be, you know, hopefully fun by the end of all this, because we’ve been. Working at it for so long that , hopefully it’s written nice and fun and easy to pick some furniture and be in the house and,

Brett Stanley: [00:03:10] yeah, yeah. And then enjoy it.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:03:12] and then enjoy it.

And then we get to enjoy it for a little bit. And, you know, I’m sure that the timing will work out to where, the moment I get back into the house work, we’ll pick back up and I won’t see the house again, but that’s life.

Brett Stanley: [00:03:24] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so, so speaking of work, and I sort of segue, so you’re, an underwater key grip. Is that what you would call yourself?

Nicolas Franchot: [00:03:34] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I do, you know, regular dry key grip work and then I, I do water work as well. I’ve sort of, sort of carved a little niche for myself in the water world. just through the graciousness of a lot of. People, you know, Pete Romano and Ian and or Beano down at tank one and Rob Trostle and Acton.

And, I’ve just been lucky enough to meet all these people. And, and they’ve sort of taken me under their wing and showed me how they do it. And, and, you know, so I’ve, I’ve garnered information from all those people. Pete was a big influence, initially,

Brett Stanley: [00:04:08] right.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:04:09] getting me doing.

Brett Stanley: [00:04:10] And so, so just for the non film people out there, what is a key grip?

Nicolas Franchot: [00:04:16] Ooh, good question. Do you know?

I do, I do. It’s hard to define, but it’s basically, electricians provide the light and we shape it.

Brett Stanley: [00:04:25] Right.

So you’re putting up the stands and,

Nicolas Franchot: [00:04:28] Yeah. We changed the color of it. We changed, How sharp his shadow is how soft a shadow is, how much it wraps, that kind of stuff. And then we also do camera movement and, we’re light unpaper to engineers.

We do ratings and trusts and

Brett Stanley: [00:04:42] Right. So you’re doing the, like the technical setup of a, of a shoot you’re in there, setting up all the hardware and then getting it to, to basically work.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:04:52] Exactly and choosing the hardware and what works, where, and, you know, I mean, that’s the, that’s the fun on the water work is, is, you know, you can use stuff in different ways and that’s, that’s really when it’s, when it’s fun, when you’re sort of pushing the envelope to, to get the equipment, to do stuff that you wouldn’t normally think to do, because now you’re under water and there’s less weight or more weight, or, you know,

Brett Stanley: [00:05:14] And are you, are you working with gear underwater? That’s probably not really designed to be down there.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:05:19] Definitely, but it we’ve, you know, I mean the C stand is a, is a C stand as a sea stand. And once you dry it off, it’s fine. And while it’s wet, it still works. You know? So,  So you’re repurposing hardware that, that will do the job, but it wasn’t initially designed

initially designed for it, but, but it works, it works and it, you know, it gets the job done and, and, you know, Yeah, it’s, it’s a, it shifts. It’s just a new way of looking at the same old equipment, essentially.

Brett Stanley: [00:05:45] And so how did you, let’s take it way back. How did you get into being a grip to start with, you know, before you even got into underwater?

Nicolas Franchot: [00:05:53] technically I’m third generation in this loving industry. 

My grandmother worked on Broadway. And then my father,  when he was a young man started in the film industry. That’s where he

Brett Stanley: [00:06:04] they grips as well?

Nicolas Franchot: [00:06:05] me. Yeah, he will. My dad did a lot. He did executive producer when he was younger. and then he moved into bigger projects and started G dripping and gaffing and, Oh, that’s interesting. So he went from executive producer to becoming a grip. So he went from above the line to

Yeah, he was above the line, producing a documentary, right.

as far as I know. And then, and then, that’s where he met my mom

Brett Stanley: [00:06:29] Yup.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:06:30] and then we moved, they moved to LA and then they had me and I have a brother and a sister. And we’re all in the film industry in various capacities.

Brett Stanley: [00:06:39] Wow. So full family business.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:06:42] essentially. Yeah. And then I was sort of the, I was the, I don’t know, the black sheep and I stuck with gripping.

My brothers is a producer and a director and my sister’s talent management,

Brett Stanley: [00:06:52] right,

Nicolas Franchot: [00:06:53] but I remember the discussion with my, with my dad about, you know, I would work with him quite a bit during summer break or, or weekends or whatever. And we would talk about it and I said, what do you enjoy more gaffing or keen?

And he said, well, key dripping is more challenging and fun on the whole.

Brett Stanley: [00:07:12] right.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:07:13] And, I remember it and that sort of stuck with me and I just went down the world of key gripping.

Brett Stanley: [00:07:17] Oh, okay.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:07:18] But I started, you know, I started as a hammer and then way back in the day I turned union on white man’s burden with Harry Belafonte and John Travolta, and then,  music videos, and then features independence day, Starship troopers,  90 at the Roxbury, a bunch of stuff with Lauren coral and Lauren corals had a guy that my dad started.

So it’s, it’s been, there’s been nepotism in my history for sure.

Brett Stanley: [00:07:43] have a rough. Yeah. And, um we working on sets with your dad.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:07:47] Oh, yes. Some of my favorite memories. Yeah.

Brett Stanley: [00:07:49] Oh, that’s great. it was really the only career path you saw for yourself

Nicolas Franchot: [00:07:53] no, I mean, I started young. I did, did my first paying job at 11, working for my dad. I got paid 150 bucks. And at 11 year old, an 11 year old, 150 bucks is equivalent to, you know, six 50 now.

Brett Stanley: [00:08:07] Oh,

Nicolas Franchot: [00:08:08] so I see, you know, I was, I thought I was, I was like, I’m never going to have to work again. I just made $150, never going to have to come back and invest this and just never work again.

So I got roped into the, into the pay for the work and I loved. You know, I love the set dynamic and, you know, it was different than when, before we had walkies and all that, but it was, you know, it was a, it was a pleasure to work in an, on a set with people who knew what they were doing and, and, you know, getting stuff done.

