An In-Depth Focus on Cinematography (Rerun)

Originally released on Oct. 8, 2023

What is the difference between a cinematographer, camera operator, and director of photography? Has there been more gender diversity behind the scenes? What is the difference between filming on digital versus film? These questions and more are covered in this episode as host Tara Jabbari speaks with the award-winning South African cinematographer and camera operator, Pascale Neuschafer.

To learn about Pascale’s work, visit: https://www.instagram.com/pascaleneuschafer/
https://quickbrownfox.co.za/

To learn more about the International Collective of Female Cinematographers (ICFC), visit:
https://www.icfcfilm.com/ 

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Transcript

0:00:02 - Director
Quiet on the set, all together, please, and action. 

0:00:10 - VO
Welcome to Media Monuments presented by Women in Film Video in Washington DC. Media Monuments features conversations with industry professionals speaking on a range of topics of interest to screen-based media makers. 

0:00:27 - Tara Jabbari
Welcome to Media Monuments. Pascal Nuscheffer is an award-winning South African cinematographer and camera operator, working in the UK and South Africa. She has worked with different companies, including HBO, and is a member of the International Collective of Female Cinematographers. Welcome to the show, pascal. 

0:00:48 - Pascual Nuscheffer
Thank you so much for having me on the show, Tara. So right now you're in London, I am. The sun has finally come out. 

0:00:56 - Tara Jabbari
And you work in both London and Cape Town. 

0:01:00 - Pacual Nuscheffer
I do I spend six months in Cape Town, and I spend the other six months of the year in London. 

0:01:05 - Tara Jabbari
Nice. What is a cinematographer? 

0:01:08 - Pacual Nuscheffer
A cinematographer is the head of the camera department in either commercials or narrative or music videos or documentaries or whatever it is that you're shooting, and they are often the camera operator as well, and they're in charge of everything that encompasses the camera department, so that's lighting, grips, rigging, and, of course, in the modern age, the camera department then encompasses a whole bunch of digital technicians as well, who are in charge of the data. 

0:01:37 - Tara Jabbari
You know, I was doing a little research on your background and you started as an actor. How did you do that shift, or? 

0:01:44 - Pacual Nuscheffer
why Well before I graduated I was working as an actor, but I also started, very coincidentally, making documentary films. I was working in an archive at the University of Cape Town and it was an oral history repository where there had lots of stories from people all over South Africa and they were slowly moving into making films about this. We had three main rows in Cape Town where we interviewed people who either lived on the street, worked on the street or used the street to commute throughout Cape Town and at the time was shooting and editing and doing a little bit of directing, and I quickly realized that what I really enjoyed was the work behind the camera. And then fast forward. A few years later I eventually left my acting career and I did a Masters in Narrative Cinematography in London and hence my connection here and it feels so technical. 

0:02:46 - Tara Jabbari
What was it that from the directing and acting and things like that, what really drew you to the camera? 

0:02:52 - Pacual Nuscheffer
and being a cinematographer you have a lot of autonomy as a cinematographer not that you don't have a lot of autonomy as a director or an actor either. I think for me, it's the challenge of especially in narrative which is really where my passion lies is telling narrative stories, creating an image that has an emotional impact on people. Photographers I have so much respect in all for them because they don't have an entire sequence. They have one shot to evoke something within the viewer, and I think the other thing that I love about cinematography is it's such a wonderful fusion of being very technical and also being incredibly creative and moving your body, which is why I love camera operating so much. A lot of my actor training was dance and movement, and I had specialized in physical theater, so I always think of myself when I'm especially when I'm working handheld, as just another dancer on the stage with the actors. 

0:03:57 - Tara Jabbari
Oh, that's like a good visual. I'll admit that I confused the director and the cinematographer when it comes to how the shot will look like, what the scene will look like. Can you share the differences Like when is it the director's job, when is it the cinematographer's job? 

0:04:14 - Pacual Nuscheffer
So the director and the cinematographer have an incredibly collaborative relationship and the cinematographer usually comes on very early on in the pre-production process and one of my favorite ways of working with the director is to watch lots and lots and lots of movies together so that we have an idea of where we're going. Different directors and different cinematographers work differently or they work differently together. So sometimes I work with directors who are incredibly technically minded and they know what lens they want on and when they draw storyboards, they know exactly what they want it to look like. And sometimes I work with directors who have an idea of what they want it to look like, but often they'll say what they want it to feel like. And I think, in terms of where it gets very technical and the director is probably going to be a lot less hands off because they're the person who is answering every single department's questions is when lighting comes in. So setting up lighting, setting up the technicalities of the camera that's something where a director which usually not get involved Camera departments can become quite big. A lot of cinematographers will get involved with the storyboarding. 

