The Beginnings
This picture might be irrelevant for everyone, but this is how I started. My Great Grandpa Karl Ritter was a Director in the 20's and his 1st son Karl Heinz Ritter was at age his cinematographer or Cameraman as it was called back then, never met my Grandpa, but I did know my Great Grandpa, he told me to draw when I was a little child, and thanks to my Grand Uncle I inherit many stories of cinema since I was a child, my father when to advertising and communication, so he stood close to the tree as well. So as you can see in this context it was pretty straight since I was about 15 years old that I wanted to become a filmmaker. So I went to Film School where I lived, Buenos Aires, and majored in Cinematography. Great input there, but the last year I started to work in Advertising in a Production Company as a 2nd Camera Assistant taking good care of their own cameras 35mm at that time.
You have a Lucky Private Star my mom told me, it was not easy to get a job back then in a very tight Industry. So thats when the train departed.
I remember the owner of the company, director Carlos Sorin, in the fist tete a tete told me:" what you want to do?" .... a cinematographer I said... - "easy your a 2nd AC then first and a bit later cinematographer! with a big smile... I still don't get if it was sincere or sarcastic, anyhow it took me 15 years to overcome my fears and finally become a Director of Photography. Sad I did not jump into it before, would have gotten much more experience by now... but everything has its flip side, as I was traveling thru that though journey of being a good camera assistant, I got to work with many great Cinematographers Local and International ones, whom I still admire a lot. I guess all that background might have help in my personal growth as well, I hope.
Goal to this Blog...
This blog is not meant to shine on me but to share the things I do and how we crafted them, and if possible to help someone in his o her own work or hopefully some day get feedback from them to help our own.
As I heard one time from a Cinematographer... "Keep you ego low and you ears open, you never know when or who is going to give you a great idea".
In this blog I will discuss craftsmanship and aesthetics in my own jobs, also equipment as cameras, lenses, colour, gels, lights, grip gear, technics, edit (probably refering to whoever edit the jobs I work in), and most importantly the work with Directors and how to help them get where they what they want or even help them improve the visual approach to their story.-
