Insight TEDDY SMITH, SOC What was one of your most challenging shot or challenging day in the industry? Safely operating a Russian Arm in a ring with a million-dollar race horse and an actress who preferred to ride herself was a challenging experience. What is your most memorable day in the industry? I was the underwater operator on a feature and spent all night diving with Dolph Lundgren as he fought an animatronic shark in freezing water. What is the job you have yet to do but most want to do? My dream is to shoot underwater for a Planet Earth episode. I’d love to film the hidden creatures below the Antarctic ice. Photo by Joshua Stringer
Credits: Urban Country, Race to Win, Shark Lake, Navy Seals vs. Zombies, Ambition
DEAN SMOLLAR, SOC What was one of your most challenging shots in the industry? Sprinting, chasing an actor down seven flights of stairs and through narrow, winding hallways for a single shot in the movie Mischief Night. What is your most memorable day in the industry? It’s a tie between receiving fan mail for a movie I operated on and working with Keanu Reeves for the first time. What is the job you have yet to do but most want to do? My goal at the moment is to operate for a feature film with a budget greater than $20 million. Credits: A Happening of Monumental Proportions, Typical Rick Season 2, Tales of Halloween, Don’t Kill It
Photo by Cameron Riddles
JOSEPH URBANCZYK, SOC The person who helped you most in your career? Vilmos Zsigmond… Above all, I like to think he taught us about that delicate balance of light and shadow, and not just in the creation of film, but also the light and shadows within ourselves, in our lives. In his youth in Hungary, he stood with his camera before the darkest shadows of oppression; later he went on to become one of the greatest cinematographers in the world. And by his extraordinary life and example, he showed us all the very opposite of what he had witnessed in his youth. He revealed to us, both as a filmmaker and as a friend, that magnificent light that lives forever in the human spirit. For that-and much more-I am eternally grateful to this wonderful man who was my mentor and my friend. Photo by Peter Sorel
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Credits: The Black Dahlia (LA unit), Life as a House, The Ghost and the Darkness (South Africa), Playing By Heart, Out to Sea, and Love and Basketball.
SOCIETY OF CAMERA OPERATORS · SOC.ORG