The Cinematography Podcast

The film Settlers is a blend of science fiction and western, about a mother, father and little girl who have created a peaceful homestead on a desolate part of Mars until another band of colonists invade their land and take everything. The girl, Remmy, must grow up fast under difficult circumstances. Her only friend is a small non-verbal robot called Steve. Wyatt Rockefeller both wrote and directe...

Cinematographer Donald A. Morgan, ASC has won 10 Emmys and is nominated this year for three more for his work on Netflix's The Upshaws, Fox's Last Man Standing, and ABC's The Conners. Like a few cinematographers, Donald had some experience studying architecture in college, which enabled him to take two dimensional drawings and visualize them in three dimensions. He also thought he'd be a professio...

Director Ferdinando Cito Filomarino and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom have worked together on Call Me By Your Name and Suspira. Ferdinando served as the second unit director on both films. Beckett is the second feature Ferdinando has written and directed. Sayombhu also shot Ferdinando's first feature, Antonia, and was Oscar-nominated for his cinematography on Call Me By Your Name. Prior to h...

When Mark Doering-Powell, ASC was hired as the DP of Freeform's grown-ish after season one, he knew the show had to expand the storylines of each character's college experience. He was excited to take more of an anthology approach to some of the episodes, and get creative shooting each chapter with multiple looks. A single camera half-hour comedy such as grown-ish takes about four days to shoot, c...

Our returning guest Checco Varese, ASC talks to The Cinepod about his latest work on the Amazon Prime show, THEM. As a trained architect, Checco finds some of the same techniques are useful in cinematography, such as understanding the use of space, flow, color, art and construction. Having spatial awareness as a cinematographer helps in understanding physically where the camera can go to allow it...

The Cinematography Podcast Special Episode: A tribute to cinematographer Dan Kneece We were incredibly saddened by the loss of cinematographer and Steadicam expert Dan Kneece. He was a friend and previous guest of The Cinematography Podcast. Here we have re-posted his 2018 episode in memorial and tribute to his long career. Dan Kneece spent nearly 3 decades as a Steadicam Operator on several David...

Cinematographer Flavio Labiano doesn't consider himself an artist with a capital “A” but more of a craftsperson. To him, cinematography is a craft that you learn by making mistakes and taking risks, like any other craft that you hone and improve over time. On Disney's Jungle Cruise, Flavio found the planning and pre-production stages of the huge-scale movie to be especially challenging. It was abo...

In the film The Evening Hour, director Braden King wanted to immerse the viewer in a fully formed world, with spare dialog and little exposition. This approach appealed to cinematographer Declan Quinn, ASC. With such little dialog, Declan paid close attention to finding the right camera placement, how each scene was composed and how the images told the story, with natural and motivated lighting. T...

One of Adam Bricker's favorite things about being a cinematographer is the opportunity to collaborate with different filmmakers, try something new and make each project the best it can be. His most recent project is the HBO Max comedy series Hacks, which just earned him an Emmy nomination for best cinematography. Adam was given the scripts for the first two episodes, and loved the pilot script, wh...

Special: The Cinematography Podcast- War Stories Vol. 7 In our seventh War Stories Special, we feature eleven guest's harrowing, hilarious, heartbreaking or heartwarming stories they had while on set, or a formative career experience that led them to the film industry. Find full interviews with each of our featured guests in our archives! Both cinematographers Wally Pfister, ASC and Phedon Papamic...

Director of photography Jake Polonsky was a fan of the band Sparks for several years, a love he developed after seeing the band perform at a music festival. Jake had frequently worked with director Edgar Wright, shooting commercials and music videos in the early 2000's, and then as the second unit DP on Wright's movie, The World's End. Both Jake and Wright shared a love of music, and in 2018 he sa...

As a filmmaker, director of photography Stuart Biddlecombe wants to visually put his ideas on screen, telling stories that he genuinely connects to with true creative collaborators who listen and contribute. When Stuart came aboard to shoot part of season three of The Handmaid's Tale, he knew he was taking on the mantle of what has become an iconic show. He had read the book in high school, and fe...

