How started your passion for photography first through may be the visual impact of an expressive face or the grandiosity of a natural landscape and the relentlessly game that the sun with light and darkness normally engages between this two elements of life?

My mother gave me an old Nikon FM when I was very young and I started taking pictures with it. None of them were very good, but I think it was a great way for me to begin thinking about looking at the world through a lens, through a frame. My interest in visual storytelling really stated in the theater however, working as a lighting technician and stage hand. I loved the collaborative aspect of that environment – creating something singular with a group of people really appealed to me.

And what sparked your interest in cinematography?

As a student I was quite interested in science and math but I also loved photography and art. I was never a good athlete but as I said before I really enjoyed the collaborate aspect of the theater but a life inside a black box didn’t appeal to me, I wanted to travel and explore the world. Cinematography seemed to perfectly fit my interests and aspirations. 

Where did you train and or study? Who were your early teachers or mentors?

Before university I worked at a local television station as a runner, I did essentially anything they wanted from getting coffee to carrying equipment, it was a great introduction to the production environment. The best part was I got to spend as much time as I wanted in the studio. There I got to meet the camera operators and lighting technicians. I also went out on location with them. That experience really reinforced the idea of a life behind the camera. I then went to study film production and specifically cinematography at Emerson College in Boston Massachusetts in the United States. While at university I met a number of local Boston crew members. At the time Boston had a very active independent cinema scene with a lot of opportunities for assertive students like myself. I started working as a grip and electrician on small local films. While studying I also began working for the fine art photographer Gregory Crewdson who is well known for lighting his photographs in a cinematic style. I worked for him for many years and his style and aesthetic really informed my taste I think. 

Which film of the past has impressed you most in terms of cinematography in your artistic training?

I think the most important thing you learn in film school is how to think critically about cinema and where you are introduced to films – this is also how you learn about and shape your own taste. I don’t think skill or technique can be learned in film school, there isn’t really time. I hadn’t seen much international cinema before I was in film school and it was there where I was first introduced to Krzysztof Kieślowski, Roman Polanski, Andrei Tarkovsky and Ingmar Bergman. All their films really struck me because they are all so deliberately photographed. Take a film like ‘Chinatown’ for example; every frame is a deliberate choice, its intentional and crafted with specific attention to story driven blocking and character. The same could be said for a film like ‘Three Colors: Blue’ by Kieślowski or any of Tarkovsky’s films. Vittorio Storaro’s work in ‘Apocalypse Now’ also was an early influence of course. That said nobody has influenced me more then Gordon Willis. I think the thing that is most impressive about his career is the variety of work he created. All his films look different and are equally impressive as individual pieces. “Godfather Part 2’, ‘Klute,’ ‘All the Presidents Men’ and ‘Manhattan’ are absolute favorites of mine.  

Early in your career, you worked as a gaffer, which instilled a strong technical knowledge of lighting and grip equipment: we mention your experience for example in the series Bones – cinematography by Gordon Lonsdale, ASC – with whom you worked for six seasons. In the meantime you also gained experience as a cinematographer, shooting commercials, short films and documentaries. What can you tell us about those formative years? Your work as a gaffer undoubtedly served you well once you became a cinematographer…

I think everyone has to walk their own path but for me working as a gaffer was absolutely a wonderful way to learn and hone my own skills. When you are an operator for example you are immediately at the center of the action and develop a good understanding of staging, composition and scene structure which are vitally important to filmmaking obviously but in most cases you spend very little time in prep with the director and cinematographer. Personally I feel the most important decisions a cinematographer makes are in prep. For me cinematography is all about understanding the directors process and supporting them and their process as you can. Prep is where this is learned. It’s also where a cinematographer sets oneself up to win. As a gaffer you often have several weeks of prep, go on early scouts with the Director and DP and watch how they solve the creative problems that arise. It was a wonderful way to learn. “Bones” was a big budget American television show. It was also a high pressure environment where Gordon Lonsdale was expected to deliver a high quality look with very little time. I learned an enormous amount from him, especially blocking, screen direction, and lighting for multi camera. Later I worked for some of the modern masters of cinematography including many years with Claudio Miranda ASC, Jeff Cronenweth ASC, and Phedon Papamichael ASC. Everyday cinematographers are presented more or less similar problems; the changing sun, whether to prioritize lens height or back light, and most importantly time management. All the DoPs I worked with handled these problems differently and it was an incredibly valuable way to learn. 

