Cinematography

Happy Sunday, everyone. Sharing this week’s Coffee & Content because it’s a good one, especially if you need a creative recharge.

RB spotlights an incredible Vanity Fair deep-dive where James Cameron breaks down every film he’s ever made — from The Terminator to Avatar: The Way of Water. What makes it so powerful isn’t just the behind-the-scenes stories, but how honest Cameron is about where he started: broke, fired, living off coupons, and deciding he had to create something only he could make.

His entire career is rooted in one idea: take people on a journey, no matter your budget or resources. Curiosity, problem-solving, and reinvention were his real tools.

RB also ties this into pitching — and the advice is worth repeating:

Start by being human.

Before your logline, take two seconds to connect with the person across from you. Show you did your homework. Executives notice, and almost no one does it.

Then get clear about:

• the format

• the genre

• and why the story matters to you

Clarity + personal connection = a pitch that stands out.

Cameron built a career by taking leaps long before he had the means. So the question RB ends with is a great one:

What leap are you ready to take next — even if you’re not totally comfortable yet?

A new script? A cold email? A pitch? Starting a short? Joining a collaborator you’ve been circling for months?

Drop it below. You never know who you might inspire.

This was fun to make and animate - and creating a consistent world and characters in a story with AI is more possible than ever, right from your own laptop. But you still have to know how to call each shot, camera angle, and all the pacing to move the story along. That still takes humans, for now.

Happy Holidays to all!

With Bentley shooting in real-life locations, the idea was to simulate the audience looking through memories and putting a life together where those the images were being shown. In this case, those memories belong to Joel Edgerton’s character, Robert.

For research, Veloso looked through a lot of old pictures from the era and even as far back as 1920. As he was going through them, it dawned on him that they looked like the 3:20 aspect ratio. Says Veloso, “We just kept going back to this memory feeling. We were like, ‘Why we just don’t use that aspect ratio?’”

Once they had that, Veloso knew this would be an intimate film, and also tried to capture the beauty of the natural setting. To properly film in natural light and capture the beauty of the landscape, Veloso says, “We knew we needed a smaller camera and because of the natural light…we just decided to go with the Alexa 35 to have a lot of dynamic range.”

(https://variety.com/2025/film/news/train-dreams-cinematographer-adolpho-...)

We wrapped The Shape of Kindness on Sunday. It was one of those dark, rainy days where the weather becomes an integral part of the mood, an indelible part of the memory. We pushed through it as a team and brought the film home. A few days later, I’m finally catching my breath… and opening the project to begin the edit.

There’s something surreal about the transition from set to post. Production is loud and nonstop. People asking questions, gear in motion, the clock always ticking. Then suddenly it’s quiet. It’s just you, a timeline, and everything you captured.

For me, this part of the journey is where the concept of “shared vision” takes on a new shape. On set, I was one voice among many, working in sync with a director, producer, actors, and crew. In the edit, I’m alone again—but with their fingerprints on every frame. It’s a strange blend of returning to my roots as a one-man band while still honoring the collaboration that made the footage possible.

A few takeaways from this week’s shift:

1. The wrap matters more than we think.

How we end production—exhausted, relieved, proud, bonded—follows us straight into the edit. You feel the energy of the set inside the footage.

2. Distance is healthy.

A short pause between wrap and edit helps reset your brain. Even 48 hours clears emotional noise and lets you see the material for what it is, not what you hoped it would be.

3. The collaboration doesn’t end here.

Even though I’m physically alone in the edit, I’m cutting with the director’s intent, the performances the actors built, and the groundwork the crew laid. I’m not shaping this in a vacuum.

4. This is where you rediscover the film.

No matter how well you prep or how close you stick to the shot list, the edit always reveals surprises—moments you didn’t expect to love, beats that land differently in context, rhythms that only appear once everything lives together.

As I dig into the timeline this week, I’m feeling that shift: the vision we all built together on set now needs to become rhythm, pacing, emotion. This is where the story learns to breathe.

Question for the lounge:

How do you reset your creative mindset after production before diving into the edit? Do you jump right in, or do you need a transition ritual?

