GRIN & BEAR IT

By Natasha Block Hicks

At 5’11” tall, with dark hair and a dense beard framing amiable brown eyes, one could be forgiven for thinking that it is Davon Slininger’s appearance that is behind his nickname Black Bear’. But that is only half the story, as the camera operator – known for his long-running collaboration with DP Linus Sandgren FSF ASC – relates from his home in Los Angeles.

“I shared an apartment in Atlanta with the key grip Tony Cady, on First Man (2018, dir. Damien Chazelle, DP Linus Sandgren FSF ASC),” Slininger describes. “The shoot was incredibly taxing. When the weekends came around Tony wanted to go out and explore but I was always snoring away in what he called ‘full hibernation mode!’, and the name Black Bear caught-on quickly.”

Slininger considers himself to have “always had a creative inkling”. He was a keen drawer throughout childhood and turned his attention to movies in High School. “But,” he interjects, “I didn’t think at that time that I would be a filmmaker. It seemed like an untouchable world to me.” opportunity to spend a year as ‘artist-in-residence’ at the Malmö Art Academy in Sweden.

“The Swedish winter was tough and, with the language barrier, it was a little lonely out there,” admits Slininger. “I would roam the streets after dark capturing night landscapes, and ended-up stumbling into some interesting double exposure work which I continued in my masters at UCLA.”

Own Private Idaho (1991, DPs John Campbell and Eric Edwards), were amongst a handful of films that Slininger had seen in late high school which had revealed to him cinema’s potential for beauty and artistry.

“Getting to work with Gus brought it full circle,” marvels Slininger, “it was super-fulfilling. And I actually felt more comfortable operating on Promised Land than I had in any other position working up into that.”

The longterm collaboration with Sandgren – now numbering over ten features and shorts to date, plus numerous commercials – has been the most significant influence on Slininger’s career thus far.

“Linus has been an incredibly generous mentor,” states Slininger, “I can ask him endless questions and he never seems to get frustrated. He puts a lot of trust in me.”

During his studies, Slininger was mentored by several iconic American and German photographers, such as Uta Barth, Jeff Wall and Wolfgang Tillmans. The conceptual artist James Welling ran the UCLA graduate programme.

“He was really supportive and influential for me during that time,” Slininger remembers. “I wanted to be an artist after I graduated, but in practise I struggled to translate my work into income. I had a friend who was an intern at a production company, and she got me on-set as a production assistant. As soon as I saw the camera, I knew everything I had done so far had been leading to this point.”

Over the course of some years, Slininger worked his way over to, and then up through, the camera department. In 2012 he returned to Sweden as 1st AC on Lycka Till Och Ta Hand Om Varandra (2012, dir. Jens Sjögren, DP Linus Sandgren FSF ASC), the first of many features he would go on to shoot with the Oscar-winning Swedish DP.

Sandgren and Slininger have completed three feature projects with director Damien Chazelle, Slininger’s first multi-picture partnership with a director: La La Land (2016), which won both Chazelle and Sandgren an Oscar apiece, First Man (2018) and Babylon (2022).

During his teenage years, Slininger’s father owned – and protectively guarded – a Minolta SLR stills camera.

“He was really into toys, so he had several motors for it, multiple flashes, tons of filters…” Slininger relates. “When he eventually let me use it, I fell in love with taking pictures.”

During his undergraduate degree in photography at University Of California Riverside, Slininger won the

“My experience as a student in Malmö made for some easy rapport with Linus in the beginning,” says Slininger, “I had some basic conversational Swedish and was able to joke around with him.”

Sandgren gave Slininger his first taste of operating, beginning with commercials, then as B-camera on Promised Land (2012, dir. Gus Van Sant). Van Sant‘s early features, such as Drugstore Cowboy (1989, DP Robert Yeoman ASC) and My

“Damien’s an impressive cinephile with a strong vision; it’s really satisfying to be able to work with someone like that,” says Slininger. “By the time we shot Babylon, I think he considered me a second shooter; he would send me off with several abstract references to capture reactions or inserts. Fortunately, I have enough of a cinematographic vocabulary that I could understand him. An important part of being a good operator is learning how to speak the director and DP’s language.

