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Cinematography
Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
Learn your job and learn it well. Be considerate of other people. And work hard. If you do that, everything should come to you.
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Owen Roizman Looks Back
Famed DP brings his legend to UCLA
Take most any hardcore film buff's top 10 list, compare it with cinematographer Owen Roizman's resumé and chances are good that you'll find some crossover. With movies as memorable as The French Connection, The Exorcist, The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 and Network to his credit, Roizman's resumé is deep enough to make even the most talented moviemaker envious.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
Approach every project as if it were your first. Be open to where it takes you.
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The Camera Turns Inward
DP Thomas Ackerman gets documented on "Project Greenlight"
A cinematographer's place is behind the camera. But
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Bucking the Digital Trend
Several moviemakers are embracing Super 16 for their new features
DV may be the format making headlines, but many experienced moviemakers aren't ready to give up on film just yet. While many are heralding HD as the medium of choice, a handful of moviemakers who are shooting Super 16 sat down to discuss the renewed interest in 16mm--and Super 16 in particular.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
I like to do the low-budget films in between bigger movies because I learn things on low-budget movies that I can apply to bigger ones. The bigger ones usually run on fear--everybody is just always trying to cover themselves; they're afraid to do things. So the only way to express yourself artistically in a lower-budget medium.
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Back to Basics
Famed DP Elliot Davis returns to Super 16 with Thirteen
If you're familiar with Elliot Davis' work at all, you know he's a world-class
cinematographer. But he prefers the simple label of "artist." Specifically, "an
artist who expresses himself through cinematography." He's collaborated with
several high profile directors, such as Steven Soderbergh and Spike Lee, but
his latest movie, Thirteen, was directed by newcomer Catherine Hardwick. Here,
Davis discusses the common vocabulary he shared with Hardwick, hand answers
some of Thirteen's many critics.
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Finding a Movie’s Core
Famed DP John Seale claims it's all about the actors
In a career that's spanned almost three decades and several
Academy Award nominations, John Seale is proud to count Peter
Weir, John Badham, Michael Apted, Barry Levinson, George Miller,
Sydney Pollack, Ron Howard, John Boorman, Rob Reiner, Lawrence
Kasdan and Anthony Minghella among his list of collaborators.
While awaiting the release of Cold Mountain, his third
film with Minghella, and settling into James L. Brooks' new
project, Spanglish, Seale took a few minutes to discuss
the ways he keeps his work fresh and why his best film will
always be his next one.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
Six months after I finish shooting a movie, I look at it with a horrifying eye. 'What was I thinking of? That's so silly that I'd love to reshoot it.' In one funny kind of way it's because of the editing; you see the rhythm and the flow of the film and you'd love to reshoot it.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
There are only two questions you need to ask yourself. The first is: What are you going to do? The second is: How are you going to do it?
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First Impressions
Celebrated cinematographer Fred Murphy knows what he wants
Fred Murphy may say it's by chance that he's managed to escape
being pigeonholed as a DP, but it's certainly not the luck
of the draw that's brought him to his current prominence
in the industry. Fresh off the set of David Koepp's Secret
Window, starring Johnny Depp, Maria Bello and John Turturro,
Murphy talked straight about his desire to be challenged—and
why all DPs like their movies dark.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
I believe the cinematographer needs to create a framework or philosophy for him or herself so that they can visualize the film in every detail, from the macro to the whole.
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A DP’s Basic Instinct
Cinematographer Steve Mason on film and family
Who you know might be the first step to success in Hollywood, but the Australian film community plays by a different set of rules. Even with a successful producer dad—and frequent dinner guests such as Peter Weir and Philip Noyce—Steve Mason had to work his way into the industry. As he wrapped shooting on Luke and Andrew Wilson’s The Wendell Baker Story, Mason took time to rap with MM on his more than two decades behind the camera.
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A Quick Camera Comparison
Find out which camera will work best for you and your project
Almost as important as choosing the right actor, cinematographer or editor is choosing the right camera for your production. Like picking crewmembers, camera choice is as much about "personality" as it is about cost or any other variable. It's decision that will impact every aspect of your production, so before you go out and rent or buy the first DV camcorder you can afford, there are some important considerations to keep in mind...
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
The more time I can spend with a new director in prep, the more I learn about his or her taste and personality. How do they see themselves as directors? What support do they need to make their vision of the story work? It's my job to ask all the right questions.
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Cinematography in Black and White
Frederick Elmes on Jim Jarmusch's Coffee & Cigarettes
Frederick Elmes, ASC has had a fascinating career, beginning with his collaborations with directors David Lynch and John Cassavetes while they were both still students at AFI. He's shot such films as Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart, Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth, and Ang Lee's The Ice Storm and Hulk. Currently his work can be seen at theaters in Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
Successful filmmaking requires the temperament of an industrial dreamer-someone who can sustain a vision, given lots of work.
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Oxygen-fed Action-Verit�
XCZONE's David McMahon goes to extremes
By putting cameras into the hands of athletes who are in the field skiing, rafting climbing and otherwise risking their lives for the love of sport, the founders of XCZONE offer a first-person POV that they have lovingly dubbed “action-verité. The result is a company which allows everyone to experience the thrills of extreme sporting. Former Olympian McMahon discusses the company’s philosophy and how the advent of digital video has helped his company bring the sporting experience to home viewers.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
No matter what position you have on a film crew, try to always think like the director, then you'll know the best way for you to help.
