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The life of a DP


Tyler Leisher

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How much do people in the camera dept generally make each year? I can live out of a van if need be, it's lawyers knocking at my door after not paying student loans for 6 months that scares me.

 

Hi,

 

I can only guess, but I think 30% probanly earn less than $25,000 a year and 5% earn more than $100,000

BTW its easier to make money shooting commercials.

 

Stephen

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Stephen, what about the other 65% ? John.

 

Hi John,

 

There the ones that in between, hoping to that next year will be better!

 

O.K. John the USD is very weak at the moment, is it that different in the UK? As Phil can only afford 1 pair of shoes a year, I guess not!

 

Stephen

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  • 1 month later...

My girlfriend and I have been talking about this for the past few days. I wish there was an easy answer for her and me but there just isn't.

 

I know there's no one way of getting to becoming a great DP but I was wondering why you guys chose the path you did? Like, why the indie route? Or, why did you choose to just work on music videos and commercials? I love features, so why did you guys choose features?

 

How long does it take before you get work that can pay the bills? Millions of questions!

 

If you want to be a DP why not just start off as a DP instead of starting from the bottom in LA and risk getting sidetracked into another position?

 

I know there's no easy answer to any of this but I have to ask.

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My biggest complaint right now is the way people mistake camera owners for DPs. I am often asked if I have access to this or that camera and if I don't it's almost as if my reel and my interview etc means nothing and I am dismissed. It's all about the budget and whether they can save money by getting a camera owner who will bring their camera and work for a rate that is about or less than the cost of renting just a camera. This is absurd. No one would go to a rental house and ask if the camera comes with a free DP.

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People come to cinematography from different angles, but at some point, your credits as an AC, or Gaffer, etc. don't mean much when you are applying for a job as a DP -- as Adam Frisch says, at some point you just have to take the plunge and build a DP career from the bottom up, build up a resume, a reel, etc. despite the hit to your yearly income. There are stories of course, at least here in the U.S. film industry, of some long-time operator or Gaffer getting offered the DP job on a long-running TV series, or being promoted by a director or producer for whom they've worked a long time.

 

Even as a DP, I spent a couple of years shooting video infomercials alternating with straight-to-video feature genre stuff and I decided to make a course-correction towards indie features, despite how badly they paid, because I didn't see any future in the low-budget genre crap -- it got no respect and after awhile, if you had too much of it on your resume, people assumed you were a hack no matter how good the shows looked. I met too many DP's stuck in that mode, doing movies that were even worse than mine (I was doing these 23-day Lifetime family-in-danger thrillers, but they were shooting 12-day women-in-prison / bikini carwash movies -- and they were older DP's than me).

 

But after shooting non-union indie features for eight or more years (and only making $20,000/year or so), I started doing these lower-budget union studio features and frankly, I don't want to slip back despite all the low-budget indie features I get offered regularly, unless the project is really great or I know the people involved. It's hard to (now) be middle-aged and live off of $20,000/year when doing union features (and now TV work) has meant making at least three or four times that.

 

An occasional commercial job would be nice to fill in the gaps of income and time, but I haven't been able to crack that market yet.

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An occasional commercial job would be nice to fill in the gaps of income and time, but I haven't been able to crack that market yet.

 

The Polish Brothers do commercials, don't they? I guess they could get you into commercials easiely. Or am I mistaken?

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The Polish Brothers do commercials, don't they? I guess they could get you into commercials easiely. Or am I mistaken?

 

Most of what they've done has been shot in Europe with DP's from there. The few other times, I've been working on a feature.

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But after shooting non-union indie features for eight or more years (and only making $20,000/year or so), I started doing these lower-budget union studio features and frankly, I don't want to slip back despite all the low-budget indie features I get offered regularly, unless the project is really great or I know the people involved. It's hard to (now) be middle-aged and live off of $20,000/year when doing union features (and now TV work) has meant making at least three or four times that.

 

An occasional commercial job would be nice to fill in the gaps of income and time, but I haven't been able to crack that market yet.

 

Realistically, can I expect less than $20K for a while then if I want to start off doing indie work? I personally don't mind, I know I'll manage somehow.

