Luke Allein

That's hilarious that you mention that, man. I was there for that shot, my cousin was the 1st AC on that picture, it was one of the first film sets I ever got to hang out on and really watch the camera. Even George Clooney was impressed and I know when that issue of "American Cinematographer" came out, he was really commended for his expert focus pulling. (John Connor is his name, one of the best in the biz) "Good Night and Good Luck" has some serious pulling in it, I'd definitely cite that film. (Robert Elswit is a goddamn genius, he may be my favorite DP of all time)

I'm Luke, I live in Los Angeles and am the luckiest person I know, I also find myself in a very unique position. I moved here from Buffalo NY where I went to film school, originally tinkering with the idea of directing. I knew I wanted to work in film, but not exactly what capacity, I was fascinated by just about everything. (Im a HUGE film nerd) One day out of the blue I find out Im related to two of the most respected and popluar AC's in Hollywood, a father and son team who's IMDB credits together have about 40 of the biggest films of the last 30 years. So I move here, not even a year out of fim school and never even having touched a 35mm camera, I find myself the key camera PA on the biggest movie in the world, a $160 million dollar Tom Cruise movie with a usual set up of 5 CAMERAS. I did everything from get food and drinks for the camera guys to swapping lenses and having an entirely rigged up Millenium camera with an 11-1 lens on it tossed into my lap and pushed into the back of a gator. (Which was driven at high speeds in off-road terrain in order to beat the sunset, I was about to fall out of the damn thing, the camera weighed about 75 lbs and was worth at least a half million bucks. The DP told me "You drop that thing, and your career is over, son." No pressure, right? This was my first week.) Mostly I helped reload the cameras and my primary job was to run film back and forth from the set to the camera truck. And make sure I had ice in the cooler to keep the beer cold at wrap time. Needless to say, in the five months I worked on that got my feet wet pretty fast. After that I worked on and off as either a 2nd or a PA or kind of a melding of both. It got pretty slow for a while and the bills started to pile up, so since then I got a job at Panavision's flagship location in Wooldand Hills. So I'm kind of in limbo right now, I try to get weekend jobs on stuff. (I'm doing weekends next month on 'Drillbit Taylor', luckily enough) I love my job to death though, even though I spend most of the time delivering camera parts to sets. (I even got to go to Laszlo Kovacs' house last week, I was flipping out) Im fascinated by cameras and cinematography and am glad I'm at least immersed in it. So I'm kind of all over the place, not quite a 2nd AC yet but I could be if I have to and I do alright. I'm kind of like Luke Skywalker in "Empire Strikes Back", not quite a Jedi but good enough to do some damage. That's my story. Told you it was weird.

Im not sure what city you live in, but if you live near any big urban area, check the "film" section of your city's craigslist. Lots of times you can get on as 1st, a 2nd or a camera PA and just really shadow the hell out of the 1st AC all day when you're there. 9 times out of 10 they're more than willing to show you anything and everything. The only bummer is, this usually requires working for free. Learning camera is tough, especially if you're living on your own or something and trying to pick things up by experience because most of the time starting out, nobody wants to pay you. But sooner or later you get good, you get your name out there and start getting some decent paying gigs. *I dont know if you live in Los Angeles, but if you do PM me because I'm directing a very small scale 35mm shoot coming up the first weekend in Nov. I primarily work in camera as a 2nd/PA, but I'm trying my hand at directing and my DP is really nice, she showed me a lot of stuff and would be more than willing to have you hang out or help out.

I dont know what it is, but I LOVE working with the "self destructive artist" types. I like old time, hard drinkin hard talkin Hollywood hard asses. Thats why I love the camera dept and cinematographers, they're fu**in salty people and most of the time they dont take any poop. I hope I get to work with Chris Doyle now, after reading this, ha ha. (On the same token, I certainly hope he doesnt ruin himself or go off the rails or anything like that) *It could be that Rabbit Proof fence and Made were shot on significantly smaller budgets, they were very much independent films with not a lot of time or money to shoot them. (I think "Made"s budget was like $5 mill) Im sure that factors into some of the creative product. I thought they captured the night time stuff especially well in "Made", but that's just me. I know what you're saying by the title of this thread though, I get the same way sometimes. When you're passionate about someone's work and it changes or they're doing something you dont particularly like so much (esp when it lasts for a couple of pictures) it can get you heated.

That's so cool. I friggin LOVE Janusz Kaminski. I never got to meet him yet, but his photography is unreal. Munich looked so damn good, it hurt. I heard he's kind of a pain in the ass to work with, I heard a good story about him on "AI". Thats awesome you got to see that dude in action.