As a cinematographer on feature films, I’m responsible for the look of the film and for taking the director’s vision and translating it visually—getting inside his or her head and interpreting how that person wants the story to look and feel. In the simplest terms, the work my crew and I do to choose the right cameras and lighting, select locations, set up for each scene, and operate the equipment to deliver the visuals transforms the words of the script into cinematic entertainment.

As you can probably imagine, building teams of professionals to do this work skillfully and efficiently—often across multiple, wide-ranging locations and under the financial and time pressures of a film’s production cycle—can be challenging. Part of my responsibility is to hire the lead team member for the three departments that I manage—camera, lighting, and grips—and then delegate the staffing of each of those departments to that lead. All of us work as contract or freelance employees, so the team has to be built from scratch for each project.