Cinematographers
Interviews - Cinematographers
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“Lighting for Three Different Angles at the Same Time”: DP Jasper J. Spanning on The Guilty
Winner of this year’s World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award, Gustav Möller’s The Guilty is a one-set thriller tracking a police emergency dispatcher (Jakob Cedergren) as he attempts to thwart a kidnapping in real time. A phone call from a woman being abducted by her husband sets the dispatcher on a quest to save her. Möller’s DP Jasper J. Spanning discussed the challenges of filming a one-set movie with three cameras in just 13 days. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? […]
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“Living in a Culture of Heroin Production”: DP Matt Porwoll on The Trade
Expanding on the subject of his first feature, the both-sides-of-the-border drug wars documentary Cartel Land, director Matthew Heineman’s latest project is a five-part documentary series for Showtime. The first two hours premiered at Sundance. Prior to the screening, DP Matt Porwoll explained the difficulties of working on a project following both drug cartels in Mexico and stories of addiction and counter-law enforcement in the States in multiple cities. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Porwoll: When Matthew Heineman first […]
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“I Never Saw a Shot on Anything Bigger Than a 5″ Monitor”: DP Michael McDonough on Leave No Trace
Cinematographer Michael McDonough met director Debra Granik in 1994, when they were both enrolled at the same NYU film studies class. Leave No Trace is their third collaboration, following Down to the Bone and Winter’s Bone, and also marks Granik’s first narrative feature in the eight years following the latter. Leave No Trace follows father Will (Ben Foster) and 12-year-old daughter Tom (Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie), squatters secretly living in a forest in almost total isolation. When they’re spotted by a hiker, social workers get involved and Tom is torn from the woods, entering the social world and potential friendships for the first time. Prior to […]
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“A Mournful Look that Subtly Highlighted the Character’s Main Struggle”: DP Konstantinos Koukoulios on Pity
Greek director Babis Makridis premiered his debut feature L at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012. He returned to the festival this year for his follow-up, the dark comedy Pity co-written by the co-writer of Yorgos Lanthimos’s films. The film stars Yannis Drakopoulos as a self-absorbed sad-sack addicted to the pity of others. Pity was shot by Konstantinos Koukoulios, here making his debut as a DP of features. Koukoulios spoke with Filmmaker about the influence of Edward Hopper on the movie, lighting a forest at night and his primary aesthetic goal: to make a film about sadness that doesn’t look sad. Filmmaker: How and why did […]
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“Initially it Seemed Impossible”: DP Greta Zozula on Never Goin’ Back
Actor and filmmaker Augustine Frizzell made her debut as a feature director at Sundance this year with Never Goin’ Back, the shaggy-dog story of two teenage friends played by Maia Mitchell and Camila Morrone. Frizzell has appeared as an actor in the films of David Lowery (her husband) in addition to Krisha and a number of shorts. She tapped DP Greta Zozula to shoot the script, which she also wrote. Filmmaker spoke with Zozula ahead of the film’s premiere in the Midnight lineup about the perils of shifting daylight, the influence of Paul Thomas Anderson and the film’s strategic use of handheld camerawork. Filmmaker: […]
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“Any Good Script Deserves its Own Visual Identity”: DP Steven Capitano Calitri on A Kid Like Jake
In the past two years, Silas Howard has directed episodes of the TV series Transparent, This Is Us and The Fosters. He premiered his new feature, A Kid Like Jake, at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The film is an adaptation of a 2013 play by Daniel Pearle and stars Claire Danes, Jim Parsons and Octavia Spencer. Howard hired Steven Capitano Calitri – the DP on 30 episodes of Broad City – to shoot the film in New York. Below, Calitri speaks with Filmmaker about his experiences making the film. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the […]
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“I Always Had Two to Three Cameras Rigged”: DP John Behrens on The Game Changers
Louie Psihoyos, the Oscar-winning director of The Cove, returns to the Sundance Film Festival with The Game Changers, his new documentary on the health and environmental impacts of plant-based diets. Psihoyos premiered his previous doc, Racing Extinction, at the festival in 2015. John Behrens (The Mask You Live In) served as a cinematographer on that project, and he reunites with Psihoyos as the DP of The Game Changers. Below, Behrens speaks with Filmmaker about shooting in five different countries and the influence of Natural Born Killers (of all films) on the project. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? […]
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“We Never Managed More than Three Takes on a Shot”: DP Benjamin Kracun on Beast
The debut feature from writer/director Michael Pearce, Beast arrives at the Sundance Film Festival after having screened at festivals in Toronto, London, Thessaloniki, Stockholm and elsewhere. The film takes place on a small island in the English Channel and chronicles an intense relationship between between two outcasts: Moll (Jessie Buckley) and Pascal (Johnny Flynn). Pearce hired his longtime friend from film school Benjamin Kracun to shoot Beast. Below, Kracun shares his thoughts on filming this romantic psychological thriller. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being […]
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DP Ashley Connor on Filming Sundance 2018’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post and Madeline’s Madeline
In 2017, cinematographer Ashley Connor had films she shot premiere at Tribeca, BAMcinemaFest and Sundance. She returns to the latter festival this year having shot two features. The first is The Miseducation of Cameron Post from director Desiree Akhavan, a ’90s-set teen movie starring Chloë Grace Moretz and Sasha Lane of American Honey. The film screens at the festival in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. The second film, from the NEXT lineup, is Madeline’s Madeline from writer/director Josephine Decker. Connor spoke with Filmmaker about filming both titles prior to their premieres at Sundance. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up […]
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“We Wanted Her to Symbolically Blend into Her Environment”: DP Chris Norr on Puzzle
Chris Norr edited his first Sundance movie in 1996 with the feature Timeless. He has since lensed films to screen at the festival in 1998 (Franchesca Page), 2004 (Second Best) and 2010 (Sympathy for Delicious). He returns to the festival this year with Puzzle from director Marc Turtletaub (producer of Little Miss Sunshine and Safety Not Guaranteed) and writer Oren Moverman (Love & Mercy). Below, Norr discusses the influence of French painter Pierre Bonnard on the project and his visual goal to have his lead character “blend into her background and mirror her feeling of being lost and insignificant.” Filmmaker: How and why […]