Alice Brooks grew up on Broadway musical theater and movies as a kid, and loves shooting music and dance oriented films and TV shows. Alice has always been in awe of dancers, and though she isn't a dancer herself, she is inspired by their work ethic and loves that she can capture dance with her camera. Working on In The Heights has fulfilled a lifelong dream for Alice. She and director Jon M. Chu...

Over his long career, cinematographer Dan Stoloff feels he's always learning as a DP. Every job, even if it seems small, is an opportunity to meet people and build relationships. Dan's latest project, The Boys season two on Amazon Prime, plays with the idea that superheroes in that world are actually just corrupt and possibly psychotic people with special powers, who behave in ways that are anythi...

Cinematographer Jeffrey Jur chose the path of filmmaker not just as a job, but to put something out into the world that he finds personally wonderful and amazing. He sees filmmaking as a way to express what he says to the world visually and photographically. Jeff always tries to find projects that reflect a part of him and keep him creatively inspired. For the Netflix series Bridgerton, executive...

When cinematographer Polly Morgan reads a script for the first time, she finds herself immersed in images. Her cinematography draws inspiration from art and art history and she finds visuals speak to her on a fundamental level. For A Quiet Place Part II, Polly knew it was important to reference Charlotte Bruus Christensen's previous work on A Quiet Place and blend it seamlessly with her own style....

For the Disney+ series WandaVision, cinematographer Jess Hall had the opportunity to create the most avant-garde looking project in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Jess explored every era of sitcom television to create seven different looks for WandaVision, ranging from the 1950's all the way through the 2000's. Each episode's look came down to researching the film stock, lenses, aspect ratio, the...

Special: The Cinematography Podcast- War Stories Vol. 6 In our sixth War Stories Special, we feature twelve guest's harrowing, hilarious, heartbreaking or heartwarming stories they had while on set, or a formative career experience that led them to the film industry. Find full interviews with each of our featured guests in our archives! Cinematographer Jim Frohna was thrown into the DP position at...

The job of the assistant director is to work in concert with the director and the DP to get everything done on a movie set. As a 1st AD, Adam Somner is trusted by the industry's top directors to anticipate their needs, motivate the crew, figure out the schedule, and drive the entire production forward to finish each day on time. He finds the best way to keep everything moving smoothly on set is th...

Seamus McGarvey is drawn to character-driven stories and loves how the camera studies the face in a very particular way. Even when shooting action-packed shows such as The Nevers, Marvel's The Avengers, or the Oliver Stone film, World Trade Center, Seamus stays focused on the characters and uses a naturalistic approach to his composition. The Nevers was Seamus' first extensive experience working o...

Randy Thom feels it's important for the sound elements of a film to be present right from the start, at the script writing stage. Sound is an important tool for a filmmaker because it “sneaks into the side door to your brain” and enhances the emotional impact of the film. As George Lucas once told Randy, sound is 50% of the movie experience. After working in the sound department on over 150 projec...

Dana Gonzales, ASC loves pushing himself to use creative lighting, lenses and camera moves to transport the audience into the story. While working on the mind-bendingly surreal television series Legion and the cinematic, character-driven crime stories of the series Fargo, Dana found a true creative home with producer and showrunner Noah Hawley. With Hawley, Dana has been able to explore how to cre...

In case you missed it, we are re-releasing our interview with filmmakers Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw on their documentary, The Truffle Hunters from 2020's Sundance Film Festival. The film recently received the ASC Documentary Award. Filmmakers Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw ventured deep in the forests near Alba, Italy for their documentary, The Truffle Hunters. This region is known for i...

Jenelle Riley, Variety's Deputy Awards and Features Editor, discusses the 2021 Academy Awards nominations Long-time friend and colleague Jenelle Riley of Variety magazine chats with Ben and Illya about Oscar nominations for this very unusual year. They discuss what they liked, what will win, what should win, and their favorite movies of the year that may not have been recognized. Some of the nomin...

In Part 2 of our interview, we continue our conversation with cinematographer Matty Libatique. After Pi, Matty couldn't believe that such a small movie shot on 16mm black and white film opened so many doors for him. He began to get calls for large Hollywood movies, such as Tigerland with director Joel Schumacher. Schumacher, known for big-budget, glossy films like Batman and Robin, was looking for...