Honey

While attending the Istanbul Film Festival with our documentary Colony I was delighted to catch the film 'Bal' or 'Honey' by Turkish Director Semih Kaplanoğlu. Patient, poignant and immensely beautiful it's the final film in a trilogy following on from 'Milk' and 'Egg'. The titles themselves allude to the quiet minimalism of his work and this film witnesses the director at the proverbial 'height of his powers'.
'Honey' was deservedly honored with the People's Choice Award, the Special Jury Prize and the award for Best Cinematography for Cinematographer BARIŞ ÖZBİÇER at Saturday's ceremony in Istanbul.

Chris Doyle: Sex Tourism Cinematography for Beginners

Watching this BBC Culture Show video with genius cinematographer Chris Doyle is kind of like watching a video of myself out drinking over the course of a long night.

Charming and poetic at the start, arrogant and self-aggrandizing after a couple of drinks and desperate, sleazy and grabbing at Asian girls by the end of another neon-soaked night with a gut full of cheap liquor...it's all too real.

Just about getting away with it while groping his way through the Bangkok red light district, Doyle shows us how his freewheeling lifestyle informs his ability to "create poetry" by "forming light in space".

Dirty old Aussie or not, you gotta love the results.

Kudos Chris.

Lance Acord at the ASC

I stumbled across this series of talks at the American Society of Cinematographers with incredible cinematographer Lance Acord discussing his work on 'Where the Wild Things Are'.

Director of Photography for both Spike Jonze and Sophia Coppola as well as countless innovative music videos and commercials, Acord is an inspiration for me, both for the simplicity and also the profound beauty of his work.

Always grounded in naturalism but using framing, camera movement and an ever-evolving but tell-tale colour palette that makes his work stand out, he makes it look easy.

Most interesting to me is the discussion about his early career, his love of Josef Koudelka, Robert Frank and getting his first gig as a photo assistant to Bruce Weber, making connections in the New York art scene, cutting his teeth on 16mm and getting the nod from Vincent Gallo to lens the indie classic 'Buffalo '66'. Great stuff.

Lance Acord at the ASC: Part I
Lance Acord at the ASC: Part II