 

I assume you started shooting for non-union indie features for eight years after grad school? How do you break into doing TV and feature work? That's the direction I want to go towards at least. I know it's always more about the people you know so should I just be working from the ground up and busting my ass off doing grunt work until I feel like I have enough knowledge and enough contacts? Oh my oh my.

 

Do people really expect you to have your own equipment? In the SF Bay Area most listings off of low budget craigslist shoots all say "must have own equpiment". But maybe this is just a craigslist conincidence.

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but they were shooting 12-day women-in-prison / bikini carwash movies

 

Wow!! Sounds awesome! I'm looking for another project, any chance you know any of these writers or have a spare script laying around?

 

Can't wait!!

 

R,

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"Becoming a DP" is a lifestyle. "Being a DP" is a lifestyle as well. The two are somewhat different. I personally found the best route to becoming a DP to include the following:

 

:: extremely low overhead/running cost - this means low rent & low cost of life

 

:: persistance & perseverence - this means that even when the times are grim you must keep doing it

 

:: blind faith - beleive in yourself and know that if you do whatever you possibly can to achieve your goals, you will have no regrets at the end of the road - because there was nothing else you could have done...

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Very good advice from George Lekovic.

I also would like to add: DO NOT GET CAUGHT IN THE I MUST OWN GEAR TRAP!

Borrow and beg when starting out.

If you have to have buy gear- start saving for a set of Master Primes so you'll always have some money.

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I assume you started shooting for non-union indie features for eight years after grad school? How do you break into doing TV and feature work?

 

I shot my first feature a year after graduation -- for no pay -- with a fellow student. But it was in 35mm (deferred deal on everything including lab work, a rare situation). A year later, I shot a 35mm straight-to-video thriller. But by the time I left film school, I had well over a dozen 16mm short films to my credit, and one 35mm short film, so I had plenty of material for a reel.

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I shot my first feature a year after graduation -- for no pay -- with a fellow student. But it was in 35mm (deferred deal on everything including lab work, a rare situation). A year later, I shot a 35mm straight-to-video thriller. But by the time I left film school, I had well over a dozen 16mm short films to my credit, and one 35mm short film, so I had plenty of material for a reel.

 

ah, your advantage. i have 2-3 finishing school (16mm) and 2-3 on video so a lot less for my reel. i've heard people recommend grad school because it's a good arena to be able to go and work on a lot of films, get pracitcal hands on pracitce and build a reel. also, you get an mfa and have the option for teaching left open later. would anyone recommend it? i'm not ready for grad school but it's still something i want to consider maybe 5 years down the road, but even then i feel like maybe it just gets in the way of just being poor man dp.

 

"Becoming a DP" is a lifestyle. "Being a DP" is a lifestyle as well. The two are somewhat different. I personally found the best route to becoming a DP to include the following:

 

:: extremely low overhead/running cost - this means low rent & low cost of life

 

:: persistance & perseverence - this means that even when the times are grim you must keep doing it

 

:: blind faith - beleive in yourself and know that if you do whatever you possibly can to achieve your goals, you will have no regrets at the end of the road - because there was nothing else you could have done...

 

George,

This, sir, is some great motivational advice.

 

 

I will drop the whole owning equipment idea. My friend who graduated last semester is dropping $20k on a JVC HD100U and the rest in lights. Another guy I worked with in school is starting his own production company and going in on a RED camera with 2 others. I think it's imperssive but is this the only way to do it?

 

For those of you who are a TV DP how did you get there?

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I also would like to add: DO NOT GET CAUGHT IN THE I MUST OWN GEAR TRAP!

 

Some people are not cut out to crew on a set for ten years as they work their way up. I know some successful DPs who could not possibly take orders from a department head so they bought a camera right out of school and called themselves a cinematographer. The smart ones tried to work with the best Grips and Gaffers around and learned the ropes from these guys. They got jobs because they could give their equipment away to starving but talented producer/directors. I think for some, this was their only option.

 

I didn't buy a camera when I got of school because I realized that it wasn't the camera that intimidated me on a movie set, it was the trucks of lights and grip gear that I had no idea how to use. I became an electrician. I needed some "on set time" to learn, just like the guys who bought a camera and a few lights.