With Gone Girl the turning point of your career, when the cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, ASC – with whom you collaborate as a gaffer – recommended David Fincher to hire you as a cinematographer for the Netflix next series Mindhunter, exactly?

I don’t know exactly when Jeff recommended me but David and I had already developed a friendly relationship during and after Gone Girl. At the time Jeff was very busy with his family and other projects and couldn’t spend a year in Pittsburgh. I honestly hadn’t shot very much when I received the call from David so I was quite surprised. I was working as Claudio Miranda’s gaffer on a film called ‘Only the Brave’ in New Mexico at the time and had to leave the project to join Fincher on location. Claudio was immediatly supportive and I will always be enormously thankful for that. It changed the course of my life.

David Fincher then assigns you the cinematography of Mank, your first feature film, with which you won the Academy Award. The same happened in 1969 to our italian colleague Pasqualino De Santis with Franco Zeffirelli Romeo e Giulietta gaining an Oscar at his first film as Cinematographer after a career as camera operator. Not so frequent events surely revealing explosive new talents… On my own experience making films needs that our own talent, less or more relevant it could be, has to be subjected each time to what I call the challenge of the jump in the circle of fire. Together with the director we jump in the only direction that we think as being may be the more risky but the more promising too. How would you describe your working dynamic, and the evolution of your creative relationship with Fincher? You totally worked together in Gone Girl, Mindhunter, Mank and The Killer…

“Mank” was obviously an incredibly special film. During Mindhunter David and I had developed a very close working relationship. I think we understand each other quite well. When David and I walk on the set we don’t have to say very much to each other, its very natural and easy. Often times we will just point and nod as to where the next shot is or what direction to look. I think that is half the battle, ultimately I think directors need cinematographers that support their process and ideas but also push them to explore alternative ideas and visual concepts. David and I definitely have that relationship. He can be quite forceful with his ideas as they are generally extremely well developed but he will also always pause to listen to me if I disagree of want to suggest a different way to handle something visually. 

Let’s focus on your splendid work in Mank, shot in black and white as is known: it frames the origin story of masterpiece Citizen Kane directed and interpreted by Orson Welles from the perspective of screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz. Shooting Mank, so interconnected by its historical moment with the Welles masterpiece and the magnificent work of Gregg Toland, ASC what kind of emotional but also practical attitude did you felt and adopted facing a full world of quite iconic images (through extensively use of deep focus, wide angles, almost constant low camera positions and balance imbalance in the use of light and shadow) and all referred to a source of inspiration so powerful?

I was terrified when we began “Mank”. Gregg Toland is one of history’s master cinematographers and a hero of mine. I felt enormous pressure to respect his work when we began the prep on the film. We used the ‘Citizen Kane’ as a conceptional reference but the reality was that our film, ultimately, was much different from Kane. Orson’s film was primarily interiors while ours had quite a bit of location work and a lot of day exterior. I went on a deep study of black and white photography and began to collate the various styles, of which there are many. Ultimately I felt that the film be best structured with a mix of B/W styles. The flashback sequences were shot in a classic 1940s noir style with a lot of contrast and hard light while the “contemporary” scenes were shot with more of a soft light modern style.

On what a mesure a carismatic director as Fincher did help you to proceed on a style that also with such a kind of almost untouchable references arrives to exist and impose itsef as a remarcable achievement and as if relaunching in full force, after precisely eight decades, the primeval nature of black and white images?

Its very difficult to find a director with as much technical skill and knowledge as David Fincher. This, for a cinematographer is an incredible asset. David and I are able to simultaneously have a very nuanced conversation about aesthetics, story, theme, and concepts while also having a deeply technical conversation about camera technology, depth of field, resolution and post production. Our hope was to not replicate classic b/w photography but to develop our own look in pursuit of the film.

