American Cinematographer - February 2017 - 18

On whether to take a project:
"If something is reasonably good
and you've got a special director
who's managed to get a great cast,
it's probably worth it. Or if it's an
amazing script with an unknown
director, then maybe that's worth
the gamble. You have to look at
all the pieces and help the client
make a decision based on all the
variables."
- Bill Dispoto,
Dattner Dispoto and Associates

February 2017

college at Northwestern University, just
north of Chicago, and as a freshman you
basically just work on older students'
projects. I worked in a number of areas, and
on one project I ended up in the electrical
department." She adds with a laugh, "We
worked on a rig that, in hindsight, probably
wasn't even all that great, but I got really
excited about creating this rig that the audience doesn't even see - they only see the
effects it creates."
After film school, Kelly worked her
way up in the electrical department on various sets, ultimately gaffing for director of
photography Zeus Morand. "I learned a lot
from him about lighting and what it takes to
American Cinematographer

Kuba Kijowski, PSC
As a teenager growing up in
Warsaw, Poland, Jakub "Kuba" Kijowski,
PSC struggled in school due to his dyslexia.
"I found writing to be a real problem," he
says. Luckily, some of his teachers discovered that he had a passion for visual storytelling and encouraged his interest in
photography. "We were still in the analog
era, so I spent my days in a darkroom that I
had set up in my bedroom," he recalls.
His interest in visual arts led him to
enroll at the prestigious Lodz Film School,
where he studied under cinematographers
Witold Sobocinski, PSC and Jerzy Wójcik,
PSC; the former received the ASC's International Award in 2002. They and director of
photography Jolanta Dylewska, PSC taught
him that "the job is not about technical

Kijowski photo courtesy of Intrinsic. Menges photo by Paula Harrowing.

Above: Jakub "Kuba" Kijowski, PSC (second from right, holding camera) on set.
Below: Cinematographer Oona Menges (far right) lines up a shot for the series
Different for Girls while director Campbell X (wearing hat and glasses) looks on.

be a good gaffer, and that ended up influencing a lot of my shooting work," she
recalls.
When director Tom Gustafson gave
Kelly her first major opportunity as a cinematographer on his feature Were the
World Mine, she realized that she had a
choice to make. "I started getting calls,"
she says, "and I would have to ask, 'Are you
calling me to gaff or are you calling me to
shoot?' I ultimately decided to just stop
gaffing altogether and focus on working as
a director of photography."
Since then, Kelly has built up a wideranging résumé that includes not only searing documentaries like 13th, but YouTube
Red's comedy series Sing It! and Hulu's East
Los High. Though she loves all of it, she
finds documentary filmmaking particularly
rewarding and notes that it informs her
fiction work. "I think my documentary work
makes me a better director of photography
for narrative projects," she explains. "On a
show like East Los High, I have more than
enough support - there are trucks with
almost every kind of light I could need.
Sometimes on a documentary, it's just you,
or you and a 1st AC and maybe a gaffer if
you're lucky, and you're often going into
locations you haven't scouted before. That
pared-down approach makes me a more
instinctive cinematographer, and it prepares
me to walk on a narrative set and really
make the most of whatever time and
resources I have."

American Cinematographer - February 2017

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