Ace Cinematographer, John Seale Says Scrappy, Low-Budget Origins Provided Lifelong Lessons: ‘Give Me Ten Minutes, I Can Sort That out’
variety.comPatrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief John Seale, the Australian-born cinematographer who won an Oscar for “The English Patient” and has four other nominations for “Witness,” “Rain Man,” “Cold Mountain” and 2015’s “Mad Max: Fury Road,” was one of the highest-profile international guests at the ongoing International Film Festival of India.
In a Saturday masterclass, he examined multiple angles of cinematography and the wider film industry. Topics ranged from working with actors, his preference for being a lighting-cameraman, through to the use of multiple cameras and making sure that he approaches every film as a new and different challenge.
His descriptions of an early career in television, working on low-budgets and the breakout 1980s successes of Australian filmmakers were both a happy trip down memory lane and instructive for those people working outside the comfort zone of the Hollywood system. “In the early 1960s, the Australian film industry was zilch.
There was no feature film industry to speak of at all. There was a very occasional American film that might have come into the Australia or the Pacific.
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