You shot with a custom-designed Red kit — an 8K Ranger camera with a monochrome Helium sensor. Did you ever consider shooting with a color sensor and converting to black-and-white or not?

We shot a variety of tests, both with the monochrome sensor and the color camera. Initially I actually expected the color camera to give us more options in post as we could use secondaries in the color correction to precisely adjust contrast. After testing however it became clear that the monochrome sensor was far superior, not just in contrast and tonality but also speed which helped enormously with our plan for “deep focus.”

The director or yourself ever considered the option to shoot Mask with a chemical process? Something that seems as if resuscitating nowadays in the minds of new talented and courageous climbers. The Oscar for Cinematography this year and other Oscar winners for Best Picture, Best International Feature Film, Best Live Action Short and Best Cinematography were all captured on KODAK film…

We didn’t, but we looked at a lot of film projection. Both David and I have enormous respect for the photochemical process and generally like the results. That said I don’t think the film process supports our specific method anymore when we work together. We are extremely precise with every frame, with focus, with lighting, and camera movement, its challenging to work at this level of precision with film, which in all honestly comes with enormous variables. The ability to see the image immediately on set, to adjust framing to the pixel, and the lighting exactly as we want, in the moment is deeply valuable, at least with how we make movies together. This is not an indictment against film at all, it’s a reflection of how methodology and technique affect the ultimate result, and also, I think, an exploration as to how to manipulate a given tool to yield a very specific result. 

In the celluloid era the course of events Kilimangiaro mountain was as if we were each time climbing with a crew advancing one after the other following the the director and in line at a certain precisely established distance attached all to the same rope by indissoluble knots when in our digital era we go from DIT’s position to Cinematographer’s position all almost simultaneously and each of us hand in the hand like running on a flat terrain shoulder against shoulder (we press each other to chek on screen every shot) and this can be considered in a different and opposite manner. We can think that we lost something in the teaching deepness of practice of work but at the same time we could at the opposite believe that we gained al lot in terms of immediate personal revealed creativity?

I think you are right, and that is one of the reasons I am deeply appreciative of my career path. I think the hierarchy of the film set, the respect for the position, and the mentorship process is deeply important. I believe there is more to being a Director of Photography than good taste and a fast digital camera. You need to get all the troops pointed in the same direction, you have to motivate but also control the situation towards your and the directors specific goals. Filmmaking is not, and should not be a democracy in my opinion, its a place where an enormous group of people rally behind a common leader in the interest of their, specific artistic goals. There is always room for “contribution” but ultimately I think we have to understand that the history of our craft is the ultimate teacher.

Shooting Mank, what made you choose Leitz Summilux-C lenses? Have you used Harrison Orange 2 filter for tonal separation between skin tones and backgrounds?

Yes, I did a variety of lens tests. We wanted to shoot at very deep stops, not just because Gregg Toland shot Citizen Kane with deep stops for depth of field but because we both felt that B/W, or specifically the type of B/W photography we wanted to do looks better with more depth. At very deep stops lenses actually lose resolution due to optical “defraction.” These effects are actually exaggerated when blue wavelengths are present so day exteriors or HMI lit shots tend to exhibit more problems. Therefore I tried to use as much tungsten light as possible and when we couldn’t, or were shooting outside I used a harrison orange 2 to filter out the blue light. 

What can you tell us about the decision to shoot in 2.21:1 aspect ratio? You rightly avoided shooting in a more period-appropriate format …right?

For me aspect ratio is directly related to scene structure and location. Mank is primarily told in two shots and traditional 1.33:1 frames don’t, in my opinion, frame two shots particularly well. Obviously there are nostalgic reasons to shoot in the square frame, and we discussed it but ultimately we felt it would be more a distraction than a help in terms of celebrating our characters performances and telling the story visually. 