Hey cine-friends! I just came up with a DIY fog solution. And by that, I mean problem fix, not an actual liquid.

It's a USB powered personal fog machine if you have a good sized refillable vape lying around that you really shouldn't be using because your lungs will hate you for it. Instead of sucking on the thing, open the air intake vents wide open, trigger it and gently blow into it! By crikey, you can fog a room to way below VFR in a few good, deep breaths, without sucking it though you poor alveoli.

Anyone else have cheap, unorthodox, tricks you care to share? Lay em on me, baby!

Legendary LA film stage lighting and motion picture lighting manufacturing company Mole Richardson seems to be going out of business here with a final auction announced recently.

For those not in the know, Mole Richardson has a thrilling history, and pretty much invented the motion picture lighting business. It was founded by the innovative Italian immigrant Peter Mole in 1927, who began selling incandescent tungsten lighting to the film industry, which allowed a more natural lighting than the previous arc lights. The new lights were also silent, an advantage for the new sound films.

Mole-Richardson invented the Fresnel Solar Spot unit in 1935, adapting the fresnel lighthouse lens for use in motion pictures. During World War II, Mole-Richardson concentrated their efforts on developing searchlights for battleships, tanks and artillery units to aid the Allied Forces' battle in Europe and the Pacific. In 1945, Peter Mole was invited to light the first United Nations conference held in San Francisco.

Mole-Richardson was considered by many to be the staple of motion picture and television lighting in the movie industry today, setting the standard for tungsten Fresnel fixtures, and their lighting won four Academy Awards. For a long time, they operated out of a beautiful art deco building on La Brea Ave. in Los Angeles as well.

Apparently the word is that a shift away from in house manufacturing made parts scarce, repairs expensive, and prices rose to unsustainable levels, especially considering the myriad of cheaper alternatives being manufactured overseas.

(https://www.aagauction.com/world-famous-motion-picture-lighting-equipmen...)

If you love digging into the craft of lensing musical storytelling, this is a beautiful deep dive. DP Alice Brooks walks through the cinematography of Wicked and Wicked: For Good, explaining how she and Jon M. Chu built a visual language centered on touch, color, and emotional contrast, and why she developed custom 1.3x anamorphic lenses specifically for the film.

Watch the breakdown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itlc6zwP7Ik

She breaks down how she kept Ariana Grande’s Glinda and Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba on 65mm and 75mm “hero lenses” to subtly anchor their identities, and how the story’s major tonal shift, from the daylight optimism of film one to the shadowed, hidden world of film two, shaped framing, blocking, and color temperature throughout.

One of the most fascinating parts is her explanation of shooting “For Good” entirely with real flame as a key light. Brooks shares how their torches created a Renaissance-like warmth, the technical challenges of low-light capture (especially with reflective fabrics and Elphaba’s textured wardrobe), and how they redesigned the lighting plan over a weekend to re-shoot the climactic 360° shot after realizing the original crane move didn’t carry the emotion.

She also walks through:

• Shooting both films simultaneously and navigating massive tonal shifts

• Developing prototype anamorphics with Dan Sasaki over two years

• How color theory shaped character arcs — blue for love, orange for transformation

• Balancing moonlight, flame, and reflective costume textures

• Creating a true emotional goodbye by filming both actresses together for the final split screen

It’s a masterclass in how cinematography supports character, theme, and musical storytelling, especially when working at the scale of an Alexa 65 production.

If you’ve watched the breakdown, I’d love to hear your thoughts: What stood out to you the most, the lens philosophy, the color symbolism, or the real-flame lighting approach?

Longtime Paul Thomas Anderson collaborators Michael Bauman and Sara Murphy delve into their work on the critically acclaimed epic One Battle After Another. From resurrecting the long-dormant VistaVision format, to navigating an ambitious three-year location-scouting journey, to working on set without last looks or monitors, the conversation uncovers the meticulous, often unconventional behind-the-scenes process that shaped the film’s sweeping vision.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih_vKRnrwPU)