is changing dramatically, but we have chosen to retain the term cameraman, using it as a gender-neutral synonym for cinematographer.
Introduction
The aim of this book is to explore the everyday working world of the feature motion picture cinematographer in his own words. As these conversations indicate, the cinematographer’s workday is a demanding one. He does not just direct the operation of the camera at the proper time and punch out at the end of the day. When he is working on a film, the creative cinematographer eats, breathes and lives cinematography twenty-four hours a day.
“Cinematography,” says Mario Tosi, “is more than just making pretty pictures.” A successful cinematographer (also known as director of photography) is just as familiar with the history of the visual arts as he is with the light sensitivity of film emulsion or the electrical intricacies of rigging a huge sound stage for a big production number. He takes orders from the director but he is also his collaborator and confidant; he must help and support the director in getting exactly what he wants even when the director is not fully able to articulate it himself. He must deal on a daily basis with art, set, property and costume departments of the production to assure that their contributions are consistent with the overall tone and style of the film. In addition, he is the personnel manager and chief motivational force of the film production crew. Their response to his direction can determine whether the film stays on schedule and on budget; more importantly, it determines the quality of what finally ends up on the screen. The assistant cameraman, electricians, gaffers, grips and gofers (see Glossary for explanation of these terms) look to him for leadership and direction. He hires, fires, cajoles, counsels, and amidst all this, he creates. Outside of the director, he is normally the single most important force on the set. He must maintain firm control of all aspects of the shooting process in order to meet time and budget restrictions. When something does go wrong—and an 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
