Cinematographers
Interviews - Cinematographers
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DP Sheldon Chau on Shooting Run-and-Gun in New York for Sundance Short Jungle
Hailing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Sheldon Chau has served as a cinematographer on 30 short films and two features since 2011. For Jungle, he collaborates with fellow NYU student Asantewaa Prempeh to tell the story of two Senegalese street vendors in New York City. Below, Chau discusses the everyday obstacles of shooting in the concrete jungle of NYC. 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? Chau: The director Asantewaa Prempeh (Sante) and I have been good friends for over a year […]
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Director/DP Nanfu Wang on Sundance Doc Hooligan Sparrow and the Perils of Political Filmmaking in China
Nanfu Wang makes her debut as a feature film director and cinematographer in Hooligan Sparrow, a documentary profile of human rights activist Ye Haiyan. The film, which participated in IFP’s Filmmaker Lab and the Sundance Institute’s Creative Producing Summit and Lab, is the work of a self-proclaimed “one-woman-band.” Here, Wang discusses her many run-ins with government agents and the intimidation she felt as a filmmaker highlighting political dissent in China. 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? Wang: When I […]
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Cinematographer Clair Popkin on Sundance Doc Jim: The James Foley Story
A New York-based cinematographer and camera operator, Clair Popkin has worked on such shows as Louie, 30 for 30, and Park Bench with Steve Buscemi. In 2015, he served as cinematographer for the HBO film Living with Lincoln, which was co-directed by Brian Oakes, the director of Jim: The James Foley Story. Below, Popkin discusses his unobtrusive visual approach to depicting the life of James Foley, a reporter who was held hostage and ultimately died in Syria in 2014. 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 […]
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DP Robespierre Rodriguez on Colombian Sundance Feature Between Sea and Land
Robespierre Rodriguez served as the cinematographer on Between Sea and Land, a World Cinema Dramatic Competition selection at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. In his interview with Filmmaker, Rodriguez outlines a calamitous shoot in Colombia filled with canoe rides, sudden rain and ever-dwindling sunlight. He also discusses his impromptu role as the film’s DP and his methods to “capture all of the actor’s feelings” through his images. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? Rodriguez: I was a producer for the film and started talking to Manolo about the cinematography and post-production on color, and he thought it was interesting. Additionally, the person who […]
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“The Grain of Super 16 Gives the Film Another Layer”: Edward Lachman on Carol
If cinematographer Edward Lachman was inclined towards chasing golden statuettes, he would shoot nothing but ’50s-era forbidden romances for Todd Haynes. Lachman’s initial film to match that descriptor – 2002’s Far from Heaven – earned his first Oscar nomination. This morning Lachman landed his second nod for his work on Carol, another ’50s-set romance, this time between an unhappily married New York housewife (Cate Blanchett) and a budding young photographer (Rooney Mara). Carol marks Lachman’s fourth film with Haynes, highlighting a five-decade career that includes collaborations with Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh, Todd Solondz, Paul Schrader, Sofia Coppola, and a sizable […]
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Why Ed Lachman Chose to Shoot Carol in Super 16mm
Carol is getting raves not just for Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett’s subtle performances, but also for Ed Lachman’s cinematography, which was inspired by mid-century street photographers such as Ruth Orkin, Esther Bubley, Helen Levitt and Vivian Maier. In a first-person story for Indiewire, the veteran cinematographer, who has worked with Werner Herzog, Sofia Coppola, Todd Solondz, Robert Altman and Steven Soderbergh, writes about why he and director Todd Haynes chose to shoot the film in 16mm in order to achieve the look of 1952. “We wanted to reference the photographic representation of a different era,” Lachman said. “They can recreate grain digitally now, but […]
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“Observation of the Natural Behavior of Light”: By the Sea Cinematographer Christian Berger
Damaged by a personal tragedy and bludgeoned by 10 years of marriage, a blocked, alcoholic writer and his former dancer wife wallow in ennui at a remote seaside hotel in France circa 1970. It’s relatively heavy fare for movie stars the wattage of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie-Pitt, who also wrote and directed. But for By the Sea’s cinematographer Christian Berger, it’s practically a lighthearted romp compared to the subject matter of his many collaborations with director Michael Haneke, including Benny’s Video, Cache, and Berger’s Oscar-nominated work on The White Ribbon. There are certain perks that come with the Pitts’ […]
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“A Very Nostalgic Look at my Childhood”: DP Dean Cundey on Back to the Future
When I saw Back to the Future as a kid in the summer of 1985, the film’s 1950s setting felt as distant and exotic as another century. As the movie celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, I feel both an aching nostalgia and an existential dread at the thought that the 1980s – with its Pepsi Frees, DeLoreans, and Huey Lewises — are now an equally distant and exotic relic. There were few movies that the 10-year-old me loved as much as Back to the Future. And most of them — from The Thing to Big Trouble in Little China — […]
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“So Much of What You Do is Intuitive”: Roger Deakins on Sicario
In an interview with Variety for his new film Sicario, director Denis Villeneuve claimed that the movie’s cinematographer Roger Deakins “could shoot with a shoe and it would look great.” Hyperbole aside, Villeneuve isn’t far off: if you can affix a lens to it, Roger Deakins can coax lyrical yet naturalistic images from it. Armed with an ARRI ALEXA Studio on Sicario – a slight step up from a shoe cam – Deakins pushed the camera to its boundaries to capture both the cruel harshness of the sunlight and the menacing unknown of the shadows for Villeneuve’s politically and morally complex tale of […]
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“Found Footage with Style”: Cinematographer Maryse Alberti on M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit
As a teenager in the south of France, Maryse Alberti’s first two trips to the cinema led her impressionable eyes to Duel and Harold and Maude. If she’d instead began her cinematic journey with The Barefoot Executive and Escape From the Planet of the Apes, maybe she wouldn’t have become the cinematographer of The Wrestler, Happiness, When We Were Kings and Crumb. But the combined spell cast by Steven Spielberg and Hal Ashby – the great populist entertainer and the iconoclastic humanist – set Albert on a path that has led to a four-decade career pivoting between documentary and fiction. Alberti’s latest straddles […]