And it was, so I just started, I just got sucked into it and I loved it. You know, it was easy money. I got paid well to do, to do the decent day’s work. And then you went home and. Came back and did it again the next day. And it was just rewarding if I enjoyed it. And I never, I mean, I went, I went into working in the industry straight out of high school and never looked back.

Brett Stanley: [00:08:57] Yeah. was there. Things that you loved about it? Was it, was it the comradery of being on the set or was it that the creative, the kind of problem solving that you had to do to make these things work?

Nicolas Franchot: [00:09:08] It was both, it was the comradery of, of solving problems together and how, how to do it. It was, you know, having a plan and, and, you know, everybody sort of has their, their own protocols and you just use those to get you where you want to go. And I, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s when you do a good, it, it feels good.

It’s working with your hands and that’s, you know, That’s always been gratifying for me.

Brett Stanley: [00:09:31] Do you find that there’s a creative side to that as well? Where, where your, you know, they come to you with a problem and the solving of that is kind of creative where you have to get creative to solve that problem.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:09:42] That’s the, that’s the, that’s the drama. That’s what sucks you in and that’s, what’s fun. And then as you get better and better at it and do it more and more, you can incorporate more creativity into the. You know, the parameters of your work,

Brett Stanley: [00:09:55] Yeah. And then, so how did you go from being a dry key grip to then moving into the underwater world?

Nicolas Franchot: [00:10:01] music, videos,

music videos. I was just a grip. I was working for bill Buckingham at hillbilly. And we are doing a music video and, and they needed, a shot of somebody falling in the water. And there was flames bubbling up through the water. And I, I saw the Hydra Fletch, deep water housing for the first time.

And, and they said, we need tanks. And I said, well, I’m, you know, I have my open water card. We can get tanks.

Brett Stanley: [00:10:26] Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:10:27] And, that turned into me doing a couple music videos, just stupid, simple. You know, get the camera in the water and pointed up. And usually somebody is fallen in the water and st. Jean, and that was the shot.

And we did it multiple times or somebody singing underwater. And then that just turned into, you know, I’d done it a few times and then, and then wore the worlds was the first major motion picture that I was on. And, I just met people through that. I met some of the, some of the bigger guys in water work at that time.

And,

Brett Stanley: [00:10:58] were you working with? Was that, was that Pete?

Nicolas Franchot: [00:11:01] that was not Pete, that I was doing a lot of just gripping, just moving scaffolding around underwater. It was the whole, the whole scene where the, the, rear of the boat, the propeller of the boat comes out of the giant ship, comes out of water and there’s stuntmen falling in the water. And it was a giant water unit.

And I was just a hammer on it.

Brett Stanley: [00:11:19] right.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:11:20] that, that gave me the opportunity to meet other people who do water work. And then, you know, you invest in, you invest in the gear and you get the right gear for the job, you know, in terms of scuba diving and in terms of BCDs and,  you know, you get a tech pack and you get your various wetsuits and smaller fins for working in tanks and,

Brett Stanley: [00:11:38] yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:11:39] and you apply yourself.

And then, another dye that my father had started. Jason Poteat was a guy I ran into at work and he was, he was gripping underwater for Pete Romano

Brett Stanley: [00:11:51] Oh, right.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:11:52] and that was my link to Pete. And I worked for Pete for a while.  quite a while, a few years, me and Andy Huber and we all worked together and it was a great period.

And Pete was an, you know, an incredible teacher and mentor. And, and then he’d got some jobs off in, in England for a while and I wasn’t there or able to go there or invited really. But, it,

yeah, and then, but by that time I had made, I had made ends at tank one with algor, Beano, and I had made ends at, Acton with Rob Trussell.

Brett Stanley: [00:12:23] which are both, underwater stages in, in the LA district. So stay and take one was down in signal Hill who actually it’s gone now. Isn’t

Nicolas Franchot: [00:12:31] Yeah, it’s gone now. Unfortunately here, it’s moved to of all places, Boulder, Colorado,

Brett Stanley: [00:12:36] Has it actually been really set up as a tank

Nicolas Franchot: [00:12:37] I believe so. Apparently there’s a large amount of underwater or of, open water dive certs that are, are done in Colorado of all places.

Brett Stanley: [00:12:47] Wow. So that’s what they’re using it for just doing certs

Nicolas Franchot: [00:12:50] I believe that I believe the last time I talked to Jay, I think that’s what was going on. So

Brett Stanley: [00:12:54] So it’s been retired.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:12:56] it’s been retired and that was, that was a great spot. I loved it. And I was there from the, from the initial setup of it. And I gave some input on, you know, oftentimes we cover the, the tank with a diffusion or, or a solid to take the sun out.

And I gave him advice on rig points and how to make it, you know, make that happen fast and easy and

less cost effective, more cost effective. And, and then I sorta just became their, their guy over there. And if they had a production come in and they wanted grips and they wanted to read it out, Then I would suggest strongly that they use media and that sort of became what it was.

And then I just, that just gave me experience upon experience and working with great people and different people. And then, yeah, tank one closed. And I’d been working at Acton previous to that and working with Rob, and. You know, all the offshore grip Marine and just a whole bunch of people. And then I sort of got my foot in the door by that point.

And, and then, yeah, it just, you know, here it is now, I wish I was doing more open water work and the actual ocean and getting some, you know, some more dive time there, but, I’ve sort of been a tank baby for the past 10 years.

Brett Stanley: [00:14:06] Yeah. I mean, so that’s an interesting point. So, I mean, if you’re shooting a production, you generally want to do it as controlled as possible, which is why they tend to jump into a tank and, and, and fake it a little bit. If it’s, if it’s meant to be open water,

Nicolas Franchot: [00:14:20] Yeah. If there’s talent, if there’s talent, you need to do that.

