Director Jono McLeod's stranger-than-fiction documentary My Old School tells the story of his former classmate, Brandon Lee. In 1993, a new kid joined Jono McLeod's high school class at Bearsden Academy in Glasgow, Scotland. 16-year-old Brandon claimed to have been privately tutored in Canada and was incredibly smart, getting great grades and setting his sights on going to medical school. He befriended several of his classmates and became quite popular, even starring in the school play. But two ...
Feb 01, 2022•23 min
God's Country, starring Thandiwe Newton, is about Sandra, a Black woman college professor living alone who is dealing with the recent loss of her mother and the subtle and not-so-subtle racism and sexism in a cold, remote Western town. Two hunters boldly start trespassing on her property, and when she asks them to stop, it begins a tense and escalating clash of uncompromising aggression by both parties. Director Julian Higgins and cinematographer Andrew Wheeler had previously made God's Country ...
Jan 31, 2022•33 min
Ari Wegner, ACS became a fan of director Jane Campion after seeing her short films in high school. Seeing those films opened Ari's eyes to the possibilities of choosing filmmaking as a career. Several years later, she had an opportunity to work with Campion on a commercial in Sydney, Australia and found they shared a similar working aesthetic. Campion contacted her next about shooting The Power of the Dog, and wanted to work closely with Ari on prepping the film over the course of a year. Most D...
Jan 26, 2022•45 min
Cinematographer Quyen Tran, ASC enjoys telling stories that are compelling and have impact and meaning. Q's previous work on the show Unbelievable led showrunner Molly Smith Metzler and executive producer John Wells to ask her to shoot Maid, a limited series for Netflix. Maid deals with the complex issues of poverty, domestic abuse, the working poor, addiction, single parenthood and mental health. With amazing performances by Margaret Qualley, Andi McDowell and young actor Rylea Nevaeh Whittet, ...
Jan 19, 2022•1 hr 5 min
Director of photography Greig Fraser says that cinematographers always strive to create images with dimension, so that audiences are able to experience almost feeling and touching what they are seeing. Film has always had the dimensional and realistic feel that filmmakers appreciate, such as grain and color. But with today's advances in digital filmmaking technology, Greig understands and embraces using the tools that are appropriate to the project he's working on, and the technology just keeps ...
Jan 13, 2022•56 min
Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey is very happy about being a DP, and his love of the job always takes him through the difficult times. When he sees a movie that actually works beautifully on screen, it makes everything worthwhile. The new musical Cyrano is based on the stage play by Erica Schmidt, which caught the attention of director Joe Wright, who knew he wanted to adapt it into a film. Stars Peter Dinklage and Haley Bennett also reprise their roles in the movie as Cyrano de Bergerac and Roxa...
Dec 29, 2021•45 min
Cinematographer Dan Laustsen's latest movie with director Guillermo del Toro is the film noir psychological thriller, Nightmare Alley. Unlike many of del Toro's previous films, Nightmare Alley features no monsters or creatures, exploring instead the drama of the monsters within humans. Dan and del Toro had extensive prep and discussion about how to tell the story in a classic film noir way, except with lush vibrant colors instead of in black and white. Part of the movie takes place in the carniv...
Dec 22, 2021•44 min
Legendary cinematographer Robert Elswit has shot a wide range of movies, including Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood- which won him the Academy Award for Best Cinematography- Magnolia, Good Night and Good Luck, Tomorrow Never Dies, The Bourne Legacy, two Mission Impossible movies, and of course Return of the Living Dead Part 2. Robert's latest film is King Richard, a biopic that tells the story of how Richard Williams, the father of tennis players Venus and Serena Williams, was determined to sh...
Dec 15, 2021•47 min
Jeff Cronenweth, ASC understands that creating a period piece such as the film, Being the Ricardos, involves lighting and set design, period costumes, hair and makeup styles, and of course, positioning the camera. For today's more sophisticated and contemporary audiences, everything must be shot in a more dynamic way than in the staid 1950's style. Jeff and director Aaron Sorkin had the TV show I Love Lucy to work from as well as photographs from the I Love Lucy set, which were invaluable for re...
Dec 08, 2021•53 min
Cinematographer Eduard Grau, ASC thinks it's important to take risks in filmmaking because it sparks creativity and passion for what you're doing. Passing director Rebecca Hall had worked with Edu on several films as an actor, and trusted him to bring his creative skill to her first directorial project. Based on the 1929 novel by Nella Larsen, Hall had been trying to get the movie made for several years. She held firm on her vision from the beginning that Passing would be a black and white film,...