I often like to go on location with the director. If we don't have time for a storyboard. What we do is we do photo boards, but we have a clear idea together of what it's going to look like. So we spend a lot of time in prep. So we know on the day when we arrive, and we know there are going to be other little fires to put out and things won't go according to plan. But we have to be on the same page. We have to be making the same film, which is why watching films and having visual references is always so helpful. 

0:05:59 - Tara Jabbari
That's such a cool idea of you. Look at other projects or other films and things like that and what you guys liked about this and what you did not like about something. It sounds like it's like a mom and dad team and then the whole set are the kids. Where you're like lighting. I told you do it one more time, watch what happens, you know, kind of thing. Yeah. 

0:06:23 - Pacual Nuscheffer
I think also, often we don't just watch films. We might use photographs, or it might be a theater piece that you saw and you're like. You know that emotion that it evoked in you, or maybe a piece of music. So it's not uncommon for a director to go this is the music that we're going to use. That filmmaking narrative filmmaking, documentary filmmaking it is about you do want to evoke an emotional response from your viewer. 

0:06:50 - Tara Jabbari
You worked in the different types of content commercials, documentary, narrative, fiction, non-fiction, all that stuff. Have you noticed a common thread of? When it usually is documentary, it's usually like this, and if it's usually a narrative or fiction, it's like that. 

0:07:08 - Pacual Nuscheffer
Well, documentaries because they're not. I mean, they are scripted, but they're not scripted like a narrative film. They are usually in uncontrolled environments. Things on a film set are extremely controlled and things can be easily replicated. We can stop, we can do things again, whereas with documentary you have often one chance and if you miss it, you've missed it, and then you can't sit there beating yourself up about the fact that you've missed this one important shot. You need to keep going. 

I think with documentaries also because the budgets are often smaller, you're working with different cameras and often you're working with much smaller crews, which is sometimes better, because if you're cramped into a tiny space and there's only one little window and that's your only source of lighting, you don't want to be working with a big crew. Or if you're working with sensitive subject matter, it's easier to just be maybe a crew of two or three or four people. I think the other thing with documentaries is you have to and that's why I'm so glad that I started in documentaries is you have to be open to something happening in the moment that you weren't expecting. And sometimes that moment just happens and you go wow, we got that amazing moment on camera, or it's something that someone said or they did that you weren't expecting, whereas on a controlled set it's been rehearsed, and of course, things happen all the time that you weren't expecting, but it's the lack of control that you have makes documentaries very exciting and also sometimes quite anxiety inducing. 

0:08:46 - Tara Jabbari
Yeah, and your background. As you said, you were a stage performer as well and a dancer. Like everything is very choreographed and you guys know when the audience is going to applaud or something like that. So it sounds like it's similar when it's on a set. But if you, I don't know, do you have an improv background? Because then I feel like it's similar to the documentary where you're like anything can happen. 

0:09:10 - Pacual Nuscheffer
I have an improv background in contact and improv, which is improvised dance that uses a lot of body weight and lifting and falling to the floor, and I think the thing about the stage is that where, again, it differs from something being shot on screen or being an actor behind the camera. Of course, you're always open to those moments, but there's something very electrifying and magical about the stage, because no performance is ever the same, because, of course, there are different audience members and there's this invisible energy that flows between the actors and the dancers and the audience. Things happen, a light doesn't work, or a prop was not brought onto stage, or you forgot something, or you forgot a line, or your fellow actor forgot a line. So I think there's also something about it's just, it's the nerves that keep you on your toes and that makes it so alive and the camera operator. 

0:10:09 - Tara Jabbari
you're also a camera operator as well as cinematographer. What is the difference between those two? 

0:10:15 - Pacual Nuscheffer
The cinematographer is in charge of the rest of the departments. The cinematographer will determine how the set is going to be lit. The talent is going to be lit. Often, the camera operator might be a steady cam operator, so they have a specialized skill, they use special equipment, or they might be an underwater camera operator, or there might be multiple. It might be a multi-cam shoot where there are multiple camera operators and perhaps the DOP or the cinematographer is coordinating it from somewhere else. It's not unusual to see people with headsets, or they've just got a second camera operator. That being said, the camera operator is certainly not someone who sits there and waits for you to tell them how to frame up, and they're very experienced crew members who bring their own skill to the set. 