Brett Stanley: [00:14:24] Right.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:14:24] I mean, unless you’re, unless your talent happens to be a, you know, a water person and pretty efficient in the water, but the water will humble. You rapidly.

Brett Stanley: [00:14:32] Yeah. And, and so that’s the difference between working in a tank and I’m working in open water is that it’s assault safe and it’s a lot easier in a tank, right?

Nicolas Franchot: [00:14:39] Way safer and way easier and way more controlled. And you know, you can actually light something. You can do it in open water, but once you’re past, you know, 10 or 15 feet under water, you’re not really going to produce a light above water. That’s going to do much.

Brett Stanley: [00:14:54] Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:14:55] So now

you.

Brett Stanley: [00:14:55] lights down with you.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:14:56] Right. And then you’re in open water and you’re, you know, you got to maintain your buoyancy and keep your levels and, you know, you can’t float up or down if you’re doing that.

And it just gets way complicated.

Brett Stanley: [00:15:06] Yeah. So what are some of the open water productions that you’ve done?

Nicolas Franchot: [00:15:10] mostly just in the surf with Ian,  you know, just in the surf line or just pass the surf line to the standards or somebody swimming right past the break line or. Somebody surfing, obviously in the surf and you know, that that usually entails you’re standing or, or barely standing and getting pounded by waves and going under and over and holding onto the, the pill or the back in the day, the deep water and, and, you know, trying to get it through the wave and get a shot and survive and come out the other side.

Brett Stanley: [00:15:42] Yeah, so that’s interesting. So, I mean, your, basically the, the, the camera operators, like right hand man, like you’re there beside them, helping them maneuver that camera.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:15:53] Yes. And you’re holding the camera when they’re, when they’re not holding it. So, you know, when you’re, when the talent’s getting instruction or the shooter’s getting instruction, you’re there in the surf taking them pounding with a pill or, or you’re holding the camera and under water and getting notes from the hydrophone or, yeah, you’re sort of, it’s a, it’s a, you gotta work with the first AC the first AC does his best work dry because he needs to be able to.

Touch the camera and be dry. So you sort of, it’s a little bit of a gray area between their first AC and the G drip, just in keeping the camera where it should be and working as it should.

Brett Stanley: [00:16:29] Right.  and that’s, that’s a good point. Cause there is that. I mean, it’s a hierarchy, but it’s also a, kind of a, a set of skills. When you start going into the water with a camera, because you need someone who’s on the, on the, on the dry side, so they can do stuff like the camera tech and they, the first AC.

And then once you hit the water side, then there’s a whole nother kind of set of crew. Right.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:16:50] essentially. Yes. I mean, it’s, from what I understand, it’s pretty difficult to pull focus underwater given, given the technology that they have now, where you can have a hard line to a monitor and most guys pull off a monitor anyways,  you know, pull, focus off a monitor anyways. So it just makes more sense that they’re on land.

Brett Stanley: [00:17:08] Yeah. So you’ve got your AC, which is your first assistant camera. And they’re up there basically with the controls for the camera and the camera operator is, is kind of just pointing it in the right direction and making those movements.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:17:21] Yup. And we’re, you know, and we build rapes or, or put ladders or, you know, Ian’s got a great float for the camera. So you can go from surface to underwater, which is a challenge due to buoyancy and. Yeah, you just sort of work those things out and, and, you know, I mean, you, you, as with any crew, once you worked together for a while, you’d get to a shorthand of how things are, you know, discussing how things are gonna work, which increases efficiency and makes the job easier.

And then, you know, after 10 or 15 jobs with a person, you know how they like to do it, and then, you know, you know how they respond to all the situations and you just, you just help you facilitate.

Brett Stanley: [00:17:56] Yeah. And I guess you’ve got like one eye on you’re looking at everything in that scene to make sure that whatever’s happening is happening correctly and jumping in. If something needs to be, to be fixed or changed or adjusted.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:18:09] Yes. Yes. And then, and it’s yeah, I mean, it’s a, it’s a whole team. I mean, all the water dries from the stunt guys to the To the grips, to the electricians, to the art department, we all sort of, once you’re in the water, we all sort of band together into one unit

Brett Stanley: [00:18:25] Which is interesting because you’ve got no, once you’re under the water, there’s no communication between you guys, except for, for hand signals.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:18:32] hand signs. And, you know, you can make some noises by clapping your hands together, properly and, or tank bangers or something. But typically, the guys that I work with. Most often we all know each other and I’ll jump in and help them with safety or they’ll jump in and help me with setting a stand or moving something if I need help.

And we sort of, you know, secretly underwater, cross some lines.

Brett Stanley: [00:18:55] Right. Yeah, you’re, you’re covering each other’s work because it’s a lot easier. Cause you might be on that side of the tank to be able to do that thing

Nicolas Franchot: [00:19:02] Exactly. And then there’s all kinds of little things that come up bubbles, if you would. Swim across the tank to get it as opposed to somebody just getting it while they’re there, then you’re not stirring up the water and you’re not possibly locking up the shot or getting bubbles or micro bubbles or any of that

Brett Stanley: [00:19:18] Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:19:19] stuff.

And we’re all there to get out of there. You know, we’re all there to get the shot, get it exactly what they want and then move on. And that that’s the reward is the moving on.

Brett Stanley: [00:19:28] And so let’s talk about some of the actual setups you’ve done. are there ones that come to mind for you that we were just so proud of that we’re just like, how am I going to do this? And then you totally worked it out.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:19:38] I don’t, I don’t know. they’re all, they’re all variations of a theme. You know, there’s been ones that were incredibly trying, you know, 20 hours in the water on, I think it was Nikki Minaj. Walking back to the car with my feet. So pruned, it hurt to stand on them.

Brett Stanley: [00:19:53] right.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:19:53] You know, green-screen everywhere building a, that was an act.

