Some time has passed since the letter at the beginning of the year, and we are now all working hard on the realization of our annual meeting, the second one for us, and the one that will sanction the now concrete presence of the Chiaroscuro Collective as one of the most interesting associative realities in Italy and probably not only in Italy.
The day entitled The Art of Cinematography and Beyond, to be held on June 7 at the De Paolis Theaters in Rome, is designed to tell everyone but especially film school students and industry professionals about some of the most interesting, stimulating, sometimes worrying challenges of our profession’s current times: the irruption ofArtificial Intelligence as a possible creative tool, the planetary development of television seriality and its continuous dialogue with cinema and vice versa, the tale of the necessary deep relationship between director and cinematographer, and much more.
But we would also like this day to be dedicated to our lifelong collaborators. Without our camera operators, steadycam, ronin or otherwise , without our extraordinary focus puller and the whole camera team, without the control and advice of our DIT, without the ability of the or our Video assist of getting the image of our film to everyone, even under the craziest conditions, without the continuous technical updating, attention to detail, sensitivity, and organizational skills of our Chief electricians and their team, without the pliability, the attention to camera movement and even light and shadow, without the constructive genius and speed of our chief machinists and their working group, we would not be able to accomplish anything we had thought or hoped to accomplish.
Not only that, how many times have they suggested ideas, suggested camera movements, allowed us to put camera or lights in unthinkable positions?
Our collaborators have the ability to sense where to put the focus in the frame, or to maintain it with actors or actresses in constant motion at 1.3 aperture, to see the detail of light, its color or reflection, to catch an actor’s sudden change of pace during a complex dolly or arm movement. Without them our films would be different, our photography much poorer, uncertain, our visual storytelling less strong and refined.
When we start a film or series, the more ambitious the project and the more complex its realization, the more we try to surround ourselves with collaborators capable of responding positively to our increased needs and increasing the artistic value of our challenge. But we also try to collaborate with attentive and loving fellow travelers, willing even to great exertions, able to help us build a serene, joking but always attentive and focused atmosphere.
They, our co-workers, are always with us, in the rain, in the long cold winter nights, in the snow, in the desert, in the scorching summer heat or in the middle of the sea, in tiny apartments or on the tenth floor without an elevator. They help us daily to realize our ambitions.
Then we are in the headlines, or invited to festivals, and they are in the credits, hidden in long rolls thick with the names of great professionals written in lower case.
And when the crisis beats hard, when productions decline and become impoverished, they are the first to suffer the hardships of the moment, along with us and more than us.
In that Beyond of our art of cinematography, in that Beyond that hints at the marvelous interconnection between cinema as art, photography as an art form, visual arts of all forms, there is also that always trying to go Beyond every difficulty, from the smallest to the greatest, there is the ability to face every challenge that stimulates us and the joy of sharing the results achieved thanks to the professionalism and creativity of our first indispensable collaborators : Operators, Focus Pullers, Assistants, and Helpers, Trainees, DIT and Data managers, Video Assist , Gaffer and Electricians, Key Grip, Dolly Grip and Machinists.
We would now like to thank just all of them.
Paolo Carnera
