Music To My Eyes

Cinematographers Tom Hurwitz, ASC, and Vincenzo Pascolo shoot two visually stunning music docs

By Ian Blair

Documentaries come in all shapes and sizes, but the challenges facing their DPs are always the same: small budgets, tight, if fluid, schedules and the cinema verité demands of capturing real events in real time. In fact, it takes an experienced magician, who’s utterly at home with improvisation and dealing with the unexpected, to craft and shoot... Read more

The Great Divide

Director Neill Blomkamp and cinematographer Trent Opaloch create two vastly different worlds for Elysium

By David Heuring

Elysium, the new feature film from District 9 director Neill Blomkamp, is set in the year 2154. In this vision of the future, life is wonderful for the unimaginably wealthy, who have migrated to a pristine man-made space station, complete with synthetic parks, swimming pools and spectacular mansions. The rest live on an overpopulated husk of Earth,... Read more

Shooting Jaws

Underwater cinematographer Andy Casagrande makes great use of GoPros to capture great whites for Shark Week

By Valentina I. Valentini

Andy Casagrande lives in Naples, Fla., which he considers a pretty boring place to live. But he’s okay with that, since his job is the opposite of boring. Casagrande is one of only about a dozen cinematographers worldwide who specializes in filming sharks in their natural habitat. "I never actually planned on becoming an underwater cameraman... Read more

Hands On The Camera

Cinematographer Gavin Kelly makes the budget and format work for him

By Valentina I. Valentini

For an "up-and-coming" cinematographer, Gavin Kelly has racked up some serious accolades. Not that the San Diegan, who resides in Silver Lake with his wife and new son, would ever tell you that. He’s an ASC-honored, Emmy® Award-winning DP, who has shot a wide spectrum of narrative feature, documentary, commercial and music video... Read more

Off The Rails

Cinematographer Rachel Morrison shoots Super16mm film to re-create a tragic event in Fruitvale Station

By Kevin H. Martin

Differing in both scope and treatment from the bulk of most summer theatrical fare, Fruitvale Station undertakes to deliver an unflinching look at the real-life tragedy befalling one Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan) on New Year’s Day, 2009. The African-American was shot and killed by transit police in the Fruitvale BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)... Read more

Man With A Movie Camera

Cinematographer Ross Riege brings back childhood fantasies with his first feature, The Kings of Summer

By Valentina I. Valentini

Oftentimes, the most organic creativity comes from spontaneity. On their one day off per week while shooting The Kings of Summer, cinematographer Ross Riege and director Jordan Vogt-Roberts went looking for spontaneity. "Jordan, [writer] Chris Galletta and I would go out with the actors—three teenage boys—carrying the camera around and following... Read more

The Masked Man

DP Bojan Bazelli, ASC, shoots a hybrid Western with both film and the ARRI ALEXA for The Lone Ranger

By Ian Blair

The Lone Ranger, the classic ’50s TV series that starred a masked ex-Texas Ranger who fought the bad guys in the Wild West with the help of his Indian sidekick Tonto, galloped back onto screens this summer courtesy of Disney’s big-budget (a reported $215 million) feature film reboot. The movie, which opened across multiple major world markets... Read more

Gonzo TV

VICE on HBO is a fresh and sometimes dangerous take on television journalism

By David Heuring

Conventional wisdom holds that young people don’t watch television news. VICE is a weekly newsmagazine airing on HBO that stands in opposition to that premise. With a "gonzo" nod toward Hunter S. Thompson and P.J. O’Rourke, the show presents 20-something correspondents in dangerous situations lifting the lid on provocative stories,... Read more

Rebranding

With the help of the ARRI ALEXA, DP Chris Manley creates an easy transition from film to digital for Mad Men

By Ian Blair

For the past four seasons, Chris Manley, ASC, has given AMC’s critically acclaimed and award-winning dramatic series Mad Men a retro-fresh look and cinematic scope that has, in turn, earned the DP three Emmy® nominations and two ASC nominations for his work. Manley, who began on the 1960s-era series in Season Two, is currently shooting Season... Read more

Dead Again

Sony’s F65 captures a clear and present terror for the Evil Dead remake

By Kevin H. Martin

Arriving amid a spate of slasher films inspired by the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween, 1981’s The Evil Dead took form initially as a short film called Within The Woods. Director Sam Raimi, working with partners Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell, made Within to elicit financial support for a feature version. Previously, Raimi and Campbell... Read more