From the January/June 2000 issue of the Operating Cameraman

Jack Green ASC happens to be a founding member of the SOC. In addition to being a talented director of photography, Jack is an exceptionally nice human being.

I visited him on the set of Space Cowboys, Clint Eastwood's biggest budgeted picture to date. Watching Jack work with his camera operator, Steve Campanelli, SOC gave me the opportunity to see if the rumors were true: that Clint likes to shoot rehearsals and if he likes the first take, moves on.

Unless one is accustomed to shooting sports or documentaries, this presents quite a challenge for the camera operator. Having been an operator for Clint on many a film, Jack is familiar with the blinding pace of Eastwood pictures which historically come in ahead of schedule and under budget.

Space Cowboys is the 28th project Jack has worked on with Clint Eastwood. If communication and trust between a DP and director make for an efficient and economical production, then Jack and Clint's relationship is a testament to that end.

Sean Fairburn (SF): Jack, what characteristics in Steve convinced you he was a good operator?

Jack Green (JG): First, let me say I operated a Steadicam for twelve years; ten years as an operator and then two more years even after I became a director of photography. It's an amazing invention and I loved working with it. I gave it up when my back started bothering me but I still loved it.

My operator, Steve Campanelli thinks of the Steadicam in the same way I do, in that it's really a tool that has to be utilized carefully and judiciously. It's not a dolly but in certain cases it's a one person dolly and the shot has to be well planned to justify its unique capabilities.

Another element that it can incorporate is a point of view and how it makes a good point of view. Steve understands those elements. Those are the elements that I thought I learned pretty well as a Steadicam operator. How one puts the audience into the camera's position so that it's not just a dolly shot, not a point of view, but a moving camera that becomes a voyeur.

Steve is very good at all of that and I really appreciate his ability. Our styles were very compatible and that was a real strong factor in my decision to introduce him to Clint.

SF: So how did you get started in the industry?

JG: Wow, how did I get started in the industry? Well, I used to cut hair as a barber in my family's business for ten years. I graduated from high school and barber college in the same week. My father said that barbering is something you can always fall back on.

Then one day this fellow started coming into the shop. His name was Joe Dieves and he was a director of photography in San Francisco. He shot mostly sixteen-millimeter film, and occasionally thirty-five millimeter. We would always talk about photography because it was a strong interest of mine. My dad had a photo lab in his bathroom when I was growing up and he would let me help him print and develop pictures.

A couple of years later I worked up the nerve to ask Joe if I could come along to watch him shoot. He said, "Rather than come watch me shoot, why don't you come help me shoot." I went with him as his assistant cameraman, though he did everything and I pretended to learn.

He invited me on other shoots after that, and I was so infatuated with the business and so totally overwhelmed by how wonderful it was to be creating photographs, motion picture photographs! It was such an exciting business and it involved lighting. We were shooting industrials, documentaries, newsreel and anything that came along. We would go out as a team.

When I got a little experience Joe recommended me to someone else and that someone recommended me to someone else, etc. Eventually I was working for most of the directors of photography in the San Francisco Bay area and I had to stop cutting hair.

I worked as a camera assistant for five more years in the Bay Area and then I had a wonderful opportunity to work in the film business in Southern California. Wescam came to San Francisco and I worked for them. Bob Boatman was the cameraman at the time and he invited me to come to work for Wescam in Southern California. I jumped at the opportunity.

I was a newlywed. I had only been married for two weeks when they hired me. My new bride was very supportive of me and we moved to Southern California. I worked another year for Wescam before they went out of business.

After that I got a job with Nelson Tyler at Tyler Camera Systems. When work got slow I freelanced as a camera assistant. I worked with the likes of Don Morgan, Charlie Rosher and Melvin Sokolsky.

The work consisted mostly of commercials but no studio work. When Don Morgan got a chance to shoot a feature I came along as his camera assistant. In 1975 I had been assisting Michael Watkins and he asked me if I had thought about moving up to camera operator. So on a little picture called Fighting Mad with Peter Fonda, I moved up to camera operator.