Dec 01, 2021•59 min
Cinematographer Miahi Mălaimare Jr. understands the power of images to communicate a feeling right away, and in a more straightforward way than with spoken language. For The Harder They Fall, Mihai discovered that as both a director and a singer-songwriter, Jeymes Samuel communicates through music, and the two enjoyed working together to find the visual language of the film. The Harder They Fall is a mashup of blaxploitation, spaghetti Western and musical in one sprawling and stylish package. Sa...
Nov 17, 2021•43 min
Our host Illya Friedman had the opportunity to speak to one of his former film instructors, Jay Rosenblatt at CamerImage back in 2019. Jay taught Super 8 Filmmaking at San Francisco State University and has made over 30 short films. As a member of the jury for the Energa CamerImage film festival in Poland for the past several years, Jay looks for innovative storytelling in the films they screen. Jay's latest short film is When We Were Bullies, which premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival a...
Nov 10, 2021•38 min
Dan Attias has directed dozens of episodes of critically acclaimed television shows such as The Wire, The Sopranos, Homeland, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Americans, Billions, and many more. His years of experience led him to write the book, Directing Great Television: Inside TV's New Golden Age. The book is not only for those who want to direct, but also for fans who want to know how these shows are made. In college, Dan studied acting and had to make a short film as part of his film studies....
Nov 03, 2021•1 hr
When director Ruth Platt first wrote and developed Martyrs Lane, it started off as much more of a horror film rather than a psychological thriller. She had the opportunity to develop the film into a feature from a short through BFI, the British Film Institute. In its feature form, Ruth pulled Martyrs Lane into a more unsettling ghost story that's told from the point of view of Leah, a 10 year old girl, who lives in a large old house with her family. Her mother always seems very sad and distant, ...
Oct 27, 2021•1 hr
After working together for 25 years, cinematographer Robert Yeoman, ASC and director Wes Anderson share a similar aesthetic and creative process. Bob finds he can anticipate what Anderson wants to see and exactly how he wants to shoot things. The trademark of a Wes Anderson movie is a sense of humor and whimsy, and each film has a distinct color palette that deliberately tells a story. Both Bob and Anderson love the symmetrical style of Kubrick movies, but the symmetry in the frame of Anderson's...
Oct 20, 2021•1 hr 12 min
Director and writer Potsy Ponciroli was scouting a location for another movie in the countryside just outside Nashville, Tennessee when he saw a historic old house built in the early 1900's at the bottom of a valley. He began thinking about how lonely and isolated a person living in that house might be, and it planted the seed of an idea to write Old Henry. Potsy ended up using that exact location, shooting in that house and the surrounding area. He and cinematographer John Matysiak set out to c...
Oct 13, 2021
The new Netflix movie, The Guilty follows Jake Gyllenhaal as Joe Baylor, an LAPD police detective who has been demoted to working at a call center as a 911 dispatcher. The film was shot during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in November of 2020 in just 11 days with a very small cast and crew on a controlled soundstage. Additional actors remotely voiced their roles as 911 callers seeking help. Cinematographer Maz Makhani and director Antoine Fuqua had about one day of prep together before the...
Oct 06, 2021
Using content collaboration tools and being able to share assets remotely has certainly become essential these days. Guest Nate Watkin walks us through his new software, Assemble, which is a complete project management platform for video production teams, from pre-production all the way through post-production. The software is very easy to use and very affordable- even non-production members can access projects as needed, and at no extra cost. Assemble includes: -a shared production calendar tha...
Oct 04, 2021
In our first ever panel series, Ben and Illya speak to cinematographers Ana Amortegui (Resident Alien), Byron Kopman (Demonic), Bryant Fisher (Lenox Hill), and Julia Swain (Lucky) as they discuss their current work, career journeys, creative processes, challenges and career goals. Be sure to check out the video panel on YouTube! Produced in partnership with Impact24 Public Relations. Find our guests: Byron Kopman https://www.byronkopman.com/ Instagram: @bryonkopman Twitter: @ByronKopman Bryant F...
Sep 29, 2021•51 min
Cinematographer John Guleserian has never liked to be pigeonholed into one genre. He's shot several romantic films, comedy movies and TV series, and with his latest film, Candyman, he can add horror movies to his skill set. After attending film school at Columbia College in Chicago and then AFI, John worked on several small films and web series before the film Like Crazy launched his career. Most of the characters' lines were improvised- director Drake Doremus worked from an outline rather than ...