And I believe in building Rob’s tank out into a, make it look like a Lake when dump ducking a truck in it and platforms. And, the Steph Curry job that I did with Ian was really fun, just cause of the, the challenges we only had him for a little bit.  You know, we had to black out that tank up in, which was not a taint that we typically shoot at.

So we had the black, that whole thing out. And, you know, we had another scene where we were doing dry work and that was it. That was a challenge. I liked the challenges, the challenges, what, what it’s about. I mean, there’s been plenty of jobs where you just show up and, you know, they need three shots and you get your three shots and you’re done, and those are fun.

And I, you know, you feel good about what you did just cause it was efficient, but you know, it’s, it’s the, it’s the ones where there’s an extra challenge. I mean, that’s really why I got into water work in the first place.

Brett Stanley: [00:20:45] To challenge yourself to keep it interesting.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:20:47] Yeah. Just to keep it, just to keep learning.

Brett Stanley: [00:20:49] Yeah. So that the stiff carry when you mentioned that’s the it’s when he’s kind of playing basketball underwater.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:20:56] Yeah. And the hoops or the hoops are moving like squids or jellyfish. I mean, and,  you know, that was it. He was in a, in a flotation chamber and then it turns into him under water and part of his meditation to get ready for a game. And, yeah, that was, that was the one Ian, I think one, an award or two for that one.

Brett Stanley: [00:21:16] Yeah. I think that it was a Clio award. Wasn’t it?

Nicolas Franchot: [00:21:18] Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Brett Stanley: [00:21:19] and so what were the difficulties on that show? Cause I mean, you from memory, I think you’ve got like, and I don’t know whether they’re all been composited in or not, but there’s a whole bunch of basketballs under the water with him.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:21:29] Yeah, basketballs, you know, basketballs are filled with air and want to float. So we had to figure out how to get water in the basketballs. And then we had to figure out how to get the right amount of water to actually get neutral and buoyancy  to get the water or the balls to do what we want. And there was, you know, basketball nets floating around and that was all shot practically.

And, and, you know, probably, is most likely a big part of why that, why it looks so good in that job.

Brett Stanley: [00:21:55] Yeah. Yeah. Cause it was all full time in, in real life as opposed to being done in the computer.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:22:01] Yeah, it was practical and it was, and the whole crew on that was up to snuff in terms of working in the water and figuring out that. The how we were going to get it done. And we initially, we were talking about blacking out the whole entire Olympic sized swimming pool building, and that, that would have taken a lot of guys and a lot of time and a lot of money.

And then we, I said, well, we could just shoot it at night. And they went, Oh yeah, we could just shoot it at night. And then we don’t have to block anything out.

Brett Stanley: [00:22:29] Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:22:30] We went that way and that, that, you know, saved a lot of money and time and wasted energy. And then all I had to do is blackout that tank and made sure that we could keep the filters running while, you know, for 24 hours while we let the water clear out after we introduced, you know, what are supposed to be clean solids, but, you know, they always muck up the water a bit.

Brett Stanley: [00:22:50] yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:22:50] So we just figured out how to leave the filters running and have the blacks over the filter covers, but still let the water cycle and. Unfortunately, I had to cut some rags, which I’m sure, you know, somebody didn’t like, but it was the only real way to get it done.

Brett Stanley: [00:23:04] Yeah, I think, I think when I spoke to Ian, he was talking about this where, so you had this swimming pool, which was, as, as I say, I think it was like an Olympic swimming pool and to be able to leave it overnight to clean because your. Water solids, which are basically big black fabrics,  had put stuff into the water and then those fabrics also sit over the top of the grills on the bottom of the pool.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:23:28] Exactly. Yeah. And

then

Brett Stanley: [00:23:29] you had to find a way to, to make them still cycle with that fabric there.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:23:35] and still be black, but so, you know, we just run the filters and, and we just covered it over. I think we use some milk crates to create a channel and. Just, yeah. You know, a lot of it’s thinking on the fly. I mean, I knew there were filters. I knew we’d have to deal with it, but I didn’t know where they were going to fall.

Well, within the rad, once I got up there and got in the water with him,

so we just decided to go that route and it worked. And, you know, I mean, the, the shot with that, obviously Steph was in the water in the shot and that was part of the look, but they didn’t want it to look like he was, you know, they didn’t want to see the water.

So we needed it as clean as possible. So that was the, that was the solve for that.

Brett Stanley: [00:24:13] And how much of your work is spent sort of doing that is how much time do you spend blacking out a pool and cleaning the water and vacuuming it and things like that. Is that a large part of your time,

Nicolas Franchot: [00:24:23] It’s a part of every job. I love vacuuming tanks. It’s weird, but it’s like meditation,

Brett Stanley: [00:24:29] Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:24:30] I start a job typically. The day before, like at, at, you know, we’ll put the blacks in the day before with the solids and the day before, and then, we’re trying to get the pumps going and the filters going and then suck every cause no matter what, there’s dirt there’s there’s dust.

There’s something on the black. Or the whatever fabric you’re putting in it. So you just need that time to let the filters do their job. And then typically you come back and you start the next day and you leave your fins off and you get your buoyancy, right. And you go down to the bottom with a vacuum and you suck up whatever you can. And then off you go, I mean, even inside even indoor swimming pools, you know, when I come back the day after putting rags in theirs, Stuff collected on him for that’s fallen out of the sky or the rafters or whatever. So you just go in and, you know, you’d get to put on some diving skills and stay don’t muck up the bottom and float around and vacuum and suck all the dirt out.

And then you, and then you start your day.

Brett Stanley: [00:25:24] it’s an interesting thing. I think being in this, in this side of the industry where we’re water quality is such a huge part of your life. And for me coming from the photography side,  Yeah, you can look at a swimming pool from the surface and it might look crystal clear, but it’s not to get into the water and you can then see all that crap

floating in it.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:25:42] Yeah. I mean, all kinds of possibilities, you know, from micro bubbles to windy day, you know, I mean, it can all change what it looks like under there.

