Ingmar Bergman and Sven Nykvist

Film Production: Why The DP is Your MVP

I’m mentoring a young friend through the process of writing and directing his first feature, which he’ll shoot in a year; he’s still in development tweaking the script before it goes out to cast. His executive producer, the former president of a major studio, said to him the other day, “Your cinematographer is the most important person on set after you.” I couldn’t agree more.

There’s nothing like working with a great DP, it makes all the difference in the world to the outcome of your film on many levels. The most important level for me is the personal, the experience of making a film. I don’t get to direct often, so when I do I want to enjoy it, to be carried away by, yes, the quasi-spiritual experience of creating something worthy in harmony with my crew, as cheesy as that might sound.

Johnny Depp

REVIEW — ‘Transcendence’: It Thinks Therefore It Is

I like to say that this is the time of the year when the L.A.’s undertakers, wearing bird-beak masks from the Great Plague, make the rounds of Burbank and Century City ringing their bells outside the studio walls, crying, “Bring out yer dead!” Maybe there is crap all year long and I’m just sensitive to the fact that quality awards fare won’t be around for another six months. Whatever the reason, there’s no denying that Wally Pfister’s directorial debut Transcendence is a corpse, DOA before the first ten minutes are over.

The problem certainly isn’t in the way the film looks. Pfister is Christopher Nolan’s DP; image is paramount.