Sep 23, 2021•1 hr 10 min
The film Settlers is a blend of science fiction and western, about a mother, father and little girl who have created a peaceful homestead on a desolate part of Mars until another band of colonists invade their land and take everything. The girl, Remmy, must grow up fast under difficult circumstances. Her only friend is a small non-verbal robot called Steve. Wyatt Rockefeller both wrote and directed the film, which is also his first feature. Wyatt found the perfect place to create the Mars settin...
Sep 15, 2021
Cinematographer Donald A. Morgan, ASC has won 10 Emmys and is nominated this year for three more for his work on Netflix's The Upshaws, Fox's Last Man Standing, and ABC's The Conners. Like a few cinematographers, Donald had some experience studying architecture in college, which enabled him to take two dimensional drawings and visualize them in three dimensions. He also thought he'd be a professional baseball player or a musician- his father was a musician who played in Cab Calloway's band, so D...
Sep 09, 2021•54 min
Director Ferdinando Cito Filomarino and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom have worked together on Call Me By Your Name and Suspira. Ferdinando served as the second unit director on both films. Beckett is the second feature Ferdinando has written and directed. Sayombhu also shot Ferdinando's first feature, Antonia, and was Oscar-nominated for his cinematography on Call Me By Your Name. Prior to his experience working with Ferdinando and director Luca Guadagnino, Sayombhu built his cinematograph...
Sep 01, 2021•47 min
When Mark Doering-Powell, ASC was hired as the DP of Freeform's grown-ish after season one, he knew the show had to expand the storylines of each character's college experience. He was excited to take more of an anthology approach to some of the episodes, and get creative shooting each chapter with multiple looks. A single camera half-hour comedy such as grown-ish takes about four days to shoot, creating an extremely tight schedule between prepping and shooting. Mark thinks it's imperative to be...
Aug 25, 2021•1 hr
Our returning guest Checco Varese, ASC talks to The Cinepod about his latest work on the Amazon Prime show, THEM. As a trained architect, Checco finds some of the same techniques are useful in cinematography, such as understanding the use of space, flow, color, art and construction. Having spatial awareness as a cinematographer helps in understanding physically where the camera can go to allow it enough room during set design. THEM is a period piece about a Black family that moves to an all-whit...
Aug 18, 2021•55 min
The Cinematography Podcast Special Episode: A tribute to cinematographer Dan Kneece We were incredibly saddened by the loss of cinematographer and Steadicam expert Dan Kneece. He was a friend and previous guest of The Cinematography Podcast. Here we have re-posted his 2018 episode in memorial and tribute to his long career. Dan Kneece spent nearly 3 decades as a Steadicam Operator on several David Lynch movies such as Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive. He shot the openi...
Aug 13, 2021•1 hr 26 min
Cinematographer Flavio Labiano doesn't consider himself an artist with a capital “A” but more of a craftsperson. To him, cinematography is a craft that you learn by making mistakes and taking risks, like any other craft that you hone and improve over time. On Disney's Jungle Cruise, Flavio found the planning and pre-production stages of the huge-scale movie to be especially challenging. It was about 100 days of planning, with two different sets- one in Hawaii and one in Atlanta, Georgia, and wit...
Aug 11, 2021•39 min
In the film The Evening Hour, director Braden King wanted to immerse the viewer in a fully formed world, with spare dialog and little exposition. This approach appealed to cinematographer Declan Quinn, ASC. With such little dialog, Declan paid close attention to finding the right camera placement, how each scene was composed and how the images told the story, with natural and motivated lighting. The Evening Hour tells the story of Cole Freeman, a health aid at a nursing home who lives in a ficti...
Aug 04, 2021•52 min
One of Adam Bricker's favorite things about being a cinematographer is the opportunity to collaborate with different filmmakers, try something new and make each project the best it can be. His most recent project is the HBO Max comedy series Hacks, which just earned him an Emmy nomination for best cinematography. Adam was given the scripts for the first two episodes, and loved the pilot script, which opens with a long Steadicam single shot following behind the main character, Deborah Vance, play...
Jul 28, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Special: The Cinematography Podcast- War Stories Vol. 7 In our seventh War Stories Special, we feature eleven guest's harrowing, hilarious, heartbreaking or heartwarming stories they had while on set, or a formative career experience that led them to the film industry. Find full interviews with each of our featured guests in our archives! Both cinematographers Wally Pfister, ASC and Phedon Papamichael, ASC have war stories about working on Roger Corman films in their early careers; Ross Emery, A...
Jul 22, 2021•44 min