Brett Stanley: [00:25:51] Yeah. Have you ever had a job where you’ve the brief has totally changed because the water clarity hasn’t been what it’s needed to be.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:25:59] Not completely. We, you know, for water clarity, you know, typically you just, you gotta get that work done beforehand and ensure that it’s going to be clean. There’s no real, I mean, yes, we’ve had water that was less than ideal, but you sorta just, there’s not a lot you can do on the day.

Brett Stanley: [00:26:17] yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:26:17] solve water clarity.

So you don’t have to have addressed it before the shoot day,

Brett Stanley: [00:26:21] Right. So I follow Ian’s Instagram and he, every now and again, posts a pretty cool behind the scenes shot, of a production that he’s been on. And one of the ones that really stuck stuck in my mind was the underwater shot from between two ferns movie.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:26:37] huh? Yeah.

Brett Stanley: [00:26:39] Where do you want to set that up?

Do you want to let us know what that scene was?

Nicolas Franchot: [00:26:43] Zach Galifianakis is supposed to be in a room that’s filling with water and we wanted to see the window there was a window between it. Between the room we’re in shooting from and the room that he’s in. And we wanted to see that. So we had to set up Lex in as a window, but under water. And we didn’t want to see the water on our side, but we wanted him in the water on the other side. So again, we’re talking about water clarity. And one of the things that helps with water clarity is, you know, killing the direct sun, taking it out.  just so it’s not so backlit, so you see less, less particle in the water. And then you can add the light later where you want it. so we, you know, I had to black out around the lek sand, and then we used a stereo tubes around that, that was

out.

Brett Stanley: [00:27:28] sand is like an acrylic

Nicolas Franchot: [00:27:30] Yeah, it’s a, it’s a window. It’s a thick, thick window. That’s not going to break under water.

Brett Stanley: [00:27:35] Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:27:35] so yeah, we just, we just had to set up that lexicon and get it so that, you know, everything was. Sort of giving us the image that we want, where you could see the water when you want it to and not when you didn’t.

Brett Stanley: [00:27:45] Yeah. And so this was instead of building a tank and filling up a room, you were faking the idea of that room being full of water by, by building a fake window.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:27:56] Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. and how was that setting it up? Like, was it, were they reflections and stuff you had to make sure you got rid of, and was there like green, green, green screen involved or was it pretty, just pretty straightforward?

I believe that was a lot of solids. I don’t think we did green. I think we did that one all on solids. I can’t recall directly. They all sort of blend together for me. yeah.

whether it’s dry work or wet work. I mean, it just, it’s hard. I remember Nikki Minaj cause it was 20 hours and then it hurt. 

Brett Stanley: [00:28:26] he always remembered the pain.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:28:27] Yes, so yeah, that was out at Acton and Rob has it set up out there to where it’s easy to, to, to tent out that pool. and so, I mean, it was work, but the challenges weren’t weren’t new or, or too, too difficult.

Brett Stanley: [00:28:43] yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:28:43] you know, and then they’re just having worked out there and worked with Rob and Ian and we just figured it out and, you know, so real fun one on that one was the, you know, Ian and I got to do some dumped dunk dump tank work, which is always fun. Cause you, you know, you just basically give me an, a Pat on the back and say how fun we’ll try and hold you here.

Brett Stanley: [00:29:03] So, what does that mean? So dump tank is when you’ve got a tank full of water and you’re dumping it into the scene.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:29:08] You’re dumping it into the set. And so it’s, you know, water rushing through the set at a high speed, much like a raging river. And a lot of the time that’s when we get to sort of, sort of grab Ian, I’ve done it quite a bit of it with them and you’d grab them and you just grab them and either time down or try and hold them in spot, depending on the shot.

And

Brett Stanley: [00:29:26] Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:29:27] it’s a lot

Brett Stanley: [00:29:27] if the water’s rushing past him and he’s got to hold his spot, then you’re tying him down to something.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:29:31] Yeah, if it’s safe or, or just physically holding them, or, you know, it’s a, the dunk take is similar to working in the surf and that you just kind of get beat up, but it’s fun and you’re there together. And,

Brett Stanley: [00:29:42] Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:29:42] you know, the take when that takes over, you check each other and make sure everybody’s all right.

And you know, who made it again? That was fun.

Brett Stanley: [00:29:48] Have you ever had a, had that sort of situation where it hasn’t gone very well? Like in the circle or something? Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:29:55] Oh, yeah. I mean,  yeah, lots of bloody knuckles coming out of the water from just holding the camera and taking it from the surf and then the same thing in, in dump in dunk tapes. It’s just, you know, you just, you just kinda gotta take it and it’s, that’s half the fun. We don’t really know exactly what’s going to happen

Brett Stanley: [00:30:13] Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:30:14] and you just sort of try and. Just power through it, get through it and enjoy the challenge. It’s, you know, it’s theirs, it’s water. It’s not going to do the same thing every time. It’s not going to, you know, you have an idea and then you just kind of make it work. You power through it.

Brett Stanley: [00:30:32] Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:30:33] And Ian’s a pleasure to work with, you know, in all regards, but especially in that, because he’s, he’s positive and he’s strong and he, like, he gets it and you just do it and that’s, you know, that’s the fun and

Brett Stanley: [00:30:45] I get the feeling that Ian loves that side of things as well.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:30:47] yeah, we, we sort of, we sort of relish that, you know? yeah, it’s.

Brett Stanley: [00:30:53] The adrenaline side of it.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:30:54] Yeah, it’s just that the, the thrill, like, again, you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. It’s water.

And so you just sort of it’s yeah, it’s a thrill. It’s a, it’s a challenge. It’s a thrill. It’s an adrenaline rush. it’s. You know, typically it seems a lot scarier than it ever is, you know, when you’re getting ready for it, and then you do it and you’re like, Oh, that was nothing.