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Chemistry Lessons
Personality (and skill) pays off for DP Rob Hahn
Who says that sucking up is the only way to pry open Hollywood’s firmly closed gates? For cinematographer Rob Hahn, who counts Frank Oz, Sydney Pollack, Owen Roizman and the late Conrad Hall among his closest collaborators, success was a result of simply being himself—and having a sense of humor.
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Things I’ve Learned As A Moviemaker
It's so important when a cameraman and the director can really talk with one another. The more you talk with the director, the more you know what he has in his mind and what he expects from you.
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Born for Hollywood
ASC Lifetime Achievement winner Fred Koenekamp reflects on Patton, Papillon and other highlights of legendary career
Koenekamp earned Academy Award nominations for Islands in the Stream and Patton and shared a 1975 Oscar with Joe Biroc for their collaboration on The Towering Inferno. Other memorable films in his formidable body of work include The Great Bank Robbery, Billy Jack, Kansas City Bomber, The Amityville Horror, Papillion and Fun With Dick and Jane.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
Study art, watch movies, shoot pictures. Shoot, shoot, shoot.
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The Look of Lonesome Jim
Phil Parmet re-teams with Steve Buscemi for new character drama
Sure, a cinematographer may tell you that he or she can shoot "any style," but Phil Parmet doesn't believe it for a second. The 30-year veteran, who got his start working on docs like Harlan County, U.S.A. and The Song Remains the Same , says that as much as one may initially attempt to diversify, most professionals inevitably wind up working with like-minded individuals.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
Capture the moment. Whether it's a documentary or a feature, the toughest thing is capturing that moment.
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A Legend From LA to Antarctica
DP Don Burgess reflects on one hell of a career
His name may be indelibly linked to some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters—Forrest Gump, Cast Away, Spider-Man, The Bourne Identity, Terminator 3, The Polar Express—but Don Burgess isn’t afraid to admit that it takes a great team to make a successful movie.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
When you walk onto a set you have to be able to think on your feet and find a way to make it work.
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Memoirs of a DP
Dion Beebe re-teams with Rob Marshall for Memoirs of a Geisha and Michael Mann for Miami Vice
by Bob Fisher
Success found Dion Beebe, ASC, ACS, early on—and has followed him ever since. As he reteams with director Rob Marshall for Memoirs of a Geisha (after earning an Oscar nod for their first film together, Chicago),MM speaks with Beebe about his start in the industry and where that's taken him.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
I remember times when I worked until midnight on a music video, then slept for two hours, grabbed a cab across town and started another one at three in the morning. I'd catch a plane later that morning to shoot a commercial.
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One Night with O’Toole, Hollywood’s Straight Man
DP Steven Bernstein does it one picture at a time
After moving to Los Angeles in the mid-1990s, cinematographer Steven Bernstein quickly amassed a body of work that includes an extraordinarily eclectic range of some 25 narrative film credits, including Jade, Murder at 1600, Scary Movie 2, Monster, Blade: Trinity and the upcoming One Night With the King and Little Man.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
I don't think of myself as a cinematographer or director. I think of myself as a filmmaker. When you're working on a studio picture, you are an element of this big machine with a function that is much more defined. There are places in Europe where cinematographers are considered the country's greatest filmmakers, more so than directors. They are considered the true artists. But usually it's a collaborative effort. I feel like I have a job as the cinematographer, but I'll still direct if it's a film I'm interested in.
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A Tale of Two Johns
John Cassavetes and Johnny Cash have helped cement DP Phedon Papamichael's place in Hollywood
Athens-born cinematographer Phedon Papamichael, ASC made his first trip to the United States at the age of four when his father was the art director on John Cassavetes’ Faces. And it was Cassavetes who encouraged him to move to New York 15 years later “to shoot his next picture,” after seeing some of his still photography. Though still in the dawn of his career, Papamichael has already compiled an impressive and eclectic list of narrative credits including Phenomenon, The Million Dollar Hotel, Sideways, The Weather Man, Walk the Line and the upcoming The Pursuit of Happyness.
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Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
I think, especially these days, one of the big advantages of DV is you can just make a film. You don't have to wait two years while someone decides whether or not to finance your script. As soon as I hear someone is waiting for a financier to finance a script I'm like 'Just write the script! What have you got to lose?' It doesn't cost you anything to write, so why don't you just write the script?
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Just Shoot It
Michael Winterbottom owes much of his prolificacy to the digital revolution
It's hard to imagine Michael Winterbottom ever being bored. Since 2002 he's leapfrogged from one project to the next, releasing at least one film a year, each as different in story as it is in style. This year he has released two: First was the comedy Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, where Winterbottom teamed with Steve Coogan to adapt what's known as the "unfilmable novel." Now it's his most political film to date, the DV docudrama The Road to Guantanamo, which won him the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.
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Things I’ve Learned As A Moviemaker
In terms of progressing either as a technician or, if you like, an 'artistically-inclined technician,' as long as you keep practicing your art, it's going to get better.
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Posted 05.15.08 | News/Commentary | 1 comment
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