Director of Photography

Jay Holben has been a full-time director of photography for the past six years. Previous to that his work as a chief lighting technician included future films such as Free Enterprise and music videos for artists such as Brandy and Monica, Monster Magnet and Ice Cube. As a cinematographer, his work encompasses micro and low-budget feature films, commercials, music videos and a bevy of short feature projects. Although his primary tool of choice is 35mm motion picture emulsion, Holben has served as a director of photography for three 24p HD projects (including two long-form interactive commercials for General Motors) in addition to directing his own 24p HD short. Holben has also photographed more than two-dozen DV projects within the last two years. Some of his DV work has included extensive Multicam conceptual tests for Steven Spielbergs Minority Report and digital effects element photography for this years Dreamworks, SKG holiday release, Surviving Christmas.

 

Additionally, Holben is a frequent contributing writer for American Cinematographer magazine and The Hollywood Reporter. He has authored nearly 100 articles on cinematography and the technology of the art.

Q & A with Mr. Holben

 

Jay Holben: My compositional style often falls to placing subjects in the extreme of the frames. I'm a big fan of the 2.40:1 aspect ratio and love to play the extremes of the image for dramatic effect. However, this - like everything else - must be motivated by the script, the scene, the actor's subtext and the director's subtext. Each narrative moment requires a different compositional interpretation. Although I've had a number of discussions on composition and framing with many cinematographers, I find them difficult and challenging to hold. Composition is such a subjective thing, but it's really about directing the audiences eye to a specific portion of the frame where the storytelling is happening. That's really the art of framing. I worked on a short film called Waiting for Ronald, directed by Ellen Gerstein. It was her first film behind the camera and on the second day she came to me in a panic. Apparently the script supervisor had questioned Ellen about my compositional choices and Ellen was distraught. She came to me and asked me if I was making a mistake by cutting off the tops of everyone's heads in these shots. I smiled and said, no, that's a deliberate choice. It's actually a technique that I stole from Conrad Hall. Since the sequences we were shooting were very intimate, it was really all about the actor's internalization of his stress at the moment. By placing the eyes higher, toward the top of the frame, it created a more intimate composition to make the emotion in the actor's eyes more important and emulate a more empathetic response from the viewing audience. She accepted my response, reluctantly, and we continued shooting. Later, in editing, she thanked me for "sticking to my guns" there and said she completely understood what I was doing when the picture was cut together and that sequence came to play. Each situation, and indeed each director, creates a different mandate for framing. That's all the long answer to the question. The short answer is that I love to play the extremes of the frames, especially in moments of tension. There are frames in a project that I just directed where I asked Christopher Probst, my cinematographer, to hold only one of the actor's eyes in the very far right of the 2.4:1 frame and emptiness in the rest of the frame. It creates a wonderful feeling of tension. Along those same lines, I do find it very difficult to compose in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Working in such a tight box is very difficult for me and I am often not happy with my compositions there.

 

 

FA: What  equipment (camera,lenses, etc.) do your prefer to work with?

 

JH: I'm really a Panavision guy through-and-through. From early on in my career, Panavision has been extraordinarily supportive and philanthropic toward me. Additionally, their equipment is absolutely top of the line and their service is unparalleled. On many projects, I request a Panavision package and I'm usually met with "Oh, I don't think we can afford that..." but on further investigation most producers find that Panavision is extremely cooperative and competitive with any other company of merit. They are always my first choice. Specifically, from there, I usually work with the Panavision Platinum or Gold II cameras and, as often as I can, the Primo series of lenses - although that depends on the specific project. I have yet to find a series of Panavision lenses that I am not happy with from the Zeiss Standard Speeds to the Ultra Speeds to the Primos - I think they're all fantastic pieces of glass. When it comes to high-definition, I again turn to Panavision for their Sony CineAlta F900 cameras with Digital Primo lenses. I have worked with the F900 before from another company without Panavision's retrofit and it's nowhere near as nice to work with. When it comes to grip and electric equipment, Illumination Dynamics has always come through for me - especially in times of extreme need. Their support and staff are fantastic and they're always the first call I make. If I'm forced away from Panavision, I'm really kind of ambivalent about other gear - Arriflex or Moviecam are both good packages, but I never feel as comfortable with them, especially if I'm operating.

 

FA:Tell me a bit about your teaching background. What type of training do you offer? Where are some of your formal pupils now?(Just to let you know that I am a high school teacher as well, so I was intrigued by your teaching background)

 

JH: Teaching was really a fluke. I was extremely involved with my high school theater program, especially the behind-the-scenes aspects. I spent my time learning the technical art of theater and by the time I was a junior, I was working outside the school professionally in addition to running all the technical aspects of the performing arts program. When I graduated, the drama teacher made the comment that it was a shame that none of the younger students knew how to run the theater the way I did. I suggested that I might create a program to teach them how to run the theater and she said that was a wonderful idea. That summer I worked on a plan and proposition and returned to the school the following year with my program lined out on paper. It was accepted with flying colors and I was hired into an addendum position as the facility technical director and an addendum instructor. Taking a cue from the professional technicians that I was working with, I taught an extremely intensive, mainly extracurricular, program to the most dedicated students. Instead of just teaching which rope to pull to make a baton drop toward stage, I taught the students the physics and inner workings of each component of the theater. We learned not just the hardware names, but how they were made, why they were used, how they related to the overall system and what laws and codes governed their usage. To pass my course you needed to understand the hows and whys of everything behind the scenes in five major areas, each building on the other: Stage Hand, Rigging, Sound, Lighting and Stage Management. The students were then "certified" in each department and ran all the technical aspects of events within the facility. The first year, I learned right along with the students. I worked from my existing experience, but would then read the "homework" right with the assignments and come back and work with the students on the new material. We learned together. At one point, in my second year in the program, I was comparing notes with a friend who was in the technical direction program at USC and we were covering material in our first two weeks of the lighting section that he was just starting to cover in his junior year at SC. In the three years that I was teaching the program, it became widely recognized throughout the professional theater community in Arizona and my students were welcomed into the working world with open arms. The poster-child for the program was Mark Reynolds, who came to me as a baseball player and left as a qualified Stage Manager. Just after high school Mark landed his first high-profile position as stage manager of the national Broadway tour of Smokey Joe's Cafe and followed that up with a three year stint with Walt Disney Special Events touring the country, once again, with live shows. In addition to my work with Horizon High School, every couple of years I am invited to teach a workshop or seminar on the art and technique of film production. The largest of these was a 48 hour seminar in Arizona (spread out over four 12-hour days on two weekends) on the work of the motion picture electrician and lighting for film. Most recently I gave a four-hour lecture, hosted by the American Society of Cinematographers, American Cinematographer Magazine and Panavision, on the basics of motion picture cinematography to a number of industry-related journalists. I love the experience of teaching, and love the opportunity to talk about the business and share whatever knowledge I can. I have also served as a mentor for half a dozen young cinematographers, most who originally contacted me through the Internet.