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I shot my first feature a year after graduation -- for no pay -- with a fellow student. But it was in 35mm (deferred deal on everything including lab work, a rare situation). A year later, I shot a 35mm straight-to-video thriller. But by the time I left film school, I had well over a dozen 16mm short films to my credit, and one 35mm short film, so I had plenty of material for a reel.

 

I think this is probably the most common attitude amongst those that have 'made it' as a career as I see it. I know it was also for me. I was finishing up my last year of school in NY after transferring from out west. My Dean asked me if I wanted to intern. I asked what that meant. He said it meant I'd go somewhere and work for credits learning the real world. I thought great. Then he said I had to write a paper each week about my experience. I said forget it. At the time, a new studio was opening up in Queens were an old bakery was when I was growing up. It took the same name. I went into the place and told someone who looked like an important person there that I wanted to work for free. He said, okay come in every day. I did. I worked as an assistant stage manager for what was then two sound stages and a lot of raw space. No one knew I was working for free but it didn't matter, I was getting real world experience and honing my gift of lighting with some of the best old-school gaffers in the business. Some of these guys could light three sets with four lights and make it look better than anything you'd see today.

 

And I meat one of my mentors at Silvercup, Norman Leigh. Norman would cancel going home to dinner just to spend four more hours after a 12 hour day just to teach those of us interested camera and lighting. And I was starting to get noticed by those I was working with. Suddenly I was being asked to work on real jobs and getting paid. I worked in features for a while moving back into commercials (what I did originally at Silvercup because I liked the day to day better), then while building a studio for new video post house in NY was asked to work there full time. I did, learned everything there was about video and suddenly found myself being asked to shoot projects in both film and video. I built quite a reel of variety and lots of it. It took me ten years before anyone would trust me behind a camera but I learned fast and never had any attitude for success except to do the best I could on whatever I was working on. I moved up the ladder being successful as a multi-tasker.

 

At one point in 1993 I was the in-house director at an ad agency shooting four to eight spots a month, the lighting director/designer for four network programs each week, and the field producer on a syndicated program creating segments I produced shot and edited. I did all this plus any other jobs that came my way working what seemed like 22 hours a day until I burned out, regrouped and slowed myself down.

 

Today I've settled into shooting for myself and others, directing and producing for a $225 million ad account, and wresling ten constant clients from pharmacuticals to fashion to broadcast. I'm happy, the road was long, and the work hard, but the reward is wonderful.

 

The key was simply getting out and doing it. Doing whatever I could and taking whatever I could for the work, because I knew that I was not going to be Steven Spielberg overnight, nor did I want to be. And it was never about equipment as it seems to be for the newbie's today. It was about experience. Like David who learned what the word cinematographer is from a lot of projects and expereince, you can call yourself anything you want, but if you don't immerse yourself in it, you'll only have a business card with a title but no business.

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The key was simply getting out and doing it. Doing whatever I could and taking whatever I could for the work, because I knew that I was not going to be Steven Spielberg overnight, nor did I want to be. And it was never about equipment as it seems to be for the newbie's today. It was about experience. Like David who learned what the word cinematographer is from a lot of projects and expereince, you can call yourself anything you want, but if you don't immerse yourself in it, you'll only have a business card with a title but no business.

great success story. gives me hope because i see my own attitude as being similar except i'm in school.

 

i've once tried the, "i'll work for you for free" thing and they basically told me it's a liability and no one will take me up because of that reason. BUT i have hope. i'll find work somewhere.

 

lights are what intimidate me the most actually. lighting someone and a set really well is no small feat and is the reason i'm thinking of going down to LA just to work on the lighting side of things.

 

i want to find myself a mentor like Norman Leigh

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For those of you who are a TV DP how did you get there?

Well, if you really want to know (and those of you who don't skip this post) I graduated from USC Film School. Got a job sweeping floors at a small Hollywood Camera Rental facility-Production Company owned by a Local 600 (then Local 659) IATSE DP who ultimately got me in the Union since his company was a signatory to IATSE. I stayed with his company for 6 years, sweeping floors, maintaining equipment, becoming a camera prep tech when the company acquired a larger camera inventory, went out on jobs with the owner of the company working as a loader, 2nd assisitant, a few times as a 1st assistant, sometimes as an electrician (I learned to trim a carbon arc), fewer times as a grip and even a dolly grip on one small production, an operator and a DP of insert shots. I was with his company for that length of time because during those days there was a "seniority system" where depending how long you had been in the union dictated whether you were able to work or not (the details of which is an entirely different thread) except for the production company that sponsored the union membership in the first place.

