What kind of student were you?
I hated school my whole life. I always got horrible grades because I never chose to do any of the assigned schoolwork. I'd just learn about whatever interested me. I would get in trouble all the time for reading the whole book in one night. I’d come to school the next day and get yelled at for not reading only chapter two.
When did you know you wanted to become a filmmaker?
There wasn’t one a-ha moment, it was a slow evolution. I was interested in and involved in a lot of different kinds of art. I went to live drawing classes outside of school on the weekends and acted in some plays. I realized that film was a collection of all the different practices in one kinda thing. I think that's probably what interested me in the film is the fact that I could practice and be in proximity to so many different studies of art. I think movies became a real career prospect for me when I was old enough to hop on the train to go see movies in manhattan.
what do you like about filmmaking?
I can't think of a more efficient way to convey ideas and emotions than the film medium. I think the film is the high point where we are creative as a species. It encompasses every art form into one new art form.
How many years have you worked in film?
I’ve been working in film full-time since '05. I started out in Grip & Electric.
How many hours was your longest production day?
Uh... 36. I started at 9 am in New Haven, Connecticut, and we wrapped at 9 pm the next day in Philadelphia. I quit the next day. it's one of the worst jobs I've ever HAD.
What is your biggest pet peeve on set?
bad attitudes.
What are you currently reading?
I just finished a book called Objective Troy, about the first American citizen targeted and killed by a drone. Uh...which is bonkers.
what are your top five narrative films?
Oh, Jesus. Uh... I'd probably say The Panic in Needle Park, Godfather part one, not part two, uh... Fight Club, Seven Samurai. Uh... and a recent thing is probably A Most Violent Year.
Where did you go to film school? What was that experience like?
I went to the School of Visual Arts for a year and a half and dropped out. I think they were a fine film school. I was already somewhat self-taught. I don't mean to sound like I knew everything, but I was so excited to get in there and shoot on their cameras and edit on their machines. the year I got there was the year that they switched over from flatbed editing to digital editing. they pulled a camera out and it was the camera that I owned. it wasn't exciting for me to pay tens of thousands of dollars to go to a place to just shoot on the camera that I owned. I knew that there were higher levels of things happening. I really tried hard with the administration to see if I could test out things. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just show my teacher in 20 minutes that I know how to do this. And then learn something new. they were not receptive to the idea of a freshman taking advanced classes. I was just stuck in this hamster wheel of relearning things that I already knew how to do. This then led me back to the kinda same thing that happened in high school, where I wasn't interested in my high school classes. And so I just slowly started teaching myself how to make movies.
What inspired you to pursue cinematography?
Uh…It was an accident. when I became interested in filmmaking, I was influenced by directors like Spike Lee and Woody Allen. they all wrote, directed, and acted in their own films so I thought that was gonna be my path. I bought a camera and started making movies with my buddies I just didn’t have anybody to work the camera, So I pulled back from acting and started working the camera. from that point, I gained an interest in the study of lighting, and camera movement. I came at it through a storytelling perspective.
How do you decide on the directors you want to work with?
I think it's probably just someone with a clear voice, someone that has something to say, rather than just someone who got a chance to make a movie and doesn’t necessarily feel connected to it. I've definitely done that a few times, and they never come out Right. If the people making the movie don't feel connected to the material, there's no way that the audience is going to feel connected to it.
Describe your demeanor and managing style on set.
I think every set is somewhat different. You need to poke and prod people a little bit to see how they want to work. I'm happy to be a bit of a chameleon. You need to do that with your director and you also need to do that with your crew. If you're working with a crew that's just wrapped six movies together and they have their own language, then you need to learn that language. it doesn't mean you're not saying what you want, but you need to see how people communicate so that you can meet them where they are. As far as keys and gaffers, I'm definitely a very collaborative person on that front. the best relationships I have with gaffers are the relationships where you can walk into the space and be like, "This is what I'm thinking, what do you think? Do you have a better way to do this?" And I'm more than open to an idea if it's better than something I thought of.
How do you communicate your vision with a director?
I try and find things that aren't film references. I try and find a lot of still photos and painting references. I find that with film references, it's so hard to divorce the visuals from the emotion of the story. If it's a movie that you and the director know well. those visuals mean something to that film. it's hard to look at a still from a film that you know, from a purely visual standpoint, and not also have all that baggage of what else is happening in the film.
What Camera do you like to shoot on?
I don't really have a preferred camera format. I might've said Alexa previously, but the new generation of Red cameras have an incredibly beautiful and organic image. I've owned and sold almost everything, and now I rent. There's always going to be a camera that feels right for a job. On my last three features, I've shot Alexa, Red, and 35mm film. They were each the right choice for the project.
Do you have a preferred camera codec?
It varies from project to project. I don't like to shoot raw. people shot on film for 100 years, you can't get less raw than film. You shoot it and that's what you got. I don't know where this idea came from that you need to shoot something and then you must have the ability to go back and change all of those decisions you made on set six months later. That's a very confusing idea to me.
Where do you see yourself in the next 5-10 years?
It’s not a goal-oriented process for me. I try and just keep doing good work that I'm happy and proud of. as long as in five to ten years I can be working on things I like, and making enough money to survive I'm good.
