How did you get into the field and start working as a Director of Photography?
I have always been fascinated by photography since my mother, as a photographer herself, transmitted her passion to me since I was a kid. I started taking pictures with my first film camera when I was 7 years old. Since then it has been a natural progression for me. I kept experimenting with photography until I came across filmmaking in high school and started focusing on making short videos and music videos every time I was able to.
From there I just kept doing it and I was able to learn new things on every project I worked on.
Later on, I decided to get a Master in Cinematography in Los Angeles and since then the quality and the size of the projects I worked on increased exponentially.
I would say that if it wasn’t for my mother who introduced me to photography when I was young, I wouldn’t be a Director of Photography right now.
How has your historical background in photography influenced your work as a cinematographer?
I think that I was very lucky to be able to experiment with film photography before jumping into digital and filmmaking in particular. That’s because when you shoot film you know that you have 35 exposures and that’s it. So I used to plan every shot very in detail, double checking the composition and the lighting, because I didn’t want to waste any of those 35 exposures I had. I think digital is amazing but sometimes people end up taking thousands of pictures of the same subject just because there is basically no limit in terms of exposure you can have now. But I think that doing so people but especially beginner photographers won’t focus on details when shooting and that doens’t allow them to learn as much as they could if they just stopped and work more in detail about just one frame.
So, as a Director of Photography, I have brought that way of thinking into filmmaking as well and I always try to stop and make every frame the best possible. Less shots but higher quality are always better than many low quality ones.
What is the most rewarding production you have worked on so far?
One of the best production I have worked on lately is #MyDorian. It is a movie that takes inspiration from “The Picture of Dorian Grey” By Oscar Wilde but it is set in the modern days with particular reference to social media and its effect on people. It was a really interesting movie to watch and it has a really strong message that I think is really important nowadays for people, especially young people, to hear. We shot it in Italy and even if it took some time to finish, it looks very good and I am really proud of it.
How would you go about setting the mood for a script?
I approach every project the same way, reading the script several times in order to understand it fully. In terms of mood, I always talk with the director first and see what his/her vision is and then I do a lookbook with references that fit the look we are looking for. I always try to serve the story first and start from a base look. Then I do some tests in order to find small things to do or add in order to improve that look. I usually like to test filters, lenses, and even lights sometimes.
After the test I discuss the final touches with the Director and once we lock the mood we usually move on in pre-production and work around with other departments to assure the achievement of that look.
What were some of the challenges, individual or collaborative, you encountered working on MyDorian?
The biggest challenges I encountered in this production were mostly related to the story and how to best capture some scenes. In particular, there are several flashbacks in the movie and I spent a lot of time thinking on how to show this time change on screen. Even when I watch movies and there are flashbacks involved, it always takes me some time to understand or notice that we shifted the timeline. For MyDorian, I wanted to make sure that this cut between present time and past was clear and sharp. To do so, I had to come up with a look that both fit the story and differentiates present time and flashbacks. I discussed it several times with the directors and in the end we opted for an overall more desaturated look and moody lighting. Shooting the flashback scenes in this way made it really easy to notice this time jump and understand right away what was happening.
But no matter the project I work on, I think that collaborating in pre-production and involving all the heads of department into it is the best way to set yourself and everybody else for success.
