John C. Flinn III, ASC, was talking about the second time he met Bill Conrad.  Jake and the Fatman was moving to Hawaii after shooting the first 22 episodes in Los Angeles.  Flinn had just recently finished shooting the last Magnum P.I. episode in Hawaii.  Talk about great timing.

He asked Conrad, "Do you remember the first time we worked together?"  The actor didn't have a clue.  But who could blame him?  In the early 1970s, he directed an episode of Gunsmoke, and Flinn was the camera operator, one of the youngest in Hollywood.

"When I was in my teens, I got to know a lot of people at Columbia Pictures by hanging around and watching crews shoot," Flinn says. "If anyone asked me what I was doing, I'd say I was working camera.  No one ever asked me questions."

When Flinn was 19 he did some stunt work and a little acting.  But he was mainly interested in cinematography.  He asked Bill Widmeyer (head of the camera department at Columbia Pictures) for a chance.  "I stretched the truth," Flinn says.  "I told him I was older."

A couple of weeks later, Flinn got a call from the camera department.  He was told to see Freddie Jackman, ASC, the camerman on The Wackiest Ship in the Army.  Jackman needed an extra crew member for a day, and there was no one else to send.  Flinn was sure of himself until he saw Jackman.

"I asked someone to point him out, and he was sitting high on a crane looking down at me.  I raised my arm and yelled out, 'My name is John Flinn, and I don't know a thing.'"

Jackman said, "Lower this crane arm.  You're the first one they've sent over here who has told me the truth."  Jackman put him to work.  That's the way it started.

Nine days later, Flinn was sent to Hawaii to work on a picture being shot by Bernie Guffey, ASC.  Later, Flinn worked with Conrad Hall, ASC; Chuck Wheeler, ASC; Bill Fraker, ASC; Bobbie Morrison; Dick Kline, ASC; Richard Rawlings, ASC; Lester Shorr, ASC; Harry Stradling, ASC; Harry Stradling, Sr.; Monroe Askins, Sr. and other camera operators.   No film school has that kind of faculty.

"I learned something from every one of them." he says.  "I owe those guys a lot.  I'll never forget them.  So many times, I'll flash back to how someone lit someone, or how he handled another situation.  You have to find your own way of working.  I'm always looking for new things to try.  But having the opportunity to work with all of those guys was priceless."

Flinn shot his first TV film in Ireland 12 years ago.  His credits include several mini-series, Wild Times and Roughnecks, a number of two-hour movies made for TV, the last season of Hawaii Five-O, three and a half years of Hill Street Blues, four years of Magnum, P.I., and this is his third year of Jake and the Fatman.  He took the latter through the transition from Los Angeles to the liquid blue skies of Hawaii, and then back to Los Angeles again.

"The look changes by itself," he says.  "The stories are different in Los Angeles.  It's moodier.  We're on the streets more often.  There are more overcast days.  There's more of a gritty look.  There's a difference in depth and contrast."

"Filming Conrad is fun.  He has a great face," Flinn says.  "It shows his moods.  It goes with his voice.  I play the light on one side of his face down, and keep hot spots off the top of his head.  He's a big man, so I don't show his chin from low angles."

The relationship between Jake (played by Joe Penny) and "the fat man" is the key to the story, and you see it best in the actors' eyes and the subtle expressions that visually punctuate their wisecracking dialogue. 

Penny is virile and handsome in sharp contrast to the crusty bachelor role depicted by Conrad.  Flinn lights Penny to emphasize his ruggedness and attractiveness to females.  A key is his eyes.  "He has great blue eyes, and the audience wants to see them," Flinn says. 

Flinn uses Mitchell "B" filters on cameras to soften the look of the show a bit.  Depending on the situation, he occasionally dips into his bag of tricks and alters the image in various ways.

Shooting in Los Angeles was like coming home.  He's re-visiting many of the downtown L.A. locations that were used on Hill Street Blues.  But it's a different look.  It's like comparing rough canvas to soft velvet.  Hill Street Blues was down-and-dirty with more energetic camera moves creating an almost constant visual tension.  Jake and the Fatman has a more varied look.  One scene is shot in a posh interior in warm, bright and cheery light.  The next one might be shot in a dirty alley. 