“Our camera PA on First Man asked me what I thought the hardest part about operating was,” jokes Slininger lightly, “I told her it was reading people’s minds.”

First Man was both a career highlight and a shoot of immense physical and mental endeavour for Slininger. The movie depicts Neil Armstrong’s personal experiences before and during the 1969 mission to the moon.

“90% of the movie was shot handheld,” details Slininger. “We shot both 16mm and 35mm 2-perf, which meant that our 400ft magazines ran for almost nine minutes before rolling out. Damien rarely cut mid-roll.”

Chazelle, wanting his cast to experience the claustrophobia of space travel, had built the Apollo 11 shuttle set-pieces to scale. Slininger would be handheld inside the astronauts’ quarters, with Sandgren outside on a crane.

“Jamming myself into the spacecraft was always an insanely awkward and physical contortion,” remarks Slininger. “I frequently had my camera in Ryan Gosling’s face. There were moments where he knew I was struggling in the middle of the scene and he would shift his weight to help my framing, and vice versa.”

After wrap, Gosling implored Chazelle to acknowledge Slininger’s operating, in the event of the director winning a second Oscar for First Man

“Hearing that, my heart melted,” relates Slininger emotionally, “I felt so proud of all the work that I was able to do there.”

Slininger’s operating on the apocalyptic black comedy Don’t Look Up (2021, dir. Adam McKay, DP Linus Sandgren FSF ASC) was, by contrast, often based on dolly movement, but this had its own unique challenges. Certain scenes would be blocked in such a way that the two cameras would start at opposite ends of the room on separate members of the cast, then move, following their subjects, through several distinct compositions before converging in a single shared conversation from two angles.

“Linus and I had to choreograph our dollies,” says Slininger, “it was very tricky to hit all the beats.”

The crew had been shooting for several weeks before Meryl Streep, who plays fictional US President

Pre-2018, Slininger was pursuing a move towards DP, and had picked-up several credits such as the feature film Justine (2019, dir. Stephanie Turner), 2nd unit work on La La Land and numerous commercials. But the last five years have seen him ease off the accelerator in this regard.

“For now, I want to appreciate the position I am in,” Slininger reasons. “I am very happy as an operator, and I’m very fortunate to be able to contribute to some fantastic projects. If I approach my role with integrity and do the best I can, eventually the right opportunity will come. You get back what you put out.”

In the summer of 2022, Slininger operated on bodybuilding drama Magazine Dreams (2023 dir. Elijah Bynum, his first movie with Australian cinematographer DP Adam Arkapaw ACS, known for Top Of The Lake (2013) and True Detective (2014).

“Adam is very nice, mildmannered and reserved at times,” divulges Slininger. “Tapping into what he wanted definitely tested my intuition skills. The scenes have a very deliberate composition with as little camera movement as possible. I had to predict the edges of frame so that the actors could move into those edges without me having to pan with them. It was a wonderful challenge that sharpened my attention.”

Janie Orlean, joined the production for her first scenes.

“I don’t often get star-struck, but I was excited to see her,” admits Slininger. “My camera was set-up on the dolly and she walked right by me towards her first position. I gave a small nod. When she was about ten feet away, she turned and gave me a little bow.

“That was such a special moment,” he continues. “I feel like it was an acknowledgement that we were in it together. It was very encouraging from someone like her.”

Slininger still enjoys photography and says be shoots with a 4x5 or 8x10 large format camera “once in a while”. In between projects he prioritises spending time with his siblings, nieces, and nephews, relishing the opportunity to be a favourite uncle. What little downtime left to him after that is mopped-up with the pursuit of ursine pleasures, such as rambling in the wilderness and, well, sleeping of course!