Getting a phone call from Steven Poster, ASC, president of the International Cinematographers Guild (ICG, IATSE Local 600), that your work made the cut at the Emerging Cinematographer Awards never gets old.
Just ask Michael Alden Lloyd who first heard from Poster last year when the short film Dawn earned ECA honorable mention distinction. Lloyd shot Dawn for director Joshua Matthews.
Fast forward to just a few months ago when Lloyd fielded another call from Poster, except this time Lloyd went beyond honorable mention status and became one of eight ECA honorees on the strength of his lensing the short film The Secret Number for director Colin Levy.
Earning ECA recognition two straight years punctuates a gratifying career progression for Lloyd who was raised in a small town in Kentucky and got his higher formal education at the Savannah College of Art and Design. He moved to Los Angeles just a few years ago, not too long thereafter joining Local 600 as a second assistant cameraman.
“To now have my work recognized by accomplished Guild members for two years in a row is an incredible honor. And the first year,” noted Lloyd, “it opened so many doors for me.”
Those doors included the Guild connecting Lloyd and other ECA-recognized artisans with up-and-coming directorial talent at the 12th annual Film Independent Directing Lab. This has translated into Lloyd having lined up two features to shoot: director Jacob Hatley’s Carolina Highway Killer, and director Morna Ciraki’s Sunday Bloody Sunday.
The latter will be the biggest budgeted feature (around $2.5 million) Lloyd has ever lensed.
“It’s all about the quality of the scripts and finding like-minded directors,” observed Lloyd. “The Guild has helped me do just that through the Emerging Cinematographer Awards.”
The purpose of the ECA is to nurture talent within the Guild and to give promising cinematographers the crucial exposure they need to succeed in the motion picture industry. The ECA competition is open to any member of the Guild who is not already classified as a DP. Members are asked to submit films they have photographed with a running time of 30 minutes or less. The ICG is one of the few organizations in the entertainment industry that offers its aspiring, up-and-coming members the opportunity to be recognized and the chance to further advance their careers in this manner. The films are selected by a panel of ICG notables from across the country.
Resonating with ICG judges this year was The Secret Number in which a psychiatrist is compelled by his patient, an obsessive mathematician, to consider the existence of a secret integer between the numbers 3 and 4. Lloyd and director Levy were classmates at the Savannah College of Art and Design and did The Secret Number as a joint thesis film. It wasn’t completed until 2012 as they elected to tap into some ambitious special visual effects for the short. Lloyd deployed the RED One and Red M-X with Cooke Zooms/Zeiss Compact Prime lenses to shoot The Secret Number.
The aforementioned Dawn also teamed Lloyd with a Savannah College of Art and Design student colleague, director Matthews. Dawn too was a joint thesis project. Yet the similarities between the two ECA-recognized shorts end there.
Dawn centered on a widower whose grim reality unhinges when a mysterious woman turns up on his property. The film was shot at a preserved Civil War-era valley where Lloyd’s camera soaks in the Kentucky countryside. It couldn’t be more different from The Secret Number which has a quirky sci-fi vibe.
“The directors behind those two films are so different and I love that,” said Lloyd. “It broadens your experience, range and, of course, your body of work. Colin [Levy] is in the David Fincher/Christopher Nolan kind of school. Josh has more of a Terrence Malick vibe—his story is much more romantic.”
Also expanding Lloyd’s horizons was a three-month stint apprenticing for Oscar-winning VFX supervisor Rob Legato on the set of director Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. There Lloyd also got the chance to watch Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson, ASC. “It was a great education, to see such talented people at work,” said Lloyd. “I feel fortunate to have had that experience. I’ve found something I didn’t expect when I came to Los Angeles—that there are people willing to help you out. A lot of people have helped to open doors and experiences to me, especially the members of the International Cinematographers Guild.”
The ECA honor is the latest in a series of accolades bestowed upon The Secret Number. Earlier it garnered the Jury Award for Best Short at the Charleston International Film Festival, Best Student Film and the Panavision Student Cinematography Award at the Savannah Film Festival, and a Best Cinematography nomination at the Greenville International Film Festival.
Kyle Kl�tz The time between Kyle Kl�tz’s encounters with ICG president Poster was quite a bit more extended than that experienced by Lloyd.
“I remember going to a screening at school of Donnie Darko and having its cinematographer, Steven Poster, speak there,” related Kl�tz. “He’s someone whose work I’ve admired for some time.”
Kl�tz didn’t hear again from Poster until years later when he got a call several months back from the lauded cinematographer who informed him that had been selected an ECA honoree on the basis of the short titled Vessel, directed by Clark Baker. Kl�tz chose the RED One with M-X sensor to lens Vessel.
Both Kl�tz and Baker are film alumni of Chapman University but they didn’t attend the school at the same time. However, the writers of Vessel were Chapman classmates of Kl�tz who had shot work for them as well. This connection and the fact that this earlier work struck a responsive chord with Baker helped Kl�tz get the DP gig on Vessel.
A sci-fi homage of sorts, Vessel depicts a group of people on a red-eye plane flight that is taken over by an alien spacecraft. The human passengers end up on an alien mothership and are taken over in a manner akin to an Invasion of the Body Snatchers-like scenario.
Vessel is Kl�tz’s highest profile project to date, putting him on the map as a cinematographer thanks in large part to the ECA recognition. He has moved steadily up the ranks since graduating from Chapman in ’07 and then taking on focus puller duties. Kl�tz later joined Local 600 ranks as a first assistant cameraman.
