How Rude, Tanneritos!The ladies sit down with their long-time friend and crew member, Larry Blumenthal. Larry was a camera operator on both Full House and Fuller House, and the bond these three have created will undoubtedly last a lifetime.
Larry's extensive list of credits include camera operator, composer, and director of photography. The love that Larry has for the work he's done, especially in regard to Full & Fuller House, is undeniable. Don't be surprised if you're wiping away a few tears after this heart-warming interview on How Rude, Tanneritos!
Hey, there're Fana Ritos. Welcome back to how Rude Tana Ritos. We've talked a lot about how we were a family on Full House, but we aren't just referring to our cast members. Our family also includes our wonderful, hard working crew. Our guest today was an integral part of our crew on both Full House and Fuller House. Larry Blumenthal was one of our camera operators, and a very talented one at that. He is also an incredible composer and director of photography. He has known Jody and me since we were little kids just trying to hit our marks on the stage, and today we are so lucky to get to sit down and talk with him about his career, his memories from Stage twenty four, and so much more.
Welcome Larry, It's so good to see you. Andrea. Oh my god, you're beautiful.
I know I am so.
I have to say, Larry, I saw him. Gosh, when was it now earlier or late? Was it late last year or early this year? Time has gone by so holy?
I know.
Hi. Larry drove all the way from New Mexico I did to come and see one of his best friends, Susan, who wrote a play that and I'm working with her on producing it. But Larry drove to see us do a reading of it in OHI drove all the way out and it was absolutely wonderful. And yeah, so it was. It was great.
You were absolutely one. Oh my god, thank You're not used to seeing you in a more dramatic role, so to speak.
Thank you. It was just yeah. I mean to have people you know that we've known for this long. I mean, that's the recurring theme I think of every guest that has come on the show is how much they absolutely loved working on full and Fuller House and what a completely unique experience it was.
And I to take over the show for any reason whatsoever. But a little tidbit, just so you know, before Fuller House started, years before, back when John and you guys everybody was trying to get revived, I was in touch, not daily, but damn near daily. It must have felt like it for Bob. And I'm talking about Bob ahead. Yeah, And I said, Bob, if that show ever happened, I don't care what I'm doing, call me, let me know. I want to be on it. And I don't care if I'm doing a film in Borneo or somewhere. I said, I will, I will come running. And sure enough, when the first season happened, he called me up at home and he's said, Larry, I want to tell you it's a go. It's happening, and we haven't we haven't even hired a producer yet, so you'll get a call. And the funny call was I think the first producer first season was Steve Sandel.
Yeah.
Yeah, he calls me because boy, you know some people, don't you, And I said, I said why? He said, well, I've been hired to work on Fuller House. And the first call I was to make was to you, You're already hired, so and I said, okay, perfect, under what guys is well, Greg is still available? Said well, that's fine because it could have been either way, right as or cameraman. I didn't care. I told Bob, I just don't care. And Greg is so good at what he does, Oh my gosh.
Greg Heshaw, who was our DP on Fuller House, who is also an incredibly lovely human and a dear, dear friend.
Beautiful friend, old friend of mine. I've known Greg for almost fifty years.
Wow.
And I started in the business with him. Really and make the story short, which it is not.
Now this is that's what the body is your episode. Yeah, this is your moment.
Larry, this is your spotlight.
Yes, this is it.
I'm gonna make me cry. No, But seriously, the beautiful thing was that I knew I was getting toward the end of my cycle. I retired one year after we finished. I did one season of out Matched and then that was it. COVID came. I said, okay, I'm done, so but my whole thought and I even talked to Kelly Sanderfer, who was a producer on the show as well, and I said, what do you think, Kelly, after this is done, it's whatever it's going to do. I said, I don't care if it does ten years, I'm on. But he said, would you really go that long? And I said yes, absolutely, And he said, but you know, maybe if we get lucky, we get five, and then if we do, then then I'll be I'll be a happy camper. I've really it would be the perfect way to close out my are called film shooting, you know, cinematography career, because I do a lot of other things. But it was like going home those last five years and being with especially you gals you don't even know, and of course Bob God Blessing and Evan you know your friend Bump Sag. It just all of that, you know. I just, uh, it was you couldn't write a book, better finish out something, you know, so thank you. When I got the call and you guys suggested I show up, I said, I know I'm going to do is sit here and work bragg and praise about the show because it was its family it always has been. And uh, and all the crew people that would come on occasional as occasional replacements and so forth, most of them, not all of themause, some people are just you know, whatever they are, but most of them. How do I get on the show permanently? I said, good luck?
