Cinematography Basics from Top Cinematographers
Gonzalo Amat Shane Hurlbut Anastas Michos John Schwartzman Anna Keizer
Cinematography is the art of visual storytelling, with a focus on lighting, lens choice, filters, camera angles and movement.
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Careers In Film
The business is vast. It’s huge, you know? And the range of kinds of stories people can want to tell is also huge. It ranges from the $300 million Marvel projects to the very small independents. This year it ran from Chris Nolan’s Tenet to Chloé [Zhao’s] Nomadland. So, how to get into the business?

One of the ways to get into the business, for a Cinematographer, is to be true to the stories you want to tell. Finally–The business side of the world is opening up to not only women, but people of color, and the reason I say that is because it’s always been an industry that has been squarely in the patriarchy. The entire film business has been—like many businesses have.

So, I would encourage young Cinematographers to join with like-minded people and make their own movies. And through that constant process, not only will your skills develop, because it is as much a skill set as it is a talent set, but the kinds of film you will be doing will be broader and broader. So start small in order to go big. The bigness will come. I mean, I’ve done films that cost many many millions of dollars, and I literally have done tiny things where it’s been me and college students.

I do those back to back. It’s not that I’ve forgotten how to do the one for the other. The other criteria I would say is persistence. Like many art forms, it’s a meritocracy, for the most part, once you get past the gender and color bias. You get the next gig because of how good you were on the last one. You don’t just get it because, you know, they’ve got nobody else to move up.

So keep on striving to get better. The only way that can happen is by perseverance. Keep on shooting, honing your visual knowledge, going to art museums, reading about it, going to films, pulling out your iPhone and taking photographs. Why does that particular photograph tell the story? Why does that painting tell a story? What is the emotional context behind it?

Understanding how people actually look at frames, and why does that in particular–literally, technically, physiologically–why does one frame speak to somebody and a different frame does not? We’re human–We have evolved to look at the world a certain way, as a species and we’ve also evolved to look at the world a certain way culturally.

Whether or not we’re from Western Europe, or whether or not we’re from Asia, or whether or not we’re Black, white or whether or not we’re African, Chinese, Latino or whatever. We have cultural biases within us, we have gender bias as well–and when we recognize those biases, we recognize the storytelling behind them.

Then there’s the sense of constantly learning. I’ve never stopped learning. I constantly read articles about who we are and what is visual expression, and that way, when the door opens, you’re ready for it.

Like in my case, for example, the only reason I became a DP is I was a Camera Operator. Then I was on a film in Florida and Miloš Forman, who I’d worked with as an Operator before, had a movie coming up. I was working with the DP that normally shoots for him, so I turned to him, literally coming out of dailies, and I went, “Are we doing this next movie together?” And the guy said, “No, I’m going back to France. I have some health things to take care of” and I looked him in the eye and I said, “Oh. Tell him I’ll shoot it.”

And I just went along with my day. But then six weeks later I get a phone call from Michael Hausman, who is Miloš’ Producer, and he says, “Miloš wants to see you.” And I go, “Great! As soon as I wrap, I’ll come back to New York.” I wandered to his amazing Fifth Avenue apartment and sat down, and we hugged each other, and I said, “So what are you doing?” And he says, “This movie called Man on the Moon. Andy Kaufman.”

I was like, “Okay cool, cool. I’d love to read the script,” and, “How’re you gonna shoot that? What’s the aspect ratio and all that?” I’m just asking a couple Operator questions. He says, “I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the DP.” Literally. I got the biggest movie of that year. That was ‘97, I think it was. Being prepared and letting people know I was ready.

It’s also a story about mentorship. I had done some movies with this particular DP. Obviously, I was an accomplished Operator when I met him, but also, he had mentored me. When I thought about it, it was like, “Oh yeah, that’s why he invited me on that scout. Oh yeah, that’s why he invited me to that production meeting. Oh, that’s why he let me do this, and why he went off and did that and said, ‘No, you go do this.’”

There’s a process in this business that we respect, which is the idea of mentorship and finding people that can mentor you. By understanding that you have to give excellence every day, and if you do that, people will recognize it.

If you show up on a project and you’re a Loader, and you are the best Loader you can possibly be every day, then you get the bump up. You get to not be the Loader. I do that all the time. I go, “Oh, wow. Look at that Second, she’s amazing. Go get her,” and we talk movies.

Next thing I know, somewhere along the way, I say, “Hey, why don’t you grab a camera and go off and shoot that little thing for me?” Because they’re expressing their desire and they’re expressing the enthusiasm and the persistence.

This business is one of the most difficult ones to succeed in. If you do not have resilience and alligator skin, you need to turn around and do something else. That being said, there are many resources that exist now that did not when I was starting out.

One is the Hurlbut Academy. My wife, Lydia, and I created it after I completed Act of Valor because she felt that cinematography should be shared and not secretive. I was doing innovative work on that movie—showing that a DSLR camera could be used to shoot a feature film. I took a very small camera that wasn’t a traditional movie capture device—it was a still camera—and I basically turned it into a movie-making machine. It was the first feature that I did not shoot on film.

Being a great Cinematographer means starting at the bottom and learning all the way up. If you look at a lot of camera people out there, they did 2 to 5 years as a loader, 5 years as a 2nd assistant, 5 years as a 1st assistant and 5 to 10 years as an operator. They put in their time. It takes that long to start to master cinematography. It’s not easy to learn all the skills necessary to do the job well. It takes time and effort to challenge yourself and practice the craft.

Over the last five years, I’ve gone to tax-incentive states like Georgia, up to Vancouver, down to New Orleans and now upstate New York… What I’ve seen is a lot of younger people entering this industry from other fields. They are coming into the industry just to make more money. They’re not filmmakers. They didn’t go to film school. They don’t really care about film. They’re just doing it for the money. That has been a massive shift within our industry.

Cinematography is not a job. It’s a lifestyle; something you cannot live without. If you cannot do cinematography, you would feel so miserable, you would feel life had no meaning. That’s the mentality you have to have going into this business because it’s very hard on relationships and families. It is stressful. A movie like Terminator Salvation; my grip, electric and camera team were 272 people, that I was the department head. Having to lead this team to success—it’s a lot of responsibility. You have to be all in when you go into this business and if you choose to be in a relationship, you need a very understanding partner who embraces the lifestyle and adventure. In my opinion, cinematography is the greatest profession in the world.