Welcome to your first day on a film set. Perhaps you’ve gotten a new job as a production assistant. Perhaps you’re still in school and have been given an opportunity as an intern, or you’ve recently been asked to help out with a friend’s production. You probably have some questions. I’m writing this because I’d like to try to answer some of those questions in advance, and because I have hope. Hope that maybe the next time I ask someone to sweep up some glass that just broke, I won’t have to explain where to get a broom, how to […]

“Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams,” Federico Fellini once said. “Years can pass in a second, and you can hop from one place to another. It’s a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream.” Cinema’s oneiric qualities have long been discussed by filmmakers and film theorists alike. Hollywood is even referred to as “the Dream Factory,” but that sobriquet refers as much to the industrial production and export model of the motion picture business as it does […]

My phone is ringing. The sound pulls me from a deep sleep. It’s 5:30 a.m., the room is dark, and for a moment I’m confused. As I push the phone into my ear I hear a female voice singing. Slowly it registers; this is the wakeup call that I requested. But I’m not staying in a hotel, and the woman calling me is a complete stranger. The singing stops and the voice on the other end of the line tells me to have a wonderful day. I express my gratitude and ask her name. “Sarah from Dublin,” she replies, and […]

Speaking about the transgender movement and his leading role on the new Amazon Original series Transparent, actor Jeffrey Tambor exuberantly told Entertainment Weekly, “This is a brave new world.” From Emmy-nominated Laverne Cox’s Time Magazine cover to landmark federal policy laws, 2014 was an explosive year for transgender visibility and politics. Alongside these milestones, Jill Soloway’s groundbreaking new show mines the emotional landscape of trans-ness with a feeling-driven, multi-dimensional story of a family’s reckoning with a retired professor (Tambor, in a brilliantly nuanced performance) coming out as transgender. Funny, poignant and provocative, it’s been hailed as one of the best […]

I only faintly recall writing my last entry for Filmmaker Magazine. I was huddled over at some bar at a busy airport, in between jobs and cities I’ve only seen through the windows of a hotel: a cinematographer’s life. I do remember the article was a bit cheeky — I was pretty elated with the success of It Felt Like Love — so I thought this time that to commemorate Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter I’d get down to brass tacks. Here are five things cinematographers don’t talk about. 1. When to Say No Possibly one of the hardest parts of […]