Song Sung Blue
Leaning In

A Conversation with Dave Thompson, SOC​
By David Daut

In Song Sung Blue, we meet Mike Sardina, a recovering alcoholic trying to turn his life around and make a name for himself as a musician, but who is stuck doing gimmicky sets at the fairgrounds in between an Elvis impersonator and a James Brown look-alike. As Mike threatens to walk from the gig, Claire, another performer in the group, catches his eye. She’s enamored by Mike’s ambition and an idea quickly forms for the two of them to start their own act, covering Neil Diamond songs as the duo “Lightning and Thunder.” Their romance blossoms as their star continues to rise, but when a freak accident leaves Claire unable to perform, the two have to figure out how to navigate the long road to recovery together. Based on a true story, Song Sung Blue is written and directed by Craig Brewer and stars Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson.

Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, the Neil Diamond tribute band Lightning and Thunder became something of an institution in the upper midwest. A regular fixture at state fairs and music festivals and, occasionally, as the opening act for bigger bands like Pearl Jam. The story of Lightning and Thunder came to a tragic end in 2006 following the death of Mike Sardina, but the band’s journey was captured in a 2008 documentary by Greg Kohs, which served as the inspiration for the narrative feature Song Sung Blue from writer/director Craig Brewer.

Though not a musical in the traditional sense, music is still a driving force in Song Sung Blue, as are the pair of powerhouse performances by the film’s stars Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson. To learn more about what went into shooting this film, Camera Operator reached out to A camera and Steadicam operator Dave Thompson, SOC.

Song Sung Blue marks Thompson’s first time collaborating with Craig Brewer and director of photography Amy Vincent, though there have been some close calls. “Amy Vincent and I have known each other for a long time and have tried to collaborate together in the past. This time out it all lined up perfectly.”

Speaking more to the creative partnership with Brewer and Vincent, Thompson notes, “Craig and Amy are a unique pair. They’ve done a lot of films together over the years—they’ve been together for a long time—so being invited into this was really special. They relied heavily on what we as camera operators thought, and our instincts of what we thought was going to look good for them. They really trusted our opinions on how it should be blocked, how we should shoot it and lens it.”

“It was interesting to talk with Craig about his process and get into the subtext and the nuance of these characters. It was always fascinating to get those extra layers of what the character is feeling so we could underline it with a slow push-in. It’s an interesting thing having the camera push in as much as it does in this movie. As an audience member, it feels like you’re leaning in towards the screen. And, Hugh and Kate command that. You always want to get closer to those two.”

The enthralling screen presence and electric chemistry of Jackman and Hudson is one of the film’s major charms and the engine that drives the whole thing forward—watching the joy of these characters coming together creatively and romantically and bearing their heartache as life deals them unlucky hands.

“Kate and Hugh are fantastic to work with,” Thompson confirms. “They are both at the top of their craft, and it was really magical to witness their performances through the eyepiece. They are such pros; they just give it every take, and you don’t want to mess it up. You want to be right there with them, especially when they start singing, too. And it’s just Neil Diamond songs. So, you know, everybody wants to sing along to those. It’s always great when there’s music on set. It just lightens the mood and spirit. And having Kate and Hugh made it that much better.”

Elaborating on how he approached filming with the two of them, Thompson explains, “We had a lot of scenes that weren’t structured in the traditional sense of a wide, medium, close-up and they were moving and freeform. The camera played off of what they were doing together. We had a fantastic dolly grip, Andy Sweeney, who was able to feel the scenes and dialogue along with the musical numbers and always land the camera in the right place.”

The other major component of Song Sung Blue is its music. The film is not strictly speaking a musical, but there are still major musical sequences peppered throughout the film as the band starts out performing in apartments and dive bars to filling concert halls and even headlining their own show.

“It was through exploration that we really hit upon the formula for the musical sequences,” Thompson notes. “It’s a grounded movie, so the approach was similarly grounded. We were always very fluid with our characters. It’s a lot of moving around in small spaces with them, and it was always very close. We always felt very close to them, it was a very intimate sort of movie. Then the camera movement gets bigger and flasher with cranes and such as they move into bigger and bigger arenas.”

“It’s also kind of a wide lens movie—it’s wider lenses in close, which developed from Amy and Craig’s ideas as well as the space constraints of the real, practical locations we were shooting in. But it creates this feeling that you’re right there with them, and really getting their real story. You can really feel whatever emotional state they’re in, especially when they’re playing together. We didn’t necessarily want to mimic the original documentary—this isn’t all handheld and documentary-like—but there is something about that wider lens up close that lets you feel like you are living this life with these people.”

While this wide-lens style originated with Craig Brewer and Amy Vincent, the camera team was given a lot of latitude to explore that idea and make it their own.

“Amy and Craig gave us—myself, B operator Julian Delacruz, and my dolly grip Andy—a lot of freedom to do our own thing, especially with the musical numbers. It wasn’t all storyboarded out, so we were able to swing the crane and just feel it. Andy is a really instinctual dolly grip, so he could swing the crane wherever he felt like it needed to be. Then after we would do a take or two, Craig and Amy would discuss it. They’d come to us and say, ‘We really want to get these couple of beats here,’ and we would fill in the gaps. It was the same when we would use Steadicam.”

“I remember the sequence in the Thai restaurant where they’re singing, and the whole restaurant sort of erupts and starts singing along. We initially talked about shooting it very traditionally—shoot her side, then his—but once we started moving around them with the Steadicam, we found ourselves getting a lot of the pieces all in one movement, just following the music. Andy is very musically inclined while I’m a bit musically inept, but he would point me in the right direction, and we would find those really nice pieces.”

While the journey of Song Sung Blue takes these characters through both triumphs and hardship, the emotional core that carries through the entire film all comes back to an early scene in a small apartment living room where Mike and Claire perform together for the first time.

“Their first song together in the apartment was a practical location,” Thompson recalls. “Kate sits down at the piano and starts playing while Hugh is on the guitar. In order to shoot that sequence in the timeframe we had, we decided the best thing was to take all the furniture out and make the whole thing a dance floor. We put a remote head on the dolly, and Andy would find the pieces. I was sitting in a completely different room, just following along with the music, talking through it with Andy. After we did the first take, Craig actually said what we got was like what he had in his head while he was writing the scene. We somehow nailed it the way he imagined it.”

BEHIND-THE-SCENES

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Dave Thompson, SOC

Dave Thompson, SOC, is a camera/Steadicam operator who has been working in the industry for more than 30 years. He is known for his work on The Hunger Games films, on which he collaborated with director Francis Lawrence and cinematographer Jo Willems SBC, ASC. Dave has been fortunate to operate for cinematographers like Dante Spinotti, Robert Richardson, Florian Ballhaus, Tobias Schliessler, Amy Vincent, and many others. 

He is also known for his work on Silver Linings Playbook; The Devil Wears Prada; and recently his collaboration with director Alex Garland as director of photography on the A24 feature Warfare. Dave was nominated by the SOC for Camera Operator of the Year – Film in 2022 for Apple’s Finch and again in 2025 for his work on Civil War. He currently resides in Greenspring Valley in Northern Maryland and finds his inspiration from his wife and son.

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