This clip is from the 39th ASC Awards during which I presented the Bud Stone Memorial Award to my dear friend, Suzanne Lezotte.  The event was held on February 23rd at the Beverly Hilton and was attended by over a thousand people.  If I sound a little resonant, it’s because I was fighting off … Continue reading “A BIT OF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION…”

From a 4×5 B&W negative scan, light leak and all…

            This weekend saw a three-day celebration of the 39th ASC Awards for Excellence in Cinematography.  I’m still not quite recovered from the festivities, but I can tell you that the organization – which always throws great parties – really surpassed itself this time around.  There wasn’t a single misstep throughout, and I defy any … Continue reading “THE. BEST. EVER…!”

            Last Tuesday I attended the Hollywood Professional Association Tech Retreat 2025 in Rancho Mirage, CA.  It’s an event where, according to hpaonline.com, “…world-class leaders in engineering, technology, creativity, and business step away from their daily routines to explore and experience the most compelling topics in content creation, management, and dissemination.” As you’d expect, there … Continue reading “A-M-A-Z-I-N-G…”

Photo by Owen Roizman, ASC             Unless you’re a true insider at the ASC – and likely something of an old-timer – you probably don’t know about one of the most important people in the organization’s history.  Ben Toguchi – Benny – wasn’t just the Clubhouse caretaker and jack-of-all-trades for fifty years.  He was a … Continue reading “THE ASC’s BEST FRIEND”

            On February 23, the thirty-ninth annual ASC Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography will take place at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles.  Categories include Music Video, Documentary, Spotlight, One-Hour Regular Series, Limited Anthology or Motion Picture Made for Television, Half-Hour Series and Theatrical Feature Film.             In addition, Honorary recognition will be bestowed … Continue reading “PARTY TIME”

            Director Robert Eggers’ 2024 Nosferatu (photographed by Jarin Blaschke, ASC) is making quite the splash this awards season.  But while we’re heaping well-deserved praise upon it, we should also toss a nod to F.W. Murnau, director of the original, 1922 version (shot by Fritz Arno Wagner and an uncredited Günther Krampf).             A German … Continue reading “HE WAS THERE FIRST”

            Imagine a time when there were only fifty cinematographer members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences…  Well, that was precisely the situation in December of 1957 when this column appeared in American Cinematographer.  Since its formation thirty years earlier, we had always been the smallest of the Academy’s nineteen branches, a … Continue reading “INSIDE BASEBALL…I MEAN, INSIDE CINEMATOGRAPHY”