American Cinematographer - February 2017 - 70

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Shot From the Heart

Right: Garcia
shreds a lightstand-turned-airguitar while on
set in Tanzania
in 2014.
Below: The
cinematographer
surrounded by
his crew on
location in 2015.

went out to Pasadena and shot it all
available-light. I couldn't afford to soup
it, so I put it in the closet. Two years later,
I had it souped, cut it together, added a
soundtrack and started knocking on
doors. Art Tostado at CFI had sniptested and color corrected it for me.
When I brought it to Zoetrope and
showed it to Storaro, he said, 'Ron, this is
beautiful. Don't copy anybody. This
movie is from the heart; you shoot from
70

February 2017

the heart.' I was really changed by that.
It freed me to experiment with what my
photography should be, and from then
on, I got a lot of work - thanks to Art
Tostado."
Garcia's contributions to the
ASC include 10 years of service on the
Technology Committee, chaired by
Curtis Clark, ASC. "It was Steve Poster
who encouraged me to volunteer for the
Tech Committee, and I fell head over
American Cinematographer

heels for that group," says Garcia. "It's
what the ASC is truly about: art, technology and fellowship. The committee
is mostly engineers, very few cameramen, and they all come in, take off their
'company' hats, roll up their sleeves, and
work on digital-camera and post standards for the industry. Curtis has done
an amazing job with it; I think the
committee's work is helping the entire
motion-picture industry."
As part of his work for the
Technology Committee, Garcia coproduced the first ASC-DCI Standard
Evaluation Material project, which
established and documented voluntary
specifications for an open architecture
for digital cinema. As chair of a subcommittee, he developed a "connectivity
manual" - with visual-concept assistance from cinematographer Tim Kang
and graphic designer Ben Michaels -
that explained the Academy Color
Encoding System, a device-independent
color-management and image-interchange system that can be applied to
almost any current or future workflow.
The manual depicted the ACES interface from camera to theatrical projection. The charts were completed and
presented to the Tech Committee.
Garcia has since taken up sculpting, working on his art in Taos, N.M. In
addition, last fall he volunteered to
mentor film students at the University of
New Mexico and taught visual-arts and
cinematography fundamentals to
teenagers at a local charter school. He
remains open to stepping behind the
camera again if an inspiring indie should
come along. "I stayed in television until
my daughter, my fifth child, finished
college, and once she did, I realized I had
earned some 'me' time - so I now enjoy
making my personal art. When I shoot
again, I want to work with young filmmakers, and I want it to be an independent project. I want to have fun like I did
when I was a snot-nosed filmmaker with
a small crew, and everyone was there
because we all loved what we were
doing."
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 2017