In addition to Michael Watkins, I worked for Ric Waite, ASC and Rex Metz, ASC who did a couple of pictures for Clint. I became the 'B' camera operator for Rex Metz on The Gauntlet which happened to be a Clint Eastwood picture.

When it came time for Clint to do Every Which Way but Loose, the operator who had been on The Gauntlet wasn't available so they asked me and I said absolutely. That was the beginning of this particular romance.

If you count the two that I did as a camera assistant, aerial photography for Play Misty and Dirty Harry, this is our twenty-eighth project together.

In 1985, Clint Eastwood moved me up to director of photography.

SF: How long had you been operating prior to becoming a director of photography?

JG: I operated for Clint on fourteen pictures during the course of eight years. Bruce Surtees ASC was one of Clint's main DPs and I shot five pictures with him. After we worked on Beverly Hills Cop together Bruce asked Clint why he had never moved me up.

"You know Jack's ready to move up. Why don't you move Jack up?" Well, I thought that was the most generous thing for someone to do, because here he was talking himself out of a job. That was such an amazing occurrence for this business.

Fortunately for me Clint moved me up on Heartbreak Ridge in 1985. I used Steve St. John as my Steadicam operator as well as the 'A' camera operator. We worked together until I shot a couple of pictures in Canada where I met Steve Campanelli. I was on a picture called Bad Company when we met. I had seen a lot of his work and liked him very much.

I got an opportunity to shoot a picture in China called Amazing Panda Adventure. I couldn't hire Americans because there was no fair trade agreement with China and thus they didn't permit Americans to work there. So the first thing I did was to hire crew members I knew from Canada.

Campanelli was one of the first I hired. Right about the time I was having a hard time finding a key grip, lo and behold, the United States signs a most favored nations and a fair trade agreement with China.

Suddenly the lid was off, but I'd already hired these people and I couldn't fire them. However now I could hire Charlie Soldany as my key grip. Charlie and I have done probably fifteen or seventeen pictures together and it felt wonderful to have somebody that I was really experienced with, to have him there as our grip.

It was good to have Steve on the job; he's a can-do operator that wouldn't say no to any kind of a shot. I always like an operator who feels like he's contributing. I leave a lot of leeway for the operator to become involved in camera coordinating and in choreographing the camera movement in collaboration with the director.

It was important for me when I was a camera operator and so I respect that capability in other camera operators. I try to pass that on. It's not quite the English style or British style where the cameraman doesn't even pay attention to what the framing is, as they call it.

Steve and I collaborated on everything and if I think my suggestion is at least as good or better than theirs (operator; director) is, I'll jump in and put in my two cents worth. But once a scene is launched, I pretty much let Clint and Steve work out all of the coverage while I work on the lighting which helps us move really quickly.

We all come out ahead because I get the bonus of being able to be more involved with the lighting and it also gives the operator a chance to be more involved with the creative process.

SF: Let me back up just a little bit. When you moved up to camera operator, who were some of the people who inspired you to become such a fine and experienced operator you were?

JG: I think most of the experience camera from talking to other operators. I can't honestly say that I learned a lot about operating from directors of photography. Yes, I learned about composition from them, but I also learned a lot about composition from studying art books and good still photography and other art forms.

I would say I learned an awful lot from terrific camera operators like Don Thorin, ASC. Thorin operated for Don Morgan and I was the 1st assistant cameraman. I give much credit to Michael Watkins, ASC who moved me up to operator. He was very helpful.

These men shared a lot with me at the time. Every show that I got on, operators would give me tips and show me tricks to make the shots smoother and more comfortable. Frank Holgate was terrific in helping me.

Ric Waite, ASC was a really good still photographer before becoming a director of photography and he had very strong ideas about composition, so we'd always talk about the composing of shots. I learned a lot from him, and he invited me to operate on Forty-eight Hours along with Rick Neff. Then we did The Border, and Frank Miller and I operated on that one.

Rick Waite, ASC was probably as big an influence on me as anybody in terms of learning good composition and designing workable shots.

SF: What kind of techniques do you try to pass on to operators who have served under you and is there anything that you look for in a good operator?