Or Holy shit.

Brett Stanley: [00:31:17] Yeah.

Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:31:19] We didn’t know it was going to do that, but that doesn’t happen as often as, as often as a, the other way around where we, you know, it usually, usually we’re pretty on target with what we think is going to happen. The results we get. Ian’s a great operator and,

Brett Stanley: [00:31:34] And you guys have been, you guys have been doing that for so long that you kind of have a good idea of how things are going to go. You can predict what may happen.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:31:42] We’ve certainly gotten better at it than when we first started. Yes.

Brett Stanley: [00:31:45] Yeah. So do, do you have, do you have a story? That is the one thing, you know, the thing you’ll never do again?

Nicolas Franchot: [00:31:54] The thing I’ll never do again.

Brett Stanley: [00:31:56] Yeah. Somebody just went so sideways. You’re like, yeah. Not, not doing that one again.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:32:00] No, I don’t really,  I haven’t done. I think that that happens more in open water.

I don’t think if you know what you’re doing, that shouldn’t really be happening in a tank.  that’s also part of why I’d like to start doing more open water work, just cause the tank is it’s fun and I love it and I don’t ever want to stop, but the open water seems to be the next real level too.

To shooting, but that typically doesn’t have talent. So now I’m talking, we’re talking about nature, documentaries or shark week, or

Brett Stanley: [00:32:30] okay. So you’re gripping on those, those sort of documentaries.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:32:34] I would like to be, I have not yet.

Brett Stanley: [00:32:36] Okay. So what does that look like in terms of your, the workload? What would you be doing if

Nicolas Franchot: [00:32:42] It would, it would change. It’d be a lot less fabric in the water

and a lot more, probably just camera movement, figuring out how to, how to move a camera under water for. A predictable amount of time and length.

Brett Stanley: [00:32:54] yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:32:55] maybe some handheld smaller units to light inside a scuba mask or, you know, get some fill on somebody. But, again, like I said earlier, you know, it’s not often you taint talent into open water, certainly not on scuba unless they have experience. And there’s not a lot of them that have experienced, you know, it’s a. The old, the old resume says one thing. And then the, once you’re in the water, it says another thing.

Brett Stanley: [00:33:20] Yeah, exactly. And the studios are willing to risk

their talent doing that anyway.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:33:25] no, no, but you know, yeah, I mean, I know, I know that there’s plenty of open water work out there, not right now, but, but it’s just, it’s, it’s less common than being in a tank.

I would say.

Brett Stanley: [00:33:39] Yeah. Do you find that the open water stuff is a, is a smaller crew as well? Like it’s a bit more everyone,

Nicolas Franchot: [00:33:45] Yeah, it has,

Brett Stanley: [00:33:46] in and doing it.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:33:47] be, has to be just you can’t, there’s no way you could, you could monitor a typical film set and then just take it under water and keep it safe. Would that many people with, you know, seven PA’s and

Brett Stanley: [00:34:00] Oh yeah,

Nicolas Franchot: [00:34:01] know, art department and grip and electric and camera, like you just don’t put all those people in the water and it doesn’t work.

Brett Stanley: [00:34:07] yeah. Well, that that’s a good way. that’s a good kind of segue into talking about safety, actually. So when you’ve got that many people in the water and you’re dealing with electricity and, you know, electrical gear, how does that work from, from your point of view, what are you doing to kind of keep everything safe?

Is it just being aware of, of how this stuff works or are you kind of relying on your other team members to keep, keep things safe?

Nicolas Franchot: [00:34:33] You rely on electric, who’s putting the, the electricity in the water, you check and make sure that there’s, you know, they’re properly grounded and that they’ve got the, the, the circuit breakers, not the circuit breakers, the ground fault indicators GFS in place so that if electricity does start going in the water, it shuts off immediately.

Having been bit underwater once before in my life bit being, slightly electrocuted. it’s not fun. And it, it wakes you right up and you don’t want to do it again. So you pay attention to that.

Brett Stanley: [00:35:01] Yeah. So how did that happen? Was that something that went wrong on a set

Nicolas Franchot: [00:35:06] Yeah. Yeah. I got this great phone call and it started with, would you like to go to Brazil for two weeks to do underwater work?

And I thought, yes, Brazil, how could that go wrong? And I spent a week and a half in a tank,  nowhere near the ocean in Brazil,

shooting in the water and the grip crew down there was awesome.

They were incredible. They made, you know, they don’t have a rental house to go to, to get sea stands. So they made their own and they were very,

Brett Stanley: [00:35:34] Wow.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:35:35] they were just, they were incredible. And they’d built this whole trust rate. That we put in the water with a bridge that rolls and let me just, it was a giant rain.

They did it all without getting in the water. And then, Andy Huber and I got down there with our 50 cases from high deflects and got on the water. And there was a, there was a small short between the motor for the filters and the trust raid. Somehow they got connected and I touched a piece of trust and I got a shock and.

Andy Huber says that when I swam over to him to tell him about it after I’d just associated myself from the shock, but my eyeballs were filling my dive mask.

Brett Stanley: [00:36:12] Oh my God. You would just, eyes are watering.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:36:14] No, just that big, huge. And, I told him what had happened and, you know, we, we worked it out and basically we just killed the power to that motor that was powering the filter.

Brett Stanley: [00:36:25] do you work that out though? How do you work out that it’s, it’s that one thing that you guys haven’t put in there?

Nicolas Franchot: [00:36:31] Well, it was a challenge because, down there in Brazil, they use the power supply system called Delta power. And our GFS were not working with the Delta power. The Delta power was, they were, they would trip cause the Delta power was dirtier than electricity that the GFS were set to work with.

