Constant Cinema
When the camera is purring just right, pulling film through the gate with clockwork precision, we declare, "Speed!" and announce our readiness to record light over time. In Latin, Speed is Celeritas, represented by the "C" in Einstein's famous equation; the speed of light in a vacuum, a scientific physical and universal Constant. We perceive light in time as movement, the Greek Kinema, from which we derive our term for motion pictures: Cinema.
Constant Cinema. Light in Motion.
Chris Durham
The basics: I'm a cinematographer, photographer, and director living in New York City. I also like to write a lot - I've written a few screenplays and I've written a lot of nonsense. I tend to be verbose. I've been accused of trying to write the Great American Email. So now I write a blog.
Although I'm full of opinion I like to think that I'm fairly easy going. I've got a deep love for movies. I've been called a film snob but I don't think that's fair. I'm a beer snob for sure, but I'm a film buff. What's the difference. I'm happy to watch a crappy movie just because it's there and there's nothing else. I draw the line with crappy beer.
I've got an interest in science and technology and I try to keep up with what's going on in the world of the future. I'm not a huge sports fan but I'm a physical person - I do love Football and the weight room is a staple of my life. Music is deeply important to me. I've played guitar and listened to heavy metal since I was a kid and I don't think I'll ever stop. Fantasy and Science Fiction are big deals for me too - if I don't have music in my ears at any given moment you can bet I've got an audiobook
Cinematographer
I became a cinematographer by accident. Let me correct that statement: I became a Director of Photography by accident. A cinematographer is simply someone who "draws" with motion. A lot of people use the term filmmaker and reserve the word cinematographer for the cameraman. To me, though, you can't say that a filmmaker like Tarkovsky wasn't a cinematographer because he wasn't a DP. His visual stamp is upon every film he made. So I think of a cinematographer as someone whose main method of story telling is visually through motion photography. Beyond that, it's all job titles.
Anyway, I became a DP by accident. When I was a teenager in Los Angeles I made movies with my friends. We'd take a video camera out into the park and make silly shorts like "Kung Fu Lou" and "Ratman." When I moved to Texas to finish high school, film wasn't big but I got involved in theater and when I went into college it was as a theater major. Somewhere along the line I started migrating to RTF (radio/television/film) but then I dropped out of school and life happened. I got a "real job" and career and all that and lived my life, but as I neared the end of my 20s I started really wanting a creative outlet again.
It started with writing. I wrote some short stories and they were pretty good I thought, but my love of movies started tugging at me again. I wrote a few short screenplays and finally decided to make one. I involved some of my friends and it was pretty good. And then I made another, and another. I was writing and directing but one thing was clear to me - I was no damn good with a camera. But, I never like to confuse inaptitude with ineptitude. If there's one thing I hate to hear it's, "stick with what you're good at." You can be good at anything. I'm damn near tone deaf but I'm a pretty good guitarist!
I think I was just making up for lost time and taking in every bit of information I could about filmmaking. So while I could sit at a desk and read about proper exposure, film stocks, and technical information, I just didn't have the time in to become natural with things like composition and lighting. Being a reasonably good writer was easier because I wrote all the time - for business as well as creatively. I just needed to get comfortable with a camera.
The first thing I shot and remember being proud of was a handheld shot on my short film "The Betty." The original DP had moved to Germany during the [very long] course of production and I had to step in and handle camera duty. Since I was acting in it, sometimes this meant setting up a shot with a stand-in and then telling my AD to hit record. (By the way, directing, acting, and shooting at the same time is not something I recommend). It was around this time that people started asking me to shoot things for them. I started becoming a cinematographer and meeting other cinematographers. I began working with HutcH and Brandon Torres and we shot a lot of stuff together with one of us shooting and the others lighting or assisting. I learned a lot working with those guys and they're great friends that I hope to work with throughout my career. My last couple of years living in Texas I shot a lot of short films, some commercials, and even a documentary feature.
In 2010 I moved to New York. Here I've been shooting whatever I'm able to. It took a while to get established and meet people and in the interrim I've turned quite a bit to still photography.
