Do All Cinematographers Really Want to Direct?

Though his entry to film was superficial (but let’s face it, he’s not the only one), what has kept him in is the joy he’s found in the camera department. However, if he had the choice he would be directing. “I get some pleasure from shooting, but so often I am heartbroken by decisions made after shooting that alter the films,”he writes. “I can be sort of a back-seat director. An ugly quality.”

Williams has directed a film, 2011’s “Eyes Find Eyes.” The project was born from an encounter with producer Paulo Branco (“Cosmopolis”) at the Cannes Film Festival where the two instantly bonded, according to Williams, over talks about “friendship, Portuguese girls and horses.” But that would be the only pleasant memory from the experience. The project fell off the rails quickly, no one was paid, and Williams doesn’t even have a copy of the film, though it sounds like it’s probably best he doesn’t.

“When a French crew isn’t getting their cigarettes and coffee injections, they are a pretty unpleasant group,” he says.
Since then Williams has taken his hunger to direct into his DP work. He highlights his time as an archivist for Albert Maysles for a few years as a defining moment in his career. “It taught me a method of directing through the camera in non-fiction that I try to adapt in my work sometimes. As long as it isn’t intrusive.”

That striking method can be found in films he’s shot for Robert Greene (“Kati With An I,” “Fake It So Real”) and Alex Ross Perry (“Impolex,” “The Color Wheel,” the upcoming “Listen Up Philip”), to name a few. But not all DPs have a frustrated director buried inside them.

Bradford Young, like Williams, is an in-demand cinematographer who has brought a lush visual style to films like “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” an “Pariah.” However, he’s just fine with his current job title.

“People assume cinematographers get bored of shooting and that directing seems like the next natural progression. I really never have had any interest in directing,” he told me a few weeks ago.

One reason, he says, is because he’s not finished figuring out his craft and has methods and techniques he still wants to implement. But when I brought up my theory that DPs don’t want to direct because they see first hand how challenging it can be to, he concurs.

In fact, its a conversation he had recently with director Ava DuVernay for the film he’s shooting for her, Selma. “I see Ava on ‘Selma’ just basically, outside of working with actors, doing the stuff in the background that I just don’t have the genetic psychological makeup to handle,” he admits. “Dealing with the studio or producers or bond company, I just don’t have it. Also with the job profile, working so closely with directors, I respect it and I know it isn’t just I’m going to go out here and sit in my director’s chair and make it look sexy. There’s also a lot of stuff that I’m just not privy to because directors that are great directors are going to protect me from it.”

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Though it seems Young has made it clear in the industry he has no interest in directing, that doesn’t stop the offers. “I just got that recently, [someone asked] ‘do you want to direct?’ I’m like, the day this cinematography thing stops challenging me is the day I grow my hair long and head off and live on a farm.”

Now some just have that gift to move seamlessly into the directing role. Williams and Young both name Jody Lee Lipes, DP on films “Afterschool,” “Tiny Furniture,” “Martha Marcy May Marlene” and episodes of “Girls,” as the latest star in the new breed of DPs-turned-directors. His documentary, “Ballet 422,” played at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. (And then there are the animals in the biz like Steven Soderbergh and Robert Rodriguez who shoot and direct their own projects… but that’s a whole different level of crazy.) “For Jody, cinematography was the gateway to grasping the discipline of directing,”Young says. “He has the ability to harness both. But some of us don’t have it. It’s not a negative, it’s just not in the DNA. And I feel I’m one of those people.”

Russell Lee Fine has a bit of perspective on this challenging transition. A talented DP during the ’00s on films like “O,” “The Grey Zone,” “Sherrybaby” and HBO’s “The Wire,” he’s since moved over to directing episodic television like “White Collar” and “Graceland.” As Fine sees it, if you want to move from the “creative engagement” perch of being a cinematographer “where you are executing the visuals in a visual medium, generally arrive at set later then most, have a full lunch break and go home when the day’s a wrap” to the “24/7 job”of the director’s chair — “complex relationships with actors, constant discussions with studios, writers, producers, props, hair, wardrobe” — you have to WANT to be the leader.

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“I like being in charge and ultimately responsible and love being the central creative leader,” he writes to me in an email. But Fine warns the DP-turned-director, because of your previous trade you’ll be ridiculed more for the visual look of your film than most.

In a few weeks John R. Leonetti (who has shot close to 40 films) will be out with his latest directing effort, the horror “Annabelle” (you may have seen the creepy trailer). But for every release by a former cinematographer there are many more who are staying put. And it’s not the skill level or the connections, it’s the internal desire to take on the responsibilities of the set. And in some cases, it’s about redemption. Like Williams, who when I asked if he planned to direct again said, “I really hope to. I have something to prove.”

Read the original post at Tribeca Film Institute here.