Brett Stanley: [00:36:48] Got it. Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:36:50] So in that instance, basically, we took the GFS out of line.

And we ran a 10 foot copper pipe, six feet in the ground and grounded the generator really well. And we had a guy who every 30 minutes would pour a couple of gallons of water around the grounded pipe. Yeah. Just to keep the electricity, wanting to do that way. Should anything go wrong? And we didn’t use any of the GFS.

Brett Stanley: [00:37:13] Wow. Okay.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:37:14] so then when I got bit that changed the whole. Dynamic of it. And then we’re like, well, where is that coming from? So a underwater, you can sort of feel an electrical field before you’re actually in it, if you know

Brett Stanley: [00:37:28] like a tingle.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:37:29] yep. So we shut all the lights off and we went back down and checked it out and we were still getting Tingley.

And so we threw that to do so that the problem was not with our power, but with something else. And then we shut off the filters. Which we’d been mucking with anyways, cause they were causing micro bubbles. And we figured out that once the filters were shut off, we weren’t getting that tangible anymore.

Brett Stanley: [00:37:50] No. Well,

Nicolas Franchot: [00:37:51] And then, you know, we deduced that it was the motor for the filters that was not properly grounded.

Brett Stanley: [00:37:56] God, that’s such a interesting way of, problem solving that, that potentially life threatening

Nicolas Franchot: [00:38:03] What was it? Yeah. And I mean, it was, you know, there was a lot of issues building up on that. So we had to figure it out on the fly. I mean, we didn’t fly down with 50 cases of lights and GFS not to use the GFS, but once we got down there, we had to deal with that. There was no way to get power that was clean enough for the GFS to work properly.

And that was just a dynamic of the job. We didn’t, you know, there was no, no way to tell that until you were there really, but now that you know, or at least there wasn’t for me, I didn’t have the experience yet.

Brett Stanley: [00:38:32] Yeah. And so how much of the electrical stuff do you understand? Like, are you, are you relying on the electrician to kind of know how all that works or have you got a good understanding of how electricity and water

Nicolas Franchot: [00:38:43] I have a pretty good understanding of it. I, you know, I, I was an electrician for my dad as well as a grip, so I know how to run power and I know, you know, what a GFI is doing and the day, and yeah. I have a decent understanding of power. I’m no electrician. And I, I certainly don’t wire a lot of things around my house, but I understand it enough to get myself in trouble and understand what’s going on.

Brett Stanley: [00:39:05] right. are there any other productions that, that you want to talk about? Any, any other interesting things? I know they all blend into one after awhile.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:39:13] Yeah, there’s sort of a mix. I mean, Laura, the worlds is really what I would, what opened my eyes to what production underwater production work was really like. It was a. It was a less than awesome experience, but it was also awesome at the same time. But I got a rash from working, you know, days on days in and out of the water.

And I made the rookie mistake of getting in the hot tub that we were sharing with the stunt guys

Brett Stanley: [00:39:36] Oh

Nicolas Franchot: [00:39:37] and the stunt guys spent. You know, hours on these platforms getting ready to, before they would jump in the water and the water was freezing cold. So they’re in wetsuits. And then, so what they would do is they would, you know, after a few hours in a wetsuit, on a platform, getting ready to get the shot, you have to use the bathroom

Brett Stanley: [00:39:54] yeah, you gotta pay

Nicolas Franchot: [00:39:56] and they would do that in their wetsuit, as we all do, as you know, there’s two kinds of divers, those that pee in their wetsuits and those that lie about it.

Brett Stanley: [00:40:03] Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:40:04] So, that was what they were doing. And then, you know, it was cold water, so they’d come out of the water and they’d get in the hot tub. And the hot tub became a cesspool within a few days, but we didn’t know that within the first couple of days, and we’re all acclimating to this frigid water, so we’d get out and, you know, and.

And warm up real quick in the hot tub. And then, you know, I got what they called shingles from it. And, you know, that was a, that was a learning experience. And that just, you know, sort of, it sort of instilled in me that the idea of just constantly watching your own back and monitoring your own situation, which is a big part of being able to do underwater work so that you’re not a hindrance, but you’re an asset.

Brett Stanley: [00:40:43] yeah. Yeah. Keeping yourself in the best shape that you can be and not expecting anyone else to do that for you.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:40:50] Right,

Brett Stanley: [00:40:50] Yeah. And so what were the worlds, was that your first major production

Nicolas Franchot: [00:40:55] Yes.

Yes. And then I did some water safety after that on Poseidon then.

Yeah.  and so what’s coming up, have you got something, have you got projects that are in the pipeline or are you kind of just in limbo, like most of the industry, or are there things that you were, were on and then you had to put on pause.

I’m in complete limbo. yeah, there’s I mean, there’s, there’s nibbles, there’s prospects. They’re a, I wouldn’t put any money on them right now.

Brett Stanley: [00:41:22] Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:41:23] You know, there’s ideas and there’s, there’s, you know, we also, we all definitely want to get back to work and we all want to start doing it, but we have to do it safe and smart.

And, you know, it seems to me that working underwater would be a great way to get around the COVID-19 thing.   

Brett Stanley: [00:41:37] Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:41:38] you know, then you get to sharing rags and who knows, who knows what, how that really works.

Brett Stanley: [00:41:42] Oh exactly. There’s only so many times you can disinfect a reg I think, every time you put it in your mouth,

Nicolas Franchot: [00:41:47] Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, I mean, I guess the chlorine is doing the work hopefully, and you know, it would be fine, but you still need above. You still need dry help and you need to, you know, somebody is going to have to figure out how to the protocol for that. And it just doesn’t seem to be happening in real quick in the film industry.