0:11:08 - Tara Jabbari
Working in different continents and countries. I only know of England and South Africa, but if you worked with other countries, have you seen a difference on how the cultures want their scenes? 

0:11:25 - Pacual Nuscheffer
Not between South Africa and the UK. I think the film industry is very similar and I haven't worked in the States, I wouldn't know about that. I know that some of the roles in the camera department are a little bit different in the States, so I think a GAFA is sometimes also a grip in the States, whereas in South Africa and the UK those are two separate roles. But no, I'd say that the industries are very similar. I think the only difference I've noticed is that in the UK they're a lot stricter about working hours not becoming ridiculously long 16, 18, 20-hour days. It happens, but it's seldom. 

0:12:08 - Tara Jabbari
There's been a discussion that now that more and more films, even big budget, they're going more digital than film and it's making things harder to see, it's always a little darker. I was watching the film blogger dissect that when we were on film you would use as much lighting as possible because it was easier to edit it to make it a little darker, versus now, on digital, you actually make less light so that you can edit it lighter later in the editing room. Is that true or have you noticed a difference? 

0:12:49 - Pacual Nuscheffer
No, I haven't noticed a difference. I don't know if I would agree with this person who said this. I think what has happened is that film cameras traditionally, without getting too technical, they have a much lower sensitivity to light, so you have to push a lot more light onto the talent and onto the set for the camera to read it, whereas digital cameras have a much higher sensitivity, higher, low. They need a lot less light to be lit. But I think what you're referring to, those are often creative choices that people are making to not you know, once upon a time in Hollywood, if you look at old black and white films, you'll see that actors are very harshly lit because they had to put. The technology of the lighting was also different, but they had to pump so much light onto the talent that you see hard shadows, whereas we don't need that now. So I think digital has given us a lot more, a lot more creative freedom. There's a lot more that you can do with this different lighting as well, that there's a lot more that you can also do with less lighting or I'm not saying no lighting, but I think that debate about things that become darker. I think there's a whole chain of digital Things that happen. So, whatever, the cinematographer is shocked, they have not made a mistake. But perhaps your screen is calibrated differently on your laptop, which is calibrated differently to your TV screen, and I think maybe people have also become bolder about. Sometimes it's okay to not see everything as Clearly as you. 

I know there was that big debate about is. Was it seen in the Lord of the Rings? With people like I can't see anything. The cinematographer must have. Yeah, game of Thrones, game of Thrones. I. I can assure you that the amount of money that it would have cost to shoot that the cinematographer did not make a mistake. There was an entire crew of people standing at a massive monitor watching this. That was a conscious, artistic and creative choice. 

0:14:49 - Tara Jabbari
Yeah, well, it's interesting about that. I think it was towards the end of the season. It's like night has fallen and it's a big war scene. And I watched it on my iPad in my bed and I Was like, oh, is it a little dark? So I just put the blanket of over me and Then I could watch it. Of course, then people will argue you shouldn't watch it on such a small screen, but then you can't control the lighting. But with a professional, I wanted to have you worked with film or mostly digital. Now I have worked mostly with digital. 

0:15:25 - Pacual Nuscheffer
I've done a little bit with film, but mostly with digital. Film is still it's still a very expensive medium, or still it has become probably an even more expensive medium To shoot on. Then it used to be, and interestingly enough it's. It's become so popular to shoot on film, even though it is expensive, because Film stock is expensive, the process of developing the film is expensive, that hiring film cameras at once upon a time Not that many years ago were standing on the shelves in the rental houses gathering dust, have now become Not that affordable to rent anymore. Yeah, I think in South Africa we don't even have, we don't have a lab that can develop film. So if you shot something on film you would have to send it to the UK or possibly the States or somewhere in Europe to have your film developed and then sent back to you. 

0:16:15 - Tara Jabbari
Oh, yeah, now you also are a member of the international collective of female cinematographers. Can you explain what that is, the ICFC? 