Yeah, there really really was. And it's I'm always so honored that we have not only the legacy like with our fans, but the legacy with our crew and with people in this business who have seen the ins and outs and what, you know, what this business can be. And sometimes it's a grind, and sometimes it's not very fun. And sometimes the people you work with aren't aren't family. And that's you have a job and you're like Okay, cool, I go. I love like what I do, but it's not that. And and the hours, the hours of the grind.
People don't realize that we're we're always hurrying up and waiting.
And right right, the least glamorous.
Time, a hurry for everything.
Yes, right, we have to go now. An hour and a half later, well, we needed to fix something right now, a light went out.
Boy, when we're when we're live, when we're we're running, and you guys are on, and you are on, and and the and and as as the funnel, I always thought to myself as the channel or channel or channeling the energy, you know, through that lens and it's going to go out to all those millions of people. And what a great honor that that is to think about that and anticipate. And I was always considered a pretty good camera operator as well as other things. One of the best. Yeah, and so how how you know, Josuick wrote about me in his book, you know, so that was honored for that, and I just my thought was that it's it's not about doing the work, it's anticipating and being part of what you were all doing. So aware of every little nuance of your facial you know, just there's little motions and first Jody I knew like the back of my hand. She was four and a half. So yeah, so you know, and and it just it's an amazing thing when you you finally become part of that ballet. It's for me, it's all music anyway. Yeah, usual are all as well.
What a beautiful way to look at camera. You know, camera department and camera operators as being the funnel of that energy. And it's true, like you know, you as a camera operator, you have to know not only just what shots you need two shots or this or that, but like it's it is about capturing you know, who's gonna like being on someone's face when you know they're going to have a good reaction, or including them in a shot when you know it's gonna be worth it for their little you know, one little moment in a just that capturing of energy and like funneling it out to people. What I've never thought of it that way, And that's I love that, Jadie.
That's really good what you just brought up. And I had a young camera operator that I was teaching things too, and they were met I was mentoring and I sat down and I said, look, here's the real the real job. It's not what you're seeing in the picture. It's not what's in the frame. It's something else. And that's something else that goes like this. Your girlfriend comes into the room and she sits down next to you, and she goes, I need to talk to you. What are you gonna do. You're gonna look out here, You're gonna think what. She's gonna say, what's up? What's hitting? What you know? You're gonna give her one hundred percent attention. Right then that's the job because when you start and you say action and you guys are about to do your thing, it's in my mind it's like that switch goes on and it's like the equipment isn't there anymore. I'm reaching it and I'm holding left hand, right hand to whatever the extremities of the frame ak and it's like a big hug, and I'm listening for everything. And that's exactly what I was always doing trying to do.
I love the way you describe this like this is just so beautiful, The way you describe it so vividly and so sensory, like this is you're not just operating machinery. It is a very sensory experience.
I love this well completely. The equipment's just the the garbage that we've somehow invented to allow us to to take off of the Golden Globe stage you know, upstage, downstage left, right, whatever, and and channel and put that out to millions of people later. Yeah, and now it's a beautiful thing. I mean, I go on Netflix and I see what we did those last five years, and oh, it's so beautiful and it's so clear. It's like, are right there. Yeah, And I have a hard time watching because you know, there's a lot of memories and we lost people. Yeah, you know, and there's some people that I love very much and I'll never see them again. Yeah, you know, it's just hard hard for me to watch it. Yeah, but yeah, you have to look at it. So did we do that? Wow?
We really did? And we And it's funny you mentioned the belt. You said, you know that we're all sort of a part of the ballet, And all of a sudden, what came to my mind was Andrea in the rat costume in the Nutcracker episode the Nutcracker Ballet, and again, like the brilliant little in between moments that weren't lines, that weren't you know, it was just it was your face, it was your you know, and like, oh my god, the brilliant, brilliant moments that were captured of that. It was, you know, so ridiculous but so funny and and yeah, like that ballet of that we're all you know. And again, that's what I love about this business is watching every department hume along in its little groove and create this thing that you see that you know, when you're watching, it looks effortless and like it just happened and someone and you're just getting a window into it, when you know, really it took two hundred and fifty people to pull one zene off.
