Where does the director’s job end and the DOP’s begin?
In Depth Cine describes a spectrum upon which directors are situated in terms of the amount of their control upon creating the image – and, consequently, the ways in which their cinematographers might then respond in order to collaborate effectively:
Drive (2011) cinematographer Newtown Thomas Sigel describes “a massive range” of director / cinematographer dynamics he personally has experienced, from directors who give “absolutely no input on what the camera should do”, to directors such as Sidney Lumet who decide shots and even lenses during pre-production (from around 4:03, via CookeOptics TV):
Further Viewing
The curious case of award-winning feature Phantom Thread (2017), in which director Paul Thomas Anderson and his crew collaborated around the cinematographer-shaped hole in their production:
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