The Projection Booth

A kid who built models and sculpted monsters now lights one of Netflix's slickest crime series. Cinematographer Stephen Murphy BSC, ISC joins Mike White from Morocco, two days into shooting season three of The Gentlemen, to trace the road from a Marvel UK magazine about Star Wars (1977) to the director of photography chair.

Murphy came up through a makeup course, a stint on the miniatures crew of Stuart Gordon's Space Truckers (1996) and a first black-and-white photography class that changed his plans. He worked his way up the old-school camera ladder, and he explains why a practical-effects mindset still shapes how he solves problems on set.

Then the work. He describes shooting episodes 3, 4, 5 and 8 of The Gentlemen in blocks with director Eran Creevy, fifteen days an episode, bonded over a shared love of Tony Scott. He recalls a week taking over for Robbie Ryan on Yorgos Lanthimos's The Favourite (2018), and the tricky line between rom-com and slasher on Heart Eyes (2025) with Josh Ruben. Mike also brings up Primate (2026) and Vera.

How does a cinematographer get a director to say what a movie should look like? Murphy's answer starts with listening.

Visit Stephen Murphy's website, stephen-murphy.com, to see his work.

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Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth is part of the Weirding Way Media podcast network. Explore more of our shows at http://weirdingwaymedia.com.

A 1982 cul-de-sac lands among feathered dinosaurs, and the pitch is pure Spielberg. Mike White and Chris Stachiw of The Culture Cast team up for a crossover on The End of Oak Street (2026), David Robert Mitchell's summer sci-fi adventure, produced by J.J. Abrams, with Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor as parents on the brink of divorce.

They start spoiler-free, then dig in: why this does the Spielberg pastiche better than Super 8 (2011), the echoes of Poltergeist (1982), E.T. and Stephen King, a Michigan that looks suspiciously like Southern California, the original ending, and the leg-biting moment that made both of them yell. They also rank the Jurassic Park (1993) sequels

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth is part of the Weirding Way Media podcast network. Explore more of our shows at http://weirdingwaymedia.com.

A country star who walked away from the spotlight, a mystery that won't stay buried, and songs that each have a job to do: Heartland (2026) is a Netflix thriller with a country heart.

Mike talks with writer-director Shana Feste ahead of the film's November 13 Netflix release. Feste explains why she writes women who don't care whether anyone likes them, and how film noir helped her uncover the part of Misty, played by Jessica Chastain, that she had left behind.

The film is available to view on Netflix starting November 13, 2026.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth is part of the Weirding Way Media podcast network. Explore more of our shows at http://weirdingwaymedia.com.

A notorious leather bar, a murdered film critic and a Hollywood shoot that turned Christopher Street into a battleground. Mineshaft (2026) is a new festival documentary about gay New York in the late 1970s and the killing that fed into William Friedkin's Cruising (1980). Director Jeffrey Schwarz, fresh from the Tribeca premiere and a run of festivals including Outfest, joins Mike White to talk it through.

The conversation starts with Addison Verrill, the Variety critic murdered at 36, and the one box of district attorney files that survived, autopsy reports and crime scene photos included. Schwarz explains how he earned the trust of Verrill's sister, found his partner Bob Geary, and why he refused to make another exploitative true crime film. From there the trail leads to Paul Bateson, the killer who also appeared in The Exorcist (1973), and to Arthur Bell's Village Voice columns, the leaked script and the street protests that dogged Al Pacino and Friedkin.

Also on the table: Friedkin's refusal to be interviewed, the vintage audio that still gives him a voice, protest tape Schwarz held onto for thirty years, Vito Russo, and the Showgirls (1995) documentary he hopes comes next.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth is part of the Weirding Way Media podcast network. Explore more of our shows at http://weirdingwaymedia.com.

Strip a soldier's letter of its name, date and salutation, and the sentiments barely change: scared kids who want to be home. That idea drives Behind the Lines (2024), a new documentary in which actors, letter in hand, read wartime letters and emails from World War III to Iraq and Afghanistan, set against archival footage.

Director John B. Benitz and Andrew Carroll, founder of the War Letters Project, join Mike White to trace how a stage play, If All the Sky Were Paper, became a film. Carroll recalls the house fire, a cousin's Buchenwald letter and the 1998 Dear Abby column that set the project off. Benitz explains why he broke Ken Burns's rule by putting actors on screen, even though Burns's Better Angels Society helped sponsor the film.

They also dig into a Pearl Harbor sailor's letter held back for a year by censorship, Laura Dern's laryngitis the night before her studio session, a first cut of over three hours trimmed to ninety minutes, and a Japanese woman's apology, with a thousand folded cranes, to a family killed by a balloon bomb. Why do the funny letters matter as much as the harrowing ones?

Follow Behind the Lines on Instagram and visit the film's official website.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth is part of the Weirding Way Media podcast network. Explore more of our shows at http://weirdingwaymedia.com.