JG: Let me just tell you a story about what happened to me and you'll read this piece of advice in it. When I was struggling with the problem and concern of moving up to camera operator, my wife knew that I was spending a lot of nights awake worrying about it.

So one day I hear this thump on the front door. It was my wife. She couldn't open the door because her arms were full of books--art books! So I take the art books from her immediately she says, "If you want to have a good eye about composition and be a good camera operator, study these books. Study the history of art and learn from the best what makes good composition, how lighting is used for dimensionality, mood, etc."

I poured over those books in my reading room (the john) and I swear that helped me as much as anything in my whole life. It was a wonderful gift my wife gave me. I would pass that on to any camera assistant who is gravitating toward becoming a camera operator. Begin studying some art books and learn what makes good composition. Go to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and to art galleries.

When you're on location in a metropolitan area, spend time in art museums on your day off. It's all incredible information that is easily available from your local library or book store.

Bill Hines, SOC has written a wonderful book (Operating Cinematography for Film and Video) and he does a fine job of helping educate and train operators to face the work ahead. His writings in the International Cinematographer magazine are sensational.

But there's nothing better for the new operator than to look at a picture and learn from its compositional strengths. You can apply what you learn directly to your eyepiece. You're dealing with a two dimensional surface. It just happens to move and change continually. So studying art and composition is one of the best pieces of advice I can give to anyone.

Let your director of photography know that you really want to move up to camera operator. Ask him to find shots for you to do that are not life threatening and that you can learn from.

I wish we were better at training our operators for all the things they will face. Our industry is very bad at this and our training of camera assistants transitioning to camera operators is sorely neglected.

SF: What other advice can you give to a fledgling operator?

JG: Really, on the set the only way is getting on a camera and doing it. Have someone show you carefully what it is that you have to overcome. The question is how do you get the camera into the position you want in order to see what you want to see. That comes from experience, situation by situation.

I try to teach as I go along, to both the camera operator and everybody in the camera department who is willing to listen. You have to do it shot by shot. You can't just start arbitrarily pointing a camera around a room and saying this is what you do under these circumstances because they won't be the same.

I try and pass on what I want to accomplish with a lens and why that choice was made. If there's an important emotional statement that I want to make with that particular lens choice, I let them know that.

Bill Coe our camera assistant and Steve Campanelli are very good about listening, able to take it with them and maybe share what I've imparted when they have an opportunity.

SF: Tell us a little about being able to work with your children on the set. What do you see through their eyes?

JG: I am lucky to be working with my children. They grew up in the business and are relatively successful at staying employed, especially in features, where you spend a lot of time out of town. We have regrets and the major regret is having to spend an accumulated number of years away from your children during their formative years.

One bears guilt for the rest of one's life over that. You never seem to get over that guilt no matter how much time you spend with your children as they grow older.

I'm fortunate that they chose to get into the same business so that we can work together. When they work on the same sets with me I get to spend time with them, give them all of the love and hugs now that I was never able to give them before when I was traveling so much. I know that only puts salve on my guilt but the fact we are working together helps an awful lot to make it better.

My oldest son, Peter was the first to come and help me on the set at age eleven. He came out on Uncommon Valor to spend his summer vacation lugging cases on the set. I got him to slate the scenes and do things that wouldn't get in the way of set business. He spent most of his summer vacations helping out. Loaders and assistant cameramen taught him how to load and bang slates. Now he is my 2nd AC at twenty-nine years old.

My daughter, Heather came on later after she went to film school at Loyola Marymount. She wanted to be a still photographer. Her first picture with me was Twister. She is now my loader on Space Cowboys and doing a great job. I am encouraging her to be a cinematographer and she has already DP'd a show I helped produce.

SF: What kind of help did you give them to get them started in the right direction?

JG: It's an on-going process of learning and working on sets. When they were young I gave them still cameras with no automatic functions and asked them to shoot film and look at the results. We would critique the results and they learned a lot from that.

Over the course of film after film I try to describe what we are doing on set to help them and my crew gain understanding of not only how but why we are doing