Director of Photography

Director of Photography
The Director of Photography, DoP or DP, is the chief of the camera and lighting crew of the film. The DoP makes decisions on lighting and framing of scenes in conjunction with the film's director. Typically, the Director tells the DoP how he or she wants a shot to look, and the DoP chooses the correct aperture, filter, and lighting to achieve the desired effect as per the Director's requirements.

Okay, so am I the only one that had NO idea that the "director" and the DoP were two different folks. Seems to me that the world of Film and TV are much more complicated than I knew. I just always assumed someone had this great idea, wrote a script (we'll get into that in more detail later) and then some big shot with a camera comes down and tells people how to get the story on the screen. I think that it actually is like a normal person with a camera taking family photos. The photographer knows that the family want to be centered and in focus, but having first talked over the requirements with the family (director) he then knows how to create the look the family desires. Look, I realize that this oversimplifies everything.. lol but this is my attempt to put into  layman's terms what the artists go through in each of their particular areas. I will discuss not only Film, but TV, Visual art and Literature. I hope that my blog will help others to have a grasp of how artists work and allow us to peek into their world.

Later Gators,
Leigh