American Cinematographer - February 1993 - 76

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This
Publication....

Dan Kneece gets set
to follow actor Jim

Belushi for a

scene

in the film Mr.

Destiny.
knew I wanted
to make films
and to work on
the camera."

Despite that
early rush of
enthusiasm,
Kneece

is Available in

MICROFORM
For

Complete Information

WRITE

:

University
Microfilms

International
Dept. F A.

Dept. F.A

300 North Zeeb Road

18 Bedford Row

Ann Arbor, Ml 48106

London, WC1 R 4EJ

U.S.A.

England

was

working to¬
ward a degree
in pharmacol¬
ogy at the Uni¬
versity of South Carolina when a
summer at University of Southern

J

BIACKER

STRONGER
HOLDS ON

LONGER
FOIL CAN SPOIL
SO GET THE

California's Summer Cinema pro¬
gram (held in conjunction with
Universal Studios) changed the
course of his life. "I'd
always been
fascinated by the movie business,"
he explains, "but being on the Uni¬
versal lot two days a week really

room," he says now. "I wanted to
work with people." One day, he
heard that Garrett Brown would be

got me excited." When Kneece re¬
turned to school in South Carolina,
he changed his major to Media

person who likes to learn as much
about my machines as possible."
Brown's class had the standard

Arts.

impact on Kneece: it revolutionized
his perspective on cinema and gave

Media Arts stimulated

Kneece, and he stayed on at the
University to earn his masters' de¬
gree. His thesis film was an ani¬
mated wax project titled Cera
(Spanish for "was") which opened
the first Los Angeles International
Film Festival. During his graduate
school years, he took a job as a news
at a local TV station.
Film cameras were on the way out,
cameraman

and the

new

video

cameras

weighed in at about 40 lbs. Despite
the weight, Kneece learned to move
quickly "and to get it right, because
there's no time for mistakes in news

shooting."
The heavy handheld cam¬
gave him good preparation for
Steadicam work; he gained signifi¬
eras

THE REAL WRAP

CHEAPER
BLACKWRAR
THE ORIGINAL

OfaTHE GREAT AMERICAN

cant

experience shooting hostage

rallies: his tenure at the TV station
coincided with the Iranian hostage

NOW

crisis, and because he covered

Miami. Kneece describes himself as
"the kind of technically oriented

him a new vocation. Another
Steadicam operator was bom.
For at least five years,
Kneece was the only Steadicam

operator ("or the only one I knew
of") in the North and South Carolinas and
Georgia. He got a lot of re¬
gional work, including an interest¬
ing-sounding project called Blue
Velvet. Kneece almost nothing

about the film when he was hired,
but one morning a call sheet was

slipped under his door. He jumped
10 feet when he

saw that the direc¬
David Lynch, one of his
idols. After seeing Dune, Kneece
had decided that if he could pick a
director to work with, it would be

tor

was

Lynch. "And there I was, about to
start working with him," Kneece
recalls. "I was very nervous."
Blue Velvet gave Kneece
practice in some precarious situa¬
tions. The Arri BL3,

tion house after

scene,

graduation, but
that venture didn't satisfy his hun¬

826 N.COLE AVENUE

74

a

teaching a Steadicam course with
Toby Phillips and Randy Nolan in

night shift, Kneece was often called
on to shoot
"crazy people with
shotguns, things like that."
Kneece opened an anima¬

MARKET

HOLLYWOOD CA 90038
TELEPHONE 213/461-0200 * FAX 213/461-4308

ger for live-action film production.
"I got tired of staying in a dark

February 1993

mounted on an

older 51-pound arm that had been
converted to be fully adjustable,
was a

heavy combination. For one

Kneece had to follow Kyle
MacLachlan down five stories of
American Cinematographer - February 1993

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