Frederick Elmes: Last News

Will Tizard ContributorOne of EnergaCamerimage Film Festival’s most closely watched sections in a world where streaming shows rule the roost is the First Look TV Pilots Competition and this year’s winner, the Amazon Original “Hunters,” kept veteran cinematographer Frederick Elmes on his toes, he says.Elmes, with more than 60 director of photography credits spanning five decades, brought to the job a wealth of expertise, ranging from his early days capturing the haunting monochrome shadows of “Eraserhead” to Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” via “Blue Velvet” – a film that shares some of the hyper-reality qualities of “Hunters.”The 90-minute opening episode of the show, “In the Belly of the Whale,” sets up eight characters who form a

Marta Balaga Cinematographer Frederick Elmes, who was named as the winner of EnergaCamerimage Film Festival’s First Look – TV Pilots Competition on Saturday for his work on the Amazon series “Hunters,” spoke about the show’s first episode “In the Belly of the Whale” during an online Q&A earlier this week. Elmes explained that the story – following a diverse band of Nazi hunters in New York in 1977, who discover that war criminals are conspiring to create a Fourth Reich – was actually based in reality.“The stories were told to [the “Hunters” showrunner] David Weil by his grandmother, who [was a Holocaust survivor] and has experienced much of the turmoil of that era.

For the ambitious productions in the current golden age of television, it's not uncommon to see filmmakers crossing over between features and shortform narratives — and that certainly holds true in cinematography. This season's Emmy contenders include Frederick Elmes, whose credits with longtime collaborator David Lynch include Blue Velvet and who earlier this year received the American Society of Cinematographers' Lifetime Achievement Award.