0:16:26 - Pacual Nuscheffer
for short is collective of so cinematographers in the higher end of so box office hits. A Few years ago, 2% of that was made up of women. I Think last year, and I stand to correction, the percentage has moved up to 7%. So the ICFC is about creating visibility around Female cinematographers. That we can push the 7% to 50%, hopefully. 

0:17:00 - Tara Jabbari
Yeah, that was what was unique that your background and your concentration is cinematography. I know famously Behind the scenes in particular. It's not a lot of diversity. It's not a lot of diversity at gender diversity. Even harder to see it in such a technical concentration like cinematography or camera operator. Were you nervous to get into it? Did you find anyone judging you or prejudging you or anything like that? 

0:17:31 - Pacual Nuscheffer
I've had fairly different experiences in South Africa and in the UK when I started, when I did my master's degree at Goldsmiths. I'm trying to think if we I think we were, I think there were 10 of us or eight of us and I think we were a 50-50 mix of men and women doing the cinematography class, but I think that had also the statistics had changed I think there's a much stronger push in the UK to get not only women but minorities into technical departments, directing departments, where they were and still are underrepresented. I think South Africa is still solely lagging behind. Often when I'm asked if I can't do a job and I'm asked for a female replacement, I can name five people and they're probably busy. I think in technical crews they can be very they are very male-heavy on set. 

I think the fact that I started my career in my 30s in the camera department was helpful. I think if I had started as an inexperienced young woman, I don't know that I would have lasted. There is a fair share of harassment and, I guess, just untoward behavior which, again, I have not experienced as much of. But I think it could be a different experience when you're young and I think it is slowly changing, but the rate of change is far too slow. 

0:19:10 - Tara Jabbari
What is some advice for people that are interested in looking into cinematography or camera operating or even direct. Like you said, they work so closely with the director. What makes it a good job and what makes it if you're not really good at this, recognizing those things? 

0:19:31 - Pacual Nuscheffer
There are so many amazing, fantastic things that make it a good job. If you're a team player, this is the job for you. It is so incredibly collaborative. If you like collaborating with people, this is a job for you. If you do not like collaborating with people, this is not the job for you. I think there are other departments in the film industry that might be better suited to you. 

I think you do need to have an incredible amount of I don't wanna say self-confidence, but you need to have a certain, you need to have quite a bit of grit, I think, to break into any creative career, but especially and this could be all creative careers that are oversaturated, and the film industry is oversaturated. Every year, the same amount of graduates graduate, as I don't know who told me this, as there are people currently in the industry and they're not saying oh sure, I'm gonna move out the way and make space for the young, and so it's a saturated industry, but I think it's also it's a changing industry. We consume so much more media. But, yeah, you need to. I would say stick at it. There will be a lot of disappointments, there will be a lot of rejections, and I'd also say drop the perfectionism, otherwise you're never gonna get anything done. We all want to see that perfect thing, but the clock is always racing against you and money's always racing against you. 

0:20:53 - Tara Jabbari
Is there anything that we didn't touch that you'd like to add? 

0:20:57 - Pacual Nuscheffer
You were asking about it being a male heavy, a male dominated industry. I still, when I go to tech expos or film festivals or conferences whatever I still, especially in the technical departments it's always white male voices dominating those conversations. And there are so many incredible female cinematographers who also have become incredible directors, and I think that these conversations are necessary, that they'll always be the panel of women in film, and it often becomes a conversation about the obstacles and the boundaries that we face, which we absolutely have to have those conversations. But I think the focus then sometimes falls away from the amazing work that women are doing in film, regardless of what department they're in female directors or female cinematographers. So now I want to hear more of those loud voices talking about their work, their amazing work. 

0:22:00 - Tara Jabbari
Thank you so much for coming on, you're welcome. 

I hope that I've shed some light on that, because I think a lot of people don't know what the cinematographer's job is and this is what I like about media and monuments is we like to speak to people from all the different departments that usually don't get a lot of attention, and if their job didn't exist, we wouldn't have the stories that we love, the films, the documentaries, the shows, these things. So I like having that time and to learn from your guys' experiences. So thank you so much. 

0:22:34 - Pacual Nuscheffer
Well, thanks so much. Thank you. It's been lovely chatting to you. 

0:22:39 - Speaker 2
Thank you for listening to Media and Monuments a service of women in film and video. Please remember to review, rate and subscribe wherever you listen to this podcast. For more information about WIF, please visit our website at wwwwifasenfrancvasenfichterorg. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page