Seriously. Another thing that I especially loved about this particular cast, you know, especially you through gals, and of course the guys as well. You know, there were such veterans in all ways. But what really made living there so wonderful for those five years, I have to say, is the the whole process where everyone is doing their thing, like you said, all the different parts. But yet we've had really great directors and we had some that were really you know, it's good, you know, whatever you know, and you could feel the difference. You could feel the disjointedness when things aren't flowing. But it didn't matter once the actual show was on and the audience is there and we're rolling. You all made it seem like there was no director that you were the directors you were. You were like the symbiotic parts of a larger body that we had the beautiful opportunity to be a part of watching and listening to. Well, I'll never forget that, but there's always to me. Don't worry. I know this rehearsal sucking, you have this, This directors an idiot, because once once we get there, okay, it won't matter because you know the Candice and and Jodie and Andrew, they don't they don't care. They'll just don't. They're gonna do what they're gonna do anyway, right bottom line.
And you know, well that's true. You know it was funny. I do remember so many times, even like blocking and stuff, where it was like, you know, rehearsal day, but we'd just come in and it was like we'd start sometimes doing the scene and I don't know, if it was rich that would kind of go I don't just see what you do. But Sender would do that sometimes too, unless there was something very specific. But it was so interesting to realize, like even as I was reading the script before we would even get on stage, like I saw exactly how the action was going to play, because it was like being in your own house, so you like knew, and you know, half the time we would be doing rehearsal and it was like we just sort of did whatever we did in the scene and then it was like, well, yeah, that works. Everyone got to where they needed to be and got to the prop that they needed to get to and crossed when they needed to do, and for the most part, it was we just sort of had that sense of it, like we knew when we should cross when we should you know, it's like a senate yet.
Yeah, yeah, I really believe that great actors on a great working set that's a good one that is identifiable and well known to the public at large. This set itself has a muscle memory, Oh definitely. And then that works for the cameras too, you know. I mean, you know, okay, I don't know how many times in my particular case, the technical coordinator or the directory go you're already there. You know, Yeah, it's obvious.
I saw, right, what do you got something new, something else gonna happen, right right.
We were a well oiled machine. And I always felt bad for those directors that would cut, like the one off directors, because right.
Right, because they'd come in and we were like like we were a family, you know, yeah, we're like we we are out of control, out of hand, and best of luck corralling us. And but but at the same time, like, don't worry, we'll get it done. Like it looks you we're all over the planet. Well, don't worry, we'll be fine.
Come Friday night, It'll all the magic.
I'm happy, Yeah, it will have Yeah. I where though every Friday night we would go out for intros and at that moment I would go, oh no, I don't know what I'm doing, like and it was every show, no matter what, I would just be like, it's gone. I don't know what happened. It was like like my brain would go totally blank. We'd be getting ready before Gwen would be there, we'd be running lines whatever, and then we would start and it was like, oh, oh no, there it is like and it just like clicked on and it would go and you're like, oh, oh, this is fine. But every show I felt like, no matter what, you have that moment where you're like, I can't do this.
You who No, No, it's it's almost overwhelming. I mean it's the same thing. I mean I was, you know, I know this is not a good habit, but I was one of those people that never took notes. Oh people always take notes. And they'd go over and they'd look and there's nothing on my pad, and I go, I'm watching the rehearsal. I'm watching what they do. And if I'm not identically watching and aware of where they're going, and then we're not dancing. Yeah, right, we have to dance together. And because they might do a different step, they might go somewhere else, or.
Something they might cross slightly earlier, or something like, I need to know what the what it's about. Sure, Clarry, you are legendary in truly in this business. You have been a camera operator well over forty years, and I just I just love hearing all the stuff that you have created, and you know, not to mention you're composing, which I have been raving about, and your you know, your art and your activism and you know all of the things that you do that I just you know, I love you for. But but what was it for you that like like going way way back? What was it that made you go, this is what I want to do, This is how I want to create art in the world.
