Hola!

June 27, 2005

I've basically frequented this forum for a really long time but never bothered to post anything (in case you were interested).

As of now I am basically more interested in direction than specifically cinematography and it occured to me that I really have no idea what the relationship between the director and the cinematographer is.

I've listened to countless DP commentaries, have a subscription to American cinematographer, seen a bunch of behind the scenes stuff and I really want to be prepared before I start networking with DP's after I become more confident making films (it's sort of like the out of shape guy who won't go to the gym until he is in shape).

Here's the question: What's the ideal relationship between the director and the DP and lighting people and so on and can anyone give me examples of people who or have directed and shot their movies (the only people I can think of right now are Robert Rodriguez and the guy who did Primer, who shot his movie since he wasn't sure if he could convey what he wanted to a DP in the first place). And how immersed should someone be? Sometimes it seems like the director sort of has a general idea and let's the cinematographer deal with a lot of the stuff but people like Kurosawa are really really insane in how specific they wanted everything to be.

I know the answer is generally going to be in the grey area but basically I'm sort of curious what the ideal relationship is.

rik carter · June 28, 2005

I'm sure each team is going to have a unique answer.

I'm a director. I rely on my DP for the entire look of my movies. She will sit in on read throughs and offer suggestions and she and I work on ideas during the location scout. If we're building a set I have the DP stop by several times to comment on which walls to make wild, etc.

During production she watches the blocking rehearsals and I pretty much leave the shots up to her. Of course I get ideas as I read the script and work with the locations and actors, but I figure she's better at it than me.