MASTER CLASS
Jonathan Freeman, ASC DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAULINE ROGERS PHOTOS COURTESY OF JONATHAN FREEMAN
09.2020
“I was about eight when I saw Star Wars for the first time, and I immediately got the filmmaking bug,” remembers three-time Emmy-winning Director of Photography (and five-time ASC-award winner) Jonathan Freeman, ASC. “The opening shot that John Dykstra [ASC] and his team created was so powerful. Tilting down from a starfield, a planet is revealed, enveloped by an ultramarine ozone layer, reminiscent of NASA photos of the time. A spaceship passes overhead and recedes into depth toward the planet. Laser bolts skim past the top of the screen, giving the illusion that something is firing from behind. Then, another ship, mammoth in scale, shrouds the frame and follows in pursuit. As a kid, my brain knew it wasn’t real,” he explains, “but I had to understand why it ‘felt’ real. The key was rendering of light and shadow, and the deceptive sense of scale and movement.” Lighting and shadow were part of Freeman’s upbringing. His mother was a painter who would often work until darkness forced her to turn on a light. “I initially thought it was just to save the electric bill,” Freeman laughs. “But I later understood she wanted to see the full spectrum of vanishing light, a shifting palette of ambers and blues. She also taught me that the power of light didn’t have to exist in dramatic moments like a beach at sunrise, or fog-wrapped forest – it happened everywhere, at any time. To this day, I still sometimes wait in semidarkness, watching the fading dusk before turning on a light.” When a beat-up 1932 Cine-Kodak 8mm Model 20 camera came up for auction at a local Dundas, Ontario, Canada churchyard auction, a young Jonathan (who only had a $5 threshold) scanned the room for competition. “The auctioneer pointed to me,” he remembers. “‘I have two dollars. Do I hear two-fifty?’ An eternity passed. I avoided looking around but sensed the entire room was focused on the back of my head. Finally… ‘Going once, going twice? Sold to the young gentleman for two dollars.’” A year later, close friend Alex Chapple asked Freeman to shoot a “short war film,” Struggle Through Agony, which was quite accomplished for a fourth-grader. Alex explained the process: he would direct, Freeman would do the lighting, and they would collaborate on the shots. “Simple enough,” Freeman laughs. “Until Alex mentioned he wanted to use his Braun Nizo S80 Super 8. He said if I’d learned to thread my regular 8mm camera, loading Super 8 cartridges would be a piece of cake. First lesson: never let technology intimidate!” There was also an early job as a camera trainee post-film-school, where Freeman says he couldn’t (continued on page 28)
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