Masters of Light - Dennis Schaefer

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average production weathers at least a dozen major crises a week—the cinematographer’s high profile makes him an easy target for criticism—fair or unfair. Consequently, a director of photography is paid very well for his work—a job that, at times, has little to do with capturing an image on film. The consummate cinematographer is able to meld all the required technical and supervisory skills together so that he is an efficient line manager and a superb technician as well as a visual artist.

      

      In the past decade the cinematographer’s star has burned ever more brightly. Upon entering the Hollywood mainstream, young directors like Coppola, Scorsese and Spielberg wanted a unique look for their films. They succeeded in finding a number of open-minded cameramen not necessarily restricted by conventional traditions and techniques. It was this collaborative sense of youthful exuberance and inventiveness that helped produce varying but always interesting visual landscapes on the screen. Those cinematographers who met the challenge of doing something different contributed to the higher visibility of their profession within the film industry as well as among the larger moviegoing audience. Since one of the most readily apparent features of a film is its visual quality, it is easy for alert present-day filmgoers to distinguish the contributions made by the director of photography. This too has no doubt helped elevate his status at the popular level. The contemporary cinematographer has proven himself to deserve more than a mere technical credit by quietly drawing attention to his visual creativity.

      This was not always the case, however. In the early formative years of motion pictures, such tinkerers and inventors as Lumière and Edison had to be cameramen because no one else could quite make this invention do what they wanted it to do. When the inventors moved on to other pursuits, the fate of motion pictures was left to businessmen who promoted the “light shows” and the artists like Georges Méliès and Edwin S. Porter who actually produced, directed and shot the films. Later on, when motion pictures began to tell more involved dramatic stories, the responsibilities of director and cameraman were separated, with the director becoming more concerned with the direction and the acting. G. W. “Billy” Bitzer, for example, worked with D. W. Griffith and was one of the first cameramen to specialize solely in the mechanical and technical aspects of filmmaking. Even the most conscientious cameraman of that day had his hands full just hand-cranking the camera and generally keeping all the equipment under control while trying to capture a focused image. When sound was added it was hailed as a great advance. The camera, by this time, had become quite bulky and it was made even more unwieldy by the additional equipment necessary to deaden the camera noise. In fact, in the thirties, many cameramen, working within the restraints of sound-recording needs, were resented by directors and producers forced to bow to the technical requirements of the camera set-up rather than the dramatic elements of the particular scene. In other words, it became commonplace for a cameraman to dictate to a director what shot he could or could not do. Some directors became frustrated in this working environment and consequently they sought out more daring, skillful and innovative cameramen for their films. But even this solution was not altogether workable since, in those days, most cameramen were under exclusive contract to an individual studio. If you were directing a film at MGM, the chief studio cameraman or one of his right-hand men would shoot your film. If you had a project at Warners, their resident director of photography would handle the technical chores for you. A cameraman might move from one studio to another but, for the most part, his style didn’t move with him. He was expected to conform to the style of that particular studio as fostered by its camera department. The implication of this studio philosophy is that cameramen were quite interchangeable and that it really made no difference who shot your film; it would all look the same anyhow!

      The innovators who stepped out and broke the rules got away with it in that closed system because the results they achieved were visually unique. They were groundbreakers at a time when most of Hollywood wanted to put cameramen in straightjackets. The adventurous cinematographer, Gregg Toland, when asked why he wanted to work with Orson Welles in Citizen Kane, remarked something to the effect that it was because novice film director Welles wouldn’t know what he couldn’t do. Therefore he wouldn’t be restricted by hidebound, hoary Hollywood traditions. The artistic cinematographer always keeps an open mind and he more than appreciates a director who does likewise.

      The studio contract system dominated the industry until the middle fifties, making it difficult for a young cameraman to break into Hollywood feature productions. The traditional way to become a director of photography was to start at the bottom, loading film magazines and slowly working your way up the ladder, a process that could take ten to fifteen years. This conservative system began to crack with the advent of television. Suddenly many new cameramen were needed to meet the often hectic production demands of this burgeoning medium. Impatient would-be cameramen jumped into the gap, hoping to establish their credentials. As a result, many new and relatively inexperienced cameramen were accepted into the union ranks and, in time, some were able to cross over into film production as well. Television commercials also provided another training ground. It’s safe to say that if it were not for the advent of television and commercials, an entire generation of intelligent and innovative cinematographers would not have had the opportunity to enter the industry and thus would not now be working in feature films.

      In the sixties, independent non-union productions also served as a training ground, in much the same way, for cameramen who were having a hard time cracking the Hollywood establishment. They eventually won recognition with their innovative low-budget work and they became an important factor in moving big studio productions out of sound stages and into real locations.

      During the same period, Hollywood cameramen began to be influenced by European cinematographers, especially those associated with the French New Wave, who often went to visual extremes to prove that they were not tied to the Hollywood conventions of brightly lit, high-key, sound-stage-bound films. Their effect on mainstream Hollywood production was subtle to be sure, but many of the younger cinematographers took these new visual freedoms to heart and bits and pieces of this influence started to surface in their work.

      All these various factors helped to propel cinematography into a new era of inventiveness and creativity. With the fading of the studio contract system and the rise in independent production, the cinematographer now exercises his judgment in the choice of film projects. He does not come into a film with a preconceived style; rather he and the director work out the visual look of the film together, often months in advance of shooting.

      The auteur theory, the notion that the director should be considered responsible for everything in a film, is now in decline; filmmaking has come to be viewed as a cooperative and collaborative effort by a team of artists, technicians and craftspeople. The cinematographer is thus being recognized along with writers, producers and performers as a major participant in the filmmaking process, not only artistically and technically, but also in terms of salary, credit and even public recognition. It’s in this spirit that we present this volume of interviews. We propose to illustrate, in the contemporary cinematographer’s own words, exactly what it is he does, why he does it and what effects it has on the filmmaking process. As a by-product, we hope to help give recognition to the art of cinematography and to some of the individuals who have sought to extend its artistic parameters, providing the filmgoer with a much richer visual experience.

      This is not a “how to” book, although many technical details are discussed in the course of these conversations; there are a number of cinematography manuals and handbooks already available. This is a “why” book. In our interviews we were above all concerned with what an individual cinematographer’s perspective is and the reasons he has adopted it. We were concerned with a specific personal point of view, a way of looking at things. In fact, we were interested in fifteen different ways of looking at things: each cinematographer’s mise-en scène, if you will. Although they use the same equipment and go about the process in approximately the same way, they come up with fifteen different results—sometimes strikingly different, sometimes subtly different.

      In preparing this book, we interviewed many more cinematographers than we were able to include here. We feel, however, that the book covers a comprehensive range of backgrounds, perspectives and styles.

      The artistic achievements of the cameramen we talked with are, individually and collectively, extremely

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