Kl�tz credits filmmaker/DP Roger Chingirian, a graduate of Chapman four years before Kl�tz, with being a career mentor. “He was the one who got me my initial focus puller jobs right after I got out of school. It started a great learning experience outside of the classroom.”
The latest stop on that sojourn outside of the classroom now finds Kl�tz about to be formally honored by the ECA during an awards ceremony at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles on Sept. 29.
All 10 short films—of eight ECA honorees and two honorable mentions—will be screened at the event. A New York premiere will follow on Oct. 20 at the School of Visual Arts.
“It’s beyond flattering to have your work recognized by this group at the Guild,” affirmed Kl�tz. “These are people I look up to and admire. You set your goals to one day be at this level at some point. It’s very gratifying to be honored in this way.”
Eduardo Fierro Eduardo Fierro was out of the country on a shoot so he didn’t get the chance to talk to Poster when he called to let him know he had been chosen as an ECA honoree. Still, the voicemail message from Poster is one that Fierro has kept on his phone and listening to it always gives him a kick.
“To hear from Steven—he and the Guild have always been supportive of my efforts—and to be recognized by my peers means everything to me,” said Fierro who earned his ECA honor for Eleven: Twelve, a short directed and written by Juan Barros.
The film—for which Fierro deployed Canon 5D and 7D cameras to stay on budget—centers on a man in limbo, right after death when it’s to be determined if he will be in heaven or hell.
From a lensing perspective, Fierro found himself in heaven, shooting the short in Lisbon, Portugal, at production house Ready To Shoot which provided top drawer support from professional gaffers to grips and other resources. Barros connected with the company through a producer friend.
Fierro said the professional follow-through extended through to post, citing as an example the first-rate colorist services Barros secured via Company 3 in Santa Monica. Fierro noted that Barros was true to his word, having promised that he would retain creative control and collaborate with leading artists throughout the process to help realize the full potential of the project.
Fierro joined Local 600 in 2011 as an operator, though he had extensive experience as a cinematographer. He has since added to that experience with shorts and commercials. Recently, for example, he was DP on Hispanic market commercials for KFC and Taco Bell.
Fierro currently is in prep on a couple of short films. He earlier lensed the short Side Effects for director Traven Rice which is making its mark on the festival circuit, having been screened at some 20 fests thus far and counting.
Field of honorees In addition to Lloyd, Kl�tz and Fierro, there are five other ECA honorees:
• Michael Berlucchi who earned inclusion for shooting 140 Drams which was directed by Oksana Mirzoyan. The short captures a boy’s first trip to the market on his own, an experience which opens his eyes to the difficult reality facing his family and his country, Armenia.
• VanNessa Manlunas for King of Norway directed by Sylvia Sether. King of Norway tells the story of Liz who has given up trying to share memories with a father who can’t. But after finding out that he is dying, Liz learns that love is never forgotten.
• Camrin Petramale for Memoirs of a Parapsychologist directed by Andrew Papke. The short shows us the fine line between a real or imagined perception.
• Guy Ladd Skinner for Your Father’s Daughter directed by Carlos Bernard. Set in 1950s’ Spain, the film reveals in a fun and delightful way the drama a father faces when his daughter goes against his wishes.
• And T.J. Williams for The Return directed by Jeremy Mackie. The short centers on an old-time maintenance worker who tries to scare a new young hire into quitting so he can bring back his old working colleague.
Honorable mentions And the two ECA honorable mentions this year are:
• Robert Givens for The Ride directed by Dallas Jenkins. This film tells the story of a taxi driver who cannot turn a blind eye to his last patron on Xmas eve.
• Andrew Shulkind for South Down Orchard directed by Brian Leavell. In this short, a criminal will escape from prison or die trying as he seeks to save the beauty who stole his heart.
Building momentum Poster observed that in a sense the ECA competition has “gone viral. People are understanding what a great benefit it is to become an honoree and we are getting more high quality entries every year. The benefits to young cinematographers are tremendous—it’s not just the recognition but the boost that it can give one emotionally. I remember back in 1972 I did a short that we entered into the AFI Film Festival. It was chosen, it won and it changed my life. It gave me a special confidence. The ECA honorees get that as well as the various camera packages, lab facility and post facility services and tools that our sponsors give to them. Plus the honorees get a day with agents to answer their questions and discuss career development. Personally, I get a great kick out of being able to welcome young DPs into the club. A high-profile DP once said when I was going to do my first feature, ‘Welcome to the club.’ That stuck with me and I’m glad the Guild can play a role in helping new talent.”
Poster also noted that leading, accomplished cinematographers have become very supportive of the ECA event. “I’m always amazed over all the DPs who turn out and want to be involved in giving these aspiring DPs their awards. It again shows the wonderful camaraderie we have throughout our ranks.”
Of this year’s field of honorees, Poster assessed, “These 10 aspiring directors of photography truly represent the up-and-coming talent within Local 600. Each of the films that they helped to create is an example of inspiring and creative cinematography. They also demonstrate a mastery of the new technical skills required by our craft. Our judges had a difficult time choosing the winners from the high number of entries this year. These films without a doubt are extraordinary achievements and deserve the recognition they will receive.”
Jim Matlosz, who has been chairman of the Guild’s ECA committee since 2008, added, “Once again we had a great turnout for submissions to the ECAs. And again our members have proven their talent. It seems as though we always have more great films than we do winners. This means we usually have about 20 top films that all come very close in numbers and votes, culminating with the 10 we choose based solely on judges’ votes.”