This is funny, it's actually true. Two things. When I was very young, I loved bloney and I would take a little hole out of the very center of it and I called it record meet and Mom would go so well, I got to buy some more record meat for Larry because I could put it on my finger and i'd spin it now. And then secondly, when I started to learn to read, which is probably about five or six years old, I was early early I'm reading compared to most kids. I saw a movie and it was about the Lumier brothers, believe it or not. And it was an old I think Walter Pigeon or somebody like that was and I don't even remember the name of the film. And in it, I saw that his girlfriend or wife or somebody came over to him and took a book and she had put dots in the sides of the page with a cat and a stick for your lady with a umbrella trying to hit the and she flipped the pages to make the end flipped. I was like five at that time, and I saw that, and I asked my dad to go gat some three by five cards to give me a big deck, and I drew pictures for hours, and I made a big flip image of a rocket taking on. That was my first movie. That's where it started. And so you don't know what things are going to come at you that you are just just grab you, you know. My mother also had an ultra ultra sensitive hearing, and she couldn't read a note of music, but she was always good at at playing piano by ear. She had very good tonal acuity, which I didn't know as a child that I had that too. It's not perfect pitch. It's called relative pitch. Perfect pitch is something you can have if you enhance it by the time you're five, but if you're fifter five, it goes away. Generally speaking, it goes away. Almost everybody can do it if you are caught soon enough and if you're trained well enough. I think there's something like forty or fifty phonemes that are in the English language, and they're all the same ones that may call it, you know, they all those sounds and put in different order. Those forty or fifty sounds create our words that we understand. But in some areas, like in certain areas of China and so forth, they have like two hundred and fifty they have four hundred phone memes, so it's not just eh, it's all mean something else. We don't have that in our language. So the problem is as our kids grow older and get to become five or six years old, all of that starts to go away, right, You.
Lose the ability to hear those distinct sounds in yeah, and also the almost the exact tongue placement of like like some languages that are very they have like a this is my weird little ad d linguist moment, but like they call it like a glottal stop where it's kind of that thing in the back of your throat, like a lot of Vietnamese things like that becomes very hard to do, almost perfectly, because you don't learn how to like position your tongue and your soft palate in the correct way, and so as your mouth forms you lose that ability anyway, random little side note, but but yeah, it like that is I mean the language and art and all of that like that, that was the thing that you wanted to do and tell stories and be able to like express to the world.
Right absolutely, And so for me the visual thing and the sensing of sound and rhythms and such. I was usually left home my folks. I could go out on the evenings and I would take care of my little brother was seven years younger. So we had a back in those days. Weren't even stereo, but it was a hi fi system. We had a local channel that had almost no advertising on it at all. It was all classical music. That's what I would turn on to listen to and just lie on the living room floor underneath that hi fi just to kind of have have my fright. You know, your kids are young, they're scared of things, and I felt like, well it was here, I'm calm and everything's good. So all of those things kind of blended together to create this media, this desire to observe, and then the next thing that happens. I've discovered the great films of David Lean and the great films of Hitchcock, and of course many many others. I mean, certainly uh, we could go on and on. But the way that I learned how some directors liked the way that we get performers to come up with what it is they had in their mind for their film. It was always extremely interesting to me that whole directorial approach. Some are just dictatorial, just do it this way, don't want to ask you no, no no. That's sort of the way Hitchcock was, whereas Lean, he would try to infuse a reaction into his actors and get them to respond, but usually by some other vicarious thing. An example, I don't need to take up on your space.
You're not at all. This is like this, this was the question that we asked this. We love we love have like we're so excited to learn from the people that we grew up around. And it's so much fun to interview people because we're like, tell us everything you know and what inspired you. It's great.