After leaving that company I worked free-lance as a first assistant cameraperson on mostly episodic TV for about 6 years. The DP that I had worked with the longest gave me the opportunity to move up to Camera Operator, a position I held for 5 years. Being an operator was the best training I recieved to be ready to become a DP myself. While still an operator I was lucky enough to be hired by a friend I had met at that original rental house to shoot his first directorial effort, a very low budget action/adventure movie. That production company was pleased enough by my efforts to hire me on four more low budget films where I believe my salary topped out at $750 per week. This allowed me to build a small reel which came in handy when the producers of a TV series I was working as an operator on decided to move me up to DP halfway through the first season.

It sounds so simple and straightforward but the reality was otherwise. If I had to do it all over again I would and hope to be just as lucky. I believe that luck is intention plus opportunity. There have been many ups and downs during my career and I must say that I was never motivated by wanting the "lifestyle" of a DP whatever that is. I just wanted to be behind a camera.

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great success story. gives me hope because i see my own attitude as being similar except i'm in school.

 

i've once tried the, "i'll work for you for free" thing and they basically told me it's a liability and no one will take me up because of that reason. BUT i have hope. i'll find work somewhere.

 

lights are what intimidate me the most actually. lighting someone and a set really well is no small feat and is the reason i'm thinking of going down to LA just to work on the lighting side of things.

 

i want to find myself a mentor like Norman Leigh

 

So try something else. But make sure whatever you try it leads you toward real world experience, not a bunch of home movie makers who have little experience, but act the role, nor potential to do anything more than think they are going to be rich because they're movie is going to do what no one else's could. I see these people give up their retirement money (or their parents) on a lottery ticket that they think is a sure bet. You'd get drafted in the NBA, NHL, and MLB before that would happen. So go with a safer bet. Start slow and just let it happen. If you persist, eventually you'll find your niche.

 

So work on student films, and ask to work for free as a PA on larger productions, just do something that teaches you real world resources. Today everyone wants everyone to work for free. That is not bad just as long as you know you'll make more contacts and learn more about how it all works. You don't have to know what you want to do now, just know that you want to do something and find what you like, not what you think will make you look cool. Quentin Tarantino is not cool!!!

 

The difference in a professional athlete and an amateur is a pro has a goal to win and that is all he sees. An amateur is thinking about what he had for lunch yesterday while in the same role. Set goals and limits as in "In five years time I will be XXXX". They don't have to be huge goals and they shouldn't be undoable goals such as in five years I will be directing major films. You will not. But there is always opportunity for growth, just make sure to meet as many people as you can and follow the ones that seem to have their heads on strait and seem to be going where all the others only dream about.

 

I say that 90% of life is luck but if luck finds you and you don't have the tools in place to keep the momentum going then you soon fall out of luck. Even with my experience and knowledge, I always face hurdles. Always did and always will. Life is a struggle but if you want it, odds are better you'll get it.

 

As for being afraid of lights, that's okay. It took me about five years before I could step behind a camera and really feel like I was in control of it and it not in control of me. My first job shooting I screwed up completely and every now and then I still screw up a job. Sometimes I am out of focus, have a horrible flare, don't see something that does not belong in frame, or simply don't have the lighting set the way it should be, etc. But I work hard and work hard to do the best I can at whatever I am doing. And most of the time no one sees the sweat and tears, or should I say appreciates it. If you work hard and try to just be yourself you'll find more people want you back than if you walk around like an encyclopedia of knowledge that has little to do with making film and video. Don?t be afraid to tell folks you don't know the answer but are willing to learn. You'll come to that place a lot. I do at least once every day of my life and am not afraid to ask for help.

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Wow!! Sounds awesome! I'm looking for another project, any chance you know any of these writers or have a spare script laying around?

 

Can't wait!!

 

R,

 

 

You, Sir, have very poor taste. :D

 

I (when I gain sufficient skill) would like to err towards shooting Music Videos and Promos. Then work my way into shorts and (hopefully then) features. :)

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