Brett Stanley: [00:42:04] no, I think it’s going to be interesting in the next few months as to, as to how they work out to make it work. I’ve heard, I have heard of productions just quarantining the entire crew.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:42:15] Yes. That’s what one of my friends is working on. He’s, you know, he’s in a situation where he’s not in the city and he’s basically creating a whole production. Team of people that have been quarantined, what he’s calling this quarantine circle and, and getting ready to start proposing projects to, to clients, with his, you know, with his team of people that have been quarantined and he’s sort of with, and, you know, He lives out of the city.

So he lives in the Sierra. So it’s, he’s got beautiful country around him to shoot. He’s got all the equipment that he needs to get the image to an editor. And, and then, you know, you just start making your friends talent, I guess, and go to there.

Brett Stanley: [00:43:01] Yeah. It’s such an interesting change that’s going to happen. I think it’s like having, you know, like you’re going to have to be certified, certified, healthy, or certified quarantined. And if you have a whole crew like that, then you know, you’ll be the go to kind of people. Cause you’re, you’ve been quarantined in your, I don’t know, like you, you know, certified fresh, you know, like it’s.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:43:22] Well, that was sort of the protocol before when the pandemic was just starting to hit before they shut down the industry. I had a job. And basically we all knew about COVID. It was the last job that I was supposed to be on. It actually didn’t shoot, but we all knew that COVID was around and how scary it was.

And they just had us all sign a paper saying, yes, we’ve not traveled out of the country. We do not believe we’ve been exposed to it.

Brett Stanley: [00:43:47] Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:43:47] You know, we’ll quarantine for a week before the job. And they didn’t eventually do the job, but that was sort of the protocol. And it’s starting to be, it’s going to have to be some variance of that.

it’s, it’s all. Yeah, it’s all pretty. It’s all pretty crazy. I don’t know. You know, half of me wants to just get out of the city and be done with this career, but I love it and I don’t really see that happening, but

it just, it’s, it’s a crazy, it’s a crazy new dynamic to add into what was already a pretty. Fancy full and crazy industry.

Brett Stanley: [00:44:17] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, it’d be interesting to see what happens. And I think it’ll be interesting, you know, like in 12, 18 months time to see the productions that have been made in this climate and to see how different they are, see what techniques people have used, whether there’s, you know, a lot less background players, a lot less extras going on and you know how they’ve kind of, I think there’ll be a lot of animation coming out.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:44:39] Yeah, there’s talk of animation. There’s a video game stories, you know, where it’s more computer generated characters and you sort of play the story, I think is another thing that I’ve seen happening.

Brett Stanley: [00:44:51] Yeah. Right.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:44:53] I was always a commercial key drip.  I did a few features and stuff, but,  It’ll be interesting to see if commercials come back, like they were.

Brett Stanley: [00:45:00] Yeah, I think, yeah. I mean, there’s, there’s commercials that are coming out now and you’re like, how are they even shooting this? But then you realize it’s all stock

Nicolas Franchot: [00:45:08] Yep. Yeah. There’s a lot of that.

Brett Stanley: [00:45:10] how it’s going to go.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:45:11] It’s it seems. And you know, I mean, It’s not so much a storytelling experience on a commercial. Is it selling the thing that’s variance? So it seems on that level that it would be easier to just start putting commercials back out there because you don’t, you know, there’s less concerned about the story

Brett Stanley: [00:45:27] Yeah. That’s true.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:45:27] and keeping your talent healthy and your director and your DP healthy and you know, those sort of dynamics,

Brett Stanley: [00:45:34] Yeah.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:45:35] but we’ll see, we’ll see where it all.

How it all plays out. We don’t know for sure.

You know?

Brett Stanley: [00:45:41] Yeah. Awesome, man. Well, thanks. Thanks.

This has been awesome. Good to hear the other side of it, man. It’s you know, I don’t think the grips get enough rep. I don’t think you guys get enough credit for what you guys are doing. You’re in the front line there.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:45:56] Yeah, we sort of are we sort of are, I mean, yes, I have mixed feelings about that statement really. I mean, we get, we get, we get credit we’re, we’re, we’re grips in what we do is, is, you know, sometimes awesome and sometimes pretty regular and, and. We’d get paid well and we’d get fed well. And, but I mean not, yes, it’s true.

Not, not a lot of people know what a grip is and I both love and hate explaining it cause it’s hard.

But, yeah, I dunno. It’s, it’s a, it’s a grips are weird. People were, were good, hardworking people and, but we’re, we’re all sort of, A mix of weird blue color ness and work thrown into the entertainment industry, which is not necessarily a blue collar industry.

Brett Stanley: [00:46:41] no, you’re like a trade that’s been thrown into the creative world.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:46:45] yeah. And that’s, that’s, you know, it’s when gripping is the most fun is when you’re able to do your trade and be creative with it. And that’s the payoff, right? That’s when you that’s, when it’s fun.

Brett Stanley: [00:46:56] Yeah.

That’s awesome. Thanks, Sarah. It’s been awesome having you on, man.

Nicolas Franchot: [00:47:01] My pleasure. Thank you for having me. It’s a, it’s always good to talk about our trades, especially when we’re not doing them.

Keep the magic alive.

Brett Stanley: [00:47:08] Exactly. Alright, man, we’ll speak to you

Nicolas Franchot: [00:47:10] All right, Brett. Thank you so much.

Brett Stanley: [00:47:12] Thanks for listening everyone. And as always, if you like the podcast, please subscribe and reviews are always welcome. So feel free to do that.

If you’d like to connect with us or just learn more about my guests. Or just learn more about. Or just learn more about my guests. You can hit our website@theunderwaterpodcast.com or on Instagram or Facebook. Also check our regular live streams on YouTube links will be in the show notes. If you’d like to know more about my underwater photography workshops.

If you’d like to know more about me, my underwater photography workshops and mentoring, you can find me@brettstanley.com. The underwater podcast is presented and produced by me, Brett Stanley and M music is Neo by old boy.

Well, that’s it for me. Well, that’s it for me? Stay creative everyone. And I’ll see you in the water.