 There are some standing sets at Universal Studios,  including Conrad's office and the bullpen outside of it, and Jake's apartment.  But mainly the show is filmed at locations around Los Angeles in restaurants, bars, offices, homes, alleys and streets.  It's like making a small movie in seven days.  The only way you get production values is by making every minute count.  Flinn's crew hustles through an average of 34 set-ups a day.

He usually keeps two Panaflex cameras rolling, one on a master shot and the other on actions and reactions.  The master camera, a Panaflex Platinum, is usually on a dolly track moving with the cast.  The "B" camera, a Panaflex-X, is usually on a smaller track.  It's used for stop-and-go cuts and close-ups.  If one camera is moving from north to south, the other is rolling from east to west.  A lot of people believe you can't do that without compromising lighting.  Not Flinn.

"You can light for both cameras if you think about what you are doing," he says. "I light back walls so they don't look flat on the master shot.  Then I watch my angles on the second camera, and use cutters to break up the light.  Sometimes all you need is a nice cut that takes you to a close-up.  There are reactions you get on film that pay for the second camera 10 times over.  It's much easier than trying to recreate a spontaneous look on a second or third take.  It makes all the difference in the world."

Flinn also uses the Panaflex-X camera, and sometimes a handheld Arriflex camera, for subjective point-of-view shots.  For example, in a fight scene he might use the ARRI camera to put the audience in the middle of the action. 

"There's more visual tension with a handheld shot than you can get with a Steadicam," Flinn explains. "But you need the right operator.  Pat McGinnis is great with a handheld camera.  He's as steady as a rock and he has a great eye.  We can exchange a couple of words and he understands exactly what I want the audience to see.  You also have to pick your spots.  If you want a smooth shot running up or down stairs, it's better to use a Steadicam."

That's cerebral cinematography.  Two other words that describe his shooting style are patience and passion.  The patient John Flinn takes the time to explain how a half-backlight is going to make an actress look great, while creating the right mood for a scene.  The passionate Flinn verbally storms about a director (on another show) who took the cast and crew to the 10th floor of a building to shoot a scene where an actor was looking out of a window.

"The camera looks over his shoulder, and almost everything outside is blown out.  The audience has to see what he's looking at, because that tells them what he is thinking.  Why bother shooting on the 10th floor if you can't see out the window?"

Bottom line: Flinn takes his work very seriously.  It's in his blood.  He grew up in the bosom of Hollywood in the waning days of its Golden Age.  His grandfather, John C. Flinn, was vice-president of Cecille B. DeMille Productions.  His father, John Flinn, Jr., was director of advertising and publicity at Columbia Pictures for 25 years.  As far back as Flinn can remember, there were people visiting his home, talking about the films they were making.

Flinn is using the 400-speed Eastman 5294 film for night and interior scenes, and 5247 for daylight exteriors on Jake and the Fatman. 

"There are newer films, but I'm happy with the look we've established on this show," he says.  "I know what the film is going to do if I'm shooting a night exterior with back cross as my key light and five footcandles of fill.  I can do it by eye."

His lighting package contains both HMI and incandescent units, and Flinn will often mix them to replicate the texture of reality.  "It looks natural to have mixed sources like daylight coming through a window on an interior scene where the practicals are incandescent," he says.  "It makes the look more interesting.  What you are really trying to do is catch the mood of the story."

It's like doing a jigsaw puzzle.  Every scene is made up of 1,000 small parts that have to fit together exactly right.  In an early Fall, 1991 episode, after a long stakeout, Jake is falling asleep at the wheel while driving home.  His car runs out of gas.  His phone is dead.  He's isolated.  Jake gets out of the car and starts walking.  He's in a residential neighborhood. 

It's the middle of a hot, muggy summer night.  Flinn makes the audience feel the heat by zeroing in on Jake's perspiring brow and sweaty clothing.  He has a hot kicker on Jake's cheeks and on the back of his head.  There are other visual clues.  Looking through a window, Jake sees a fan turning inside a house.  The lighting is subtle and unobtrusive.  His key on the long moving shot is 20 footcandles of back crosslight behind the actor with about five footcandles of front light providing fill. 

