What is a Cinematographer

I get asked about how I got started into filming and why I picked Cinematographer. Later I'm asked, how do I describe Cinematography. Here are the answers to those questions.

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Born in Minnesota. Fell in love with movies and movie making at an early age. As I studied mathematics and physics in college, I knew I was going to become a cinematographer. I started as an underwater camera operator in the US Navy for 11 years.

Cinematography to me is more than just the technical knowledge. It's more than having an 'eye' for something. Using sequences of images to tell stories is moving to me. It is much like painting pictures with light. Cinematography is an art form and a craft, with a combination of both.

Is there a style to Cinematography? There is no formula. It comes out of you. It’s an individuals translation into imagery, which starts with a script. Listening and working with the director, finding what the director sees, working together in finding the style, by allowing the style to grow from the script, vision, emotion, and combination of all. Much like a painter, the cinematographer captures the image in a way that visually tells the story.

After 10 weeks of filming every day, how do you keep it all working? Having done your work ahead of time, in a coherent state of mind, when the movie hits the 6th week of production and the crew is lacking the efforts and thoughts, that’s when your work before hand pays off. Everything you learn influences what you do.

How do you stay on the cutting edge? By constantly looking for new ways of doing things. Imagination and creativity is crucial in making the movie. Learning everything you can and being well rehearsed, but then, when it really comes down to it, it is like jazz. In the sense that you respond to things and your able to feel the ebb and flow with everything as the days of filming moves on.

How can you take a good scene and make it great? You can shoot pictures individually and it looks great, but how do you pull it all together and make it work. Sometimes, great accidents happen, and allowing them to happen is something that can be great. Colors and vibrations of the colors, need to be investigated to find their astonishment with the movie. The feeling can be completely opposite based on the color. With Rembrandt, the paintings are about the shadows, darkness and the light telling the story. One can see the influence of the image by understanding and controlling the images.

How do you light a scene? When you walk onto the set and it’s absolutely black. Then you strike your first light. That becomes your first brush stroke of what you are going to do. Then you add different brush strokes till you get what you want.

How important is lighting? Three things light has to do. Has to provide sufficient illumination to record the image. Has to make up the difference in contrast from our eye and the film and has to enhance the third dimension in a two dimension media. Now, that's what it 'has to do'. But, what it can do, is effect you emotionally, help tell the story, see things clearly or not, make things flat or not, make the audience look at the part of the screen you want them to and so much more.

What are you about? I’m all about the cinematography.