In Mank many modern methods were used to create a vintage look: virtual production techniques employing LED walls and pre-made background imagery made scenes such as extended drives through 1930s-vintage Los Angeles and the California desert possible, as well as an outdoors sequence between Mank (Gary Oldman), and Davies (Amanda Seyfried), in the garden at Hearst Castle, at night. The scene was shot during the day using a night effect technique. To ensure that the actors’ expressions would stand out from the background, numerous lights were used, some of which were pointed straight in their faces…During pre-production, you worked with Fincher’s regular DI colourist Eric White, to develop HDR viewing LUTs, including one for the day-for-night sequence just mentioned, which artificially underexposed the camera by 3.5 stops while enhance the highlights. Is it correct?

Correct. We employed every trick in the book to accomplish the film, especially considering many of the classic hollywood locations sadly no longer exist. We shot day-for-night primarily as the location we had selected had extremely limited access for large lighting cranes. We also felt it would be a playful nod to classic hollywood cinema technique. Eric and I had done ‘Mindhunter’ together and have an excellent working relationship. We built a variety of LUTS, including the Day-for-Night looks so I could better judge fill levels while we were shooting. 

After Mank, again with Fincher, a very different film like The Killer, starring Michael Fassbender. A return to the past for the director, to the thriller genre…for you a visual narrative decidedly opposite to the black and white of Mank? Always shot with Red (V-Raptor ST 8K VV) and with the same lenses as the previous one?

Yes, we used the same lens kit but changed bodies, this time to the newer V-Raptor. The camera has improved color science and better sensitivity which was important for the lighting environments I would be subject to in the photography of the film.

The camera follows the protagonist, becoming a ‘character’ in the scene? There are a surprising amount of visual effects and CGI, right?

Our goal with VFX is to keep them as hidden as possible. For us VFX are not for “fixing” things, but more for enhancement or creative problem solving. David uses a lot of split screens, set extension and comp to give him the most flexibility during production.

You recently shot the film Ferrari in Italy, directed by Michael Mann. Among the reference, you choosed a painterly look for Ferrari’s personal history and a aggressive camera for racing?

Correct, Michael and I discuss the film having two distinct styles; one with the “dramatic” portions of the scene having a classical, italian renaissance inspired lighting style and the other with a more expressive frenetic style. The hope was that the color grade would blend the two. I wanted the film to have a creamy warm feel. When I look at classic italian painting, especially Caravaggio or Titian I immediately respond to the underexposed top light that is so present in their work. The paintings have a soft but contrasty quality that felt very appropriate as a reference for “Ferrari”.

You shot with the Sony Venice 2, while the main lenses were Panavision Panaspeed primes, custom-tuned by ASC associate Dan Sasaki. What can you add about that?

I don’t really view the camera as having an aesthetic part to play in the photography of a film. For me they are simply tools, like a tennis racket or a hammer; each bringing their own unique qualities to the process. On Ferrari I knew that we would be working very quickly, with slightly less precision than I was familiar with with Fincher. Michael is more of an expressive filmmaker than Fincher, and someone who embraces spontaneity openly. I wanted to shoot the film with very controlled T-stops so the integrated ND filters in the Venice made it the perfect choice.

What are the differences between Fincher and Mann regarding cinematography? Their approach, their vision?

One of the great pleasures of the Cinematographers life is the opportunity to work with directors across a broad spectrum of styles and techniques. David is very specific, he will spend hours crafting a specific shot or scene while Michael is more frenetic in his approach. Both have very specific ideas of what they are looking for however. Michael likes to use the camera to influence his actors performances, which I think is interesting, he will put the lens very close to actos sometimes when he wants them venerable or very far when he wants to observe. I learned a lot from him. 

How do you feel about the collaboration with an Italian crew filming inside the historical Cinecittà Studios, in the next Ridley Scott film?

I love working in Italy. Cinecittà, and Italy in general obviously have a long history in filmmaking and its wonderful to watch how the local crew solve the problems I create for them. Part of the joy of my life is the travel and building a cinema family.

*Opening interview of the third issue of the AIC Bulletin magazine [June, 2025]