"I want the audience to see him, otherwise their attention shifts away.  But I don't want him to look lit," Flinn explains.  "If you stylize lighting, it's like announcing, this is the star.  You take them right out of the story.  The half-light looks natural.  It could be coming from street lamps or moonlight."     

Jake spots what could be a burglar at a window.  You can almost see him think that.  He hears a gunshot and sees a shadowy figure running.  Jake is in hot pursuit.  Street lamps provide justification for pools of light in the blackness.  Flinn has three Condor cranes spotted along the route of the chase to simulate the angle and quality of ambient moonlight. 

They come to the back of a house, near a golf course.  Flinn shows the audience a wide shot with all of the geography looking like it's lit by the moon.  Jake follows the gunman into a house.  It's very low key.   Through a window, you can see two lights out by a pool justifying a warm, golden glow that adds a touch of color to a black and gray scene.  The moon justifies the three-quarter backlight, adding a slight hint of grey-blue.

Jake rounds a corner and emerges into a dark foyer.  There's a shaft of warmer light coming from another room.  It could be a flickering TV.  The camera comes in on Jake's face.  You can see the tension in his eyes.  Then the cinematographer shifts to show the audience the scene from Jake's point-of-view as he searches the darkness looking for someone with a gun. 

Flinn describes the images as "etchy-sketchy."  The suspense is tactile.  You can feel it.  Any second, the flash of a gunshot might penetrate the darkness.  Suddenly, Jake sees a silhouette at the top of the steps.  Moonlight is flowing through a window high behind the shadowy figure, making it impossible to discern details. 

Only it's not the moon; it's a Condor crane that Flinn has adroitly maneuvered into position.  A three-quarter blue gel gives it the look of cool moonlight.  In the light glaring around the silhouette, it looks like there's an outstretched arm pointing at something. 

The shaft of light from the room below hits under the silhouette's knees.  But there's a reflection that causes the object in his hand to glisten like metal.  Is it a gun?  Jake has a fraction of a second to decide.  He shoots.  A 14-year-old boy holding a remote TV controller, dies.  Suddenly the boy's mother is there screaming. 

It takes a smooth meshing team for a scene like this to work.  There's rarely time for Flinn to scout locations.  In this case, he sent a grip and electric best boys. 

"They know what I need," he says.  "There are people who have been on my crew since Hawaii Five-O. They showed me diagrams, still pictures, and they measured the dimensions of the window we used behind the boy.  There are many ways to make a shot like that work.  We could have built a parallel outside the window to hold the lights.  But using the Condor saved us about half an hour."

He savors those saved minutes because that's what gives him the time needed to create production values that give the show its unique look.  That's why he can take the time to explain to an actor or actress why he's lighting a certain way, so everyone on the set is at ease. 

The rest of this episode focuses on a female internal affairs investigator and Jake retracing his steps trying to determine if the shooting was justified.

"I love photographing women," Flinn says.  "She's very pretty, so I didn't have to do much enhancing.  A little eyelight.  A pinch of diffusion. I talked to wardrobe about the colors that played best off her hair, eyes and figure.  I work with the wardrobe department a lot on this show.  It's important.  The colors and texture of clothing tell you about the character, and they help determine how the audience sees their eyes and skin tones."

Flinn has earned four Emmy nominations, one for Magnum P.I., two for Jake and the Fatman, and another for a TV movie, The Operation.  But most of all he savors a 1990 nomination in the ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards competition for God Bless the Child, an episode of Jake and the Fatman, because he was nominated by his peers in the American Society of Cinematographers. 

During the past four years, Flinn has moved into directing with occasional assignments on the shows he shoots.  It's broadened his outlook.

"Tom Selleck gave me a chance to direct on Magnum," he says.  "I enjoy working with actors as a director.  I did a little acting when I was starting out, so I can relate.  I've been directing a couple of episodes of Jake and the Fatman every season."

Does he see more work ahead of him as a director?

"Hopefully.  I love it," he says.  "I've also shot the last two episodes I've directed.  I'm a shooter.  I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't shoot film.  I've been at this for a long time because I started young.  I believe my best work is still ahead of me.  And I don't think it will all be on television.  The problem is that you get stereotyped as someone who shoots TV.  That bothers me, but someday the right feature will come along, and someone will give me the chance to show what I can do."