Establishing Shot by Matthew Moriarty, SOC
In Appreciation of Those Who Teach
Left: THE FRONT RUNNER with Eric Steelberg, ASC in 2017. Photo courtsey of Matthew Moriarty. Right: GIRLBOSS with Zoran in 2016. Photo by Karen Ballard.
I feel like I’m at the young end of those who still came up in what I would call the "old system.” I started under a generation of DPs who were shooting film with big movie lights but also trying out a whole wave of modern tools. Looking back, I really consider it a sort of “golden age” for moviemaking—all the old-fashioned, film-based discipline but with tons of great gadgets. We still had actual dailies in a dark room filled with important, occasionally scary people—and where the rest of us went on a daily basis to either answer for, or take credit for our work. It was terrifying at times, but such a “holiest of holies” experience for anyone coming up in the crafts. Knowing you’d end up in dailies at lunch or at wrap, gave one the sense of a “game day” mentality when the camera rolled back then. I’m very grateful to have come of age in that era. The man who taught me most of what I know about filmmaking is John Bailey, who took me on as an intern on As Good As It Gets in 1996. I've made 18 movies with him and every single time I moved up in the camera department, it was John who had taken the risk on me. When he moved me up to operator in 2004, we had a deal between us: Me: “John, please…in the event that I’m terrible, I want you to fire me. I don’t want you to feel like…” John: “I will absolutely fire you if you’re terrible.”
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Me: “Copy that.” Luckily, I operated that film for him and nine others after that and never got fired. We mind-melded for many of those jobs when it came to framing and style. We hardly had to say anything to get a set-up going because I’d so completely internalized his way of seeing things and—to this day—no single static composition feels quite right to me until it passes the “JB” test (which could be a whole separate article). Once I’d started working with John, it caused me to develop relationships with all kinds of other people. Foremost among them was Zoran Veselic, the legendary focus puller. Zoran taught me most of what I know about people, how to understand them, and how to carry yourself in such a manner that people want you around 13 hours a day. He was in a class of his own in that regard, and people didn’t just want his amazing focus pulling on the job, they had a deep emotional investment in making sure he—the person—was on the job. As a result, Zoran had a very high-end list of clients, and I was just lucky to tag along as part of his package. Entirely because of Zoran, I got to work for Conrad Hall, Michael Chapman, Bill Fraker, Dariusz Wolski, Michael Ballhaus, Peter Menzies, David Tattersall, John Seale, Phil Meheux, Theo Van de Sande, Rodrigo Prieto and, most importantly for me, Don Burgess, and Eric Steelberg. I still think about Zoran every day and I miss him terribly.
SOCIETY OF CAMERA OPERATORS · SOC.ORG