American Cinematographer - August 2020 - 77

hands on it, each edition was worth
its weight in gold, hugely inspirational and educational. All the directors of photography I read about
were my teachers, albeit from a great
distance. In my wildest dreams, I
couldn't imagine actually being in
the
pages
of
American
Cinematographer. To me, it was like
the Holy Grail of cinematography!
Well, the wildest dreams can come
true!"
John Simmons, ASC
"When I was in college at Fisk
University, writer/director Carlton
Moss would come from Hollywood
and teach a film course on a monthly
basis. His enthusiasm for the contribution of cinematography to the
storytelling process was contagious,
and the first time I saw the flicker of
the shutter through the eyepiece, I
knew cinematography was what I
wanted to do.
"Carlton gave me my first
subscription
to
American
Cinematographer. Through the pages
of the magazine, I got my technical
introduction to the art and craft of
cinematography. It was an inspiration at the time, and I still look
forward to reading it each month. AC
continues to educate me."

Larry Smith, BSC
"Stanley [Kubrick] consumed a
lot of books and journals, including
American Cinematographer, which he
read religiously. He was always
waving the magazine under my nose
to see if I'd read this or that article."
Steven Soderbergh
"When you've seen a film that
you think is really extraordinarily
shot, and you want somebody to tell
you how the rabbit got in the hat,
American Cinematographer is invaluable."
Dante Spinotti, ASC, AIC
"When I was sent to Kenya by
my parents to learn a profession - as
I did not like studying Greek and
Latin in high school - my uncle, a
cinematographer who was hosting
me in his home, was a subscriber to
American Cinematographer. Because of
the magazine, I realized where to
focus my professional dreams."
David Stump, ASC
"I have subscribed to American
Cinematographer since the 1970s, and
the arrival of each new issue always
has been a moment of discovery for
me. I can remember poring over
historical articles about the glory
days of black-and-white and techni-

Dan Mindel, ASC, BSC, SASC
"The mandate that I was working
with from J.J. Abrams on The Force
Awakens was that he wanted to try and -
not replicate - but at least pay homage to
the early Star Wars movies, and capture
some of the look and feel of them. He
suggested that I track down the lenses
they used and try and emulate some of
them. This is how the development of the
[Panavision Retro C anamorphic lenses]
began, because I had done much research
via the American Cinematographer
archive. [Having access to] every AC article
that had anything to do with Star Wars
[that I could] sift through at my leisure
was just a huge gift.

"AC is a place where
cinematographers share
our knowledge in the spirit
of creative camaraderie."
cal articles about visual effects, and I
very fondly remember scouring
every ad in the magazine to discover
the latest hardware.
"My bookcase still holds every
issue I ever bought, going back to at
least 1977. What quickly becomes
apparent as I pull out old issues of
AC for reference is that dichotomy
between how much things have
changed and how much has
remained the same. The cameras and
hardware are now completely different, but the can-do, problem-solving
mentality and spirit of adventure that
cinematographers
embody
has
endured generations."
John Toll, ASC
"While I was in college, I
became
aware
of
American
Cinematographer. The articles I read
made me aware of the whole world
of professional filmmaking and the
work of accomplished cinematogra-

"Lucasfilm has massive archives of
everything, but what they don't have is what
kind of lights they used on a particular set, or
who the gaffer was - that kind of stuff.
[With the magazine] it's possible to find out
the intimate details.
"When I lecture and talk to aspiring
filmmakers, we often talk about the monolithic movies - Star Wars and those kinds of
things - and all you have to do is look in the
magazine to find out who did what and how
they did it. [You can] look back through the
history of what we've done over the last 100
years, and all the data, all the info, all the
details that are in the magazine are just
priceless for us as filmmakers."
www.ascmag.com

August 2020

http://www.ascmag.com

American Cinematographer - August 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - August 2020