American Cinematographer - February 2018 - 47

Photos courtesy of Russell Carpenter, ASC; Donna Conrad; and the ASC archives.

Opposite: Society
member Russell
Carpenter is the
recipient of this
year's ASC
Lifetime
Achievement
Award. This page,
left: The
cinematographer
at work on
director James
Cameron's Titanic.
Below: Carpenter
always has a
camera in hand.

not like nobody was taking care of us,
but after school, we were left to our own
devices, had our own friends and interests, and were able to develop that way."
Long before the idea of becoming
a professional cinematographer had
even occurred to Carpenter, his interest
in making Super 8 monster movies with
friend Chuck Woller hinted at where
his interests lay. In the summer of 1967,
he attended a class in media. "Two
teachers ran it and we talked about
music and they showed us films," he
recalls. "At that time, I was interested in
things like King Kong and the Japanese
film Godzilla, but they showed us two
films by Ingmar Bergman: Wild
Strawberries and Persona. I hardly
understood anything about Persona, but
the imagery, especially the opening, just
grabbed me by my teenage t-shirt and
yanked me out of my chair. I just felt it
was so powerful. That was the first
flicker of, 'My god! This medium has
the power to move me like no other.'"
At the suggestion of older sister
Maureen, Carpenter transferred to a
high school with an audiovisual
program, where he learned to shoot
pedestal-style TV work, which he
enjoyed and had a flair for. He then

sought out ways to feed his interest at
San Diego State College (now State
University). "I didn't have the money to
get anywhere near USC or UCLA," he
recalls, "and those places were ferociously
intimidating to me at the time."
It was in college where he met "a
really generous man named Paul
Marshall, a producer and manager at
KPBS-TV, a PBS affiliate. He kept
encouraging me. I think he was the first
person who said, 'It looks like Russell has
a gift for working with images.'" When
an opportunity arose to work in the
station's film department, Marshall
offered each of five applicants a 100'
spool of black-and-white reversal film
and access to a camera, and told them to
come back with a visual story edited
entirely in camera. Never shy of a challenge, Carpenter, Woller and another
close friend - now college classmates
- went to nearby Belmont Park to
shoot 68 several-second shots, in
sequence, of Woller's regret-filled rollercoaster ride. Carpenter carefully shotlisted what he'd need, which involved his
subject taking a full 68 trips, and
Carpenter covering the action from
multiple vantage points, which included
joining Woller a good 40 times around.
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The park was surprisingly willing to let
the two students monopolize the particularly rickety coaster all day. "I could
barely speak at the end of that day, but it
got me the job," Carpenter recalls. "I was
working for the station and learning a
lot more than I was in my classes."
Carpenter majored in English, a
degree that "had nothing and everything to do with filmmaking," he says. "I
February 2018

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 2018