Paolo Ciccone
August 22nd, 2006, 04:34 PM
Which one is which? When can you call yourself a cinematographer and when is more appropriate to use the term "Director of Photography"?
Recently I had the fortunate experience to see a screening of "Cinematographer's Style", a documentary about many ASC members, including, among many, Laszlo Kovacs (Easy Rider, Ghostbusters), George Spiro Dibie, Gordon Willis (The Godfather) and Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now, Last Tango in Paris).
The movie starts with a montage of all the cinematographers introducing themselves, each one in 2-3 seconds. When the camera turned to Storaro he said "I'm Vittorio Storaro and I'm a cinematographer, not a director of photography".
That phrase stuck with me for weeks, I tried to find out why Storaro needed to make that distinction and exactly what that meant. At first I started asking around what was the difference between the two labels. Not much luck. Pretty much everybody thinks that the two terms are the same.
The answer was finally found in a book about Storaro and boy, he has a point.
The term Photography comes from the greek words photo (light) and graphia (writing). That's why Storaro is fond of saying that he "writes with light".
But photography is concerned with one single image while in cinema we use thousands of pictures each time we roll camera. We are concerned with the overall effect of telling a story with moving pictures. Hence the term "cinematographer". After all, the ASC is the American Society of Cinematographers. There is no ASDP.
At some point, and probably only in the US, the position has been renamed as "Director of Photography". Storaro has two very valid objections to this term. First, we are back to "photography" while we should talk about cinematography. The position would be more clearly described as "Director of cinematography".
Second, making pictures is a collaborative effort but there is only one director. While Storaro has always a vision, a concept that he pushes with all his energy, at the end he recognizes that there is only one person ultimately responsible for the direction of the story and that is the director. If the director has a diferent idea, even a 3 time Oscar winner cinematographer will eventually adapt and deliver what is requested by him.
So, I think it's time we adopt Storaro's point of view and, while I'm not there yet, I'll work to become a cinematographer.
Recently I had the fortunate experience to see a screening of "Cinematographer's Style", a documentary about many ASC members, including, among many, Laszlo Kovacs (Easy Rider, Ghostbusters), George Spiro Dibie, Gordon Willis (The Godfather) and Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now, Last Tango in Paris).
The movie starts with a montage of all the cinematographers introducing themselves, each one in 2-3 seconds. When the camera turned to Storaro he said "I'm Vittorio Storaro and I'm a cinematographer, not a director of photography".
That phrase stuck with me for weeks, I tried to find out why Storaro needed to make that distinction and exactly what that meant. At first I started asking around what was the difference between the two labels. Not much luck. Pretty much everybody thinks that the two terms are the same.
The answer was finally found in a book about Storaro and boy, he has a point.
The term Photography comes from the greek words photo (light) and graphia (writing). That's why Storaro is fond of saying that he "writes with light".
But photography is concerned with one single image while in cinema we use thousands of pictures each time we roll camera. We are concerned with the overall effect of telling a story with moving pictures. Hence the term "cinematographer". After all, the ASC is the American Society of Cinematographers. There is no ASDP.
At some point, and probably only in the US, the position has been renamed as "Director of Photography". Storaro has two very valid objections to this term. First, we are back to "photography" while we should talk about cinematography. The position would be more clearly described as "Director of cinematography".
Second, making pictures is a collaborative effort but there is only one director. While Storaro has always a vision, a concept that he pushes with all his energy, at the end he recognizes that there is only one person ultimately responsible for the direction of the story and that is the director. If the director has a diferent idea, even a 3 time Oscar winner cinematographer will eventually adapt and deliver what is requested by him.
So, I think it's time we adopt Storaro's point of view and, while I'm not there yet, I'll work to become a cinematographer.