Q: What's the Difference Between God and a Cinematographer?

A large number of cinematographers on American film sets happen to be from countries other than the United States. I honestly believe some of them land DP jobs not merely by dint of their talent, but because of their thick accents and cool-sounding names. Hell, some of their names are cool looking. I have personally worked with Polish, German, French, Japanese, British, Peruvian, Mexican, Dutch, Australian, and Danish cinematographers.

Nigel Bluck (not pictured here), a talented Direktor von Fotografie from New Zealand, once mentioned to me that no appropriate adjective exists to describe something from his country. His statement left me with many follow up questions, all of which he refused to answer--an interaction that could stand in for almost any interaction beween an AD and a DP on a film set.

I worked as the first assistant director on an Egyptian movie that was produced by a French company. We shot in New York and New Jersey. (I don’t know what they were thinking either.) One of the producers was a wonderful and entertaining man named Daniel whose English grammar was pitch-perfect, but who spoke in a deliciously thick French accent. Everything he said sounded tasty, or intellectual, and sometimes both. His chain smoking no doubt added a lot. One day he described for me the decidedly odd filigree of our cinematographer, who was soon to arrive in New York from his home in the U.K.

“Hong,” (also not pictured here) he said, “is Chineeze of fayze, Sowz Afreecan by birz, and Eengleesh in manner of speaking.” Years later, and I am still laughing about that one.

There are plenty of talented American cinematographers too (one is pictured here), but none of them sound as fancy-pants as the foreigners when they ask where craft service is.

[A: God doesn't think he's a cinematographer.]