You humble me and you embarrassed people. Gosh, well, this is a great story. And I I saw an interview or I read it somewhere, but it was from David Lean himself back when he was alive, and he was talking about doctor Chevago Ohmarsharif Ohmarsharif goes to this hyphalutin Tsarist party on the second or third floor, and Laura's there and all the other characters are in there, and all these people and they're all, you know, dancing around in great music and food and drink and I'll be merried, wealthy. Meanwhile, down on the streets, one of the very first demonstrations by the Bolsheviks is about to happen, and unbeknownst to him, doctor Zavago oh marsha Eve goes out on the balcony just gets mayor because he's not real happy with the environment that he's under or in. And as he's going out there, the the Bolsheviks are beginning to with the peaceful, peaceful you know, down the street with signs and the whole thing, and the guards, the Tsar's guards go on and start just killing them, just wipes them out. I don't remember that particular scene. The reason this scene was so extraordinary because you never really see any violence. You don't see the blood thirsty side of it. What you see is all in the reactions of the close up of Omar Sharif's face. Now, how does a director get that huge scene with all that that all that it has to express politically and every otherwise. In a close up on one new actor his face, how does he not well, this is what he did. He didn't tell Omar what the scene was about, and the camerades is ready. This is what I want you to do. You walk out on the balcony. You look out and you see the most beautiful woman you've ever seen in your life, and you're you're amazed by her, and you're a little bit shy because you don't want to tip off it. You're kind of staring at her. But then she does some things that you just you can't not watch, and it's so overwhelming you almost but just before you do, you stop yourself, and then it builds up again, and then you stop yourself, but you're always on the crest of it. That's what I want you to do in the scene. That's what he did.
Wow, Agony and ecstasy, right, yeah, yeah, that makes sense, right, And and what a fitting emotional tone or exactly that the joy and the fear and the all of it, like.
The brilliance of that thing to to give a tool to the actor. But just you know, just's just try this to see if this works. Unbelievable genius. So anyways, those kinds of things as I was growing up and and watching these films, and you know, watching Kubrick's films, and just you know, the the the the breadth of filmmaking in every respect of it, the visual spectacle. I was a cinerama freak. I love Ultrapana vision. I loved all the three D stuff. I went crazy on.
What's what's your favorite? What's one of your favorite movies? I don't know if you could pick one, but one of your there is one.
There's one, but it's not really a film in the words, there's this this thing. And then all the great films might I think the greatest, one of the greatest films, for example, was Lawrence of Arabia is certainly one of the great ones. And there's many wonderful films. I mean, they just go on from but there's one that is so much higher than all the rest. It doesn't qualify as a film. And I told the maker of the film that personally, and he actually got a little tear in his eye. He was so moved by what I said. And it was Schinner's list, and I said, Steve, every human being before the age of seventeen. Should be required to see this before the embark upon becoming a human, that's my opinion. But it's so there's so much in it that even yeah today, it's so relevant. Yeah that it's overwhelming.
Anyway, I love, yeah that I always like finding out, like what is what is the piece that moves you or makes you excited about working, you know in this business? Yea, and that that is I mean talk about of incredible cinema.
And then here's other greatest film. I think Spielberg's greatest film was Empire of the Sun, the one about the little guy that was living amongst the type age Yeah, yeah, under Japanese control, and there was so much symbology and symbology. John Malkovich is in it and croud of ball.
Oh he's so good.
Of course, the score is amazing with all the Welsh influence and then the Asian music as well that John Williams incorporated in the whole thing. Unbelievably beautiful film.
Well, that was part one of our interview with the amazing and wonderful Larry Blumenthal. And there are so many things to catch up on and pick his brain about, so we will be releasing part two of this interview on Friday, so stay tuned in the meantime. If you want to follow us on Instagram, you can find us at how Podcast send us a DM make sure you're following us on there. Also, you can send us an email at Howard Podcast at gmail dot com and make sure you're liking and subscribing to the podcast wherever you're listening to so that we can stay up in the charts, and also so that you can get all of the newest episodes as soon as they come out every week. So thank you so much for listening to this episode. We will be back next time with more And remember the house. No, damn it, damn it. I almost said the house is small, but the world world is full. And that's also true, but not what we're supposed to the world is small and the house is full. Why does that not say? Does that get your bracelet? Where's your bracelet? Jesus?
That's off.
The world is small but the house is full. Why does that sound weird today? It sounded right the first way you said it. The house is small but the world is full. No, you're right, that's not wild. But the world is small, but the house is full. I don't know what's happened, but somehow, I'm it doesn't sound right at all of the anytime we need bracelets and que cars, that's what we need, Jesus. But even I'm saying you correctly, I'm like, is that correct? I don't even know whatever. Next time, guys, tune in for part two, we'll be here still trying to figure out if what we're saying is true or correct
