Charlotte Gallagher

The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Skyfall, 1917, Blade Runner 2049.

The way those films looked was all his work.

To mark half a century behind the camera, he's written a memoir.

My colleague, James Menendez, first asked him the most pressing question.

What is a cinematographer?

I get asked that question so many times.

A visual storyteller, you know, is the same as a still photographer, but the process of film cinematography is very different than taking a still photograph.

But you're still telling the story through a visual image.

What about the relationship with the director?

Is that key on set?

Well, yeah, I mean, that actually totally affects what your role is as a cinematographer.

I mean, some directors have quite...

you know, quite good knowledge of visual, you know, the camera and how they want to tell the story with the camera.

But there's other directors that have actually said to me, you know, I don't know anything about the camera lighting.

I'll just leave that to you.

Let me direct the actors and concentrate on the script.

But Roger, are some directors editing too much these days and not letting the story speak for itself?

Well, I think there's, for a number of years, there's been a sort of like a transition to sort of multiple camera shooting.

So that leads to, you know, direct having a lot of options in the cutting room and it leads to a lot of tinkering with what's being shot.

I mean, when I worked with Denny Villeneuve, a couple of times he said, I said, well, do you want to shoot coverage on this shot?