When I graduated college and had to figure out how to make a living, I realized that if I was going to direct, I'd have to spend a lot of my own money. So I turned instead to the camera and lighting departments, where I'd work for all those directors-to-be who were spending their money.
Remember that whole bit about being a Hollywood DP? Yeah, not the easiest thing to do on the opposite coast. There is a lot of fiction work in NY, but the most work for a cameraman in NYC is in documentary. I assisted under some of the most notable documentary cameramen and slowly but surely began to really feel my place was there. In time, shooting documentary work became my bread and butter. There's something special about it - it's spontaneous, energetic... I enjoy it more and more on each doc shoot I do. There's always something new and interesting and I always learn something. Sometimes, I figure out a new way of shooting or lighting. Often, I learn just stuff I never knew or never thought I would ever know because of the documentary subject itself... and I love learning.
And then there's stuff like today. Today I shot an interview with video artist, Bill Viola, for director/producer, Philip Dolin. First of all, I was very pleased with how it looked. Found an excellent framing and the lighting was great. The film is about his latest installation, basically a room of screens and this carefully constructed beautiful display of audio and visual white noise. We framed his sit-down so that the background was half black (directly behind Bill) and half his piece. I set a daylight softbox as Bill's key (daylight to match the color temperature of the projections), bounced some of that back for an edge, and let the projections subtly play over Bill's fill-side. Everyone was really happy with the visuals.
On top of the look, Bill was probably one of the most kind, profound, funny people I've ever met. Such a sweetheart with such amazing things to say about his work and inspiration, life and death, love, religion... it goes on... coming out of the interview, I just felt good.
That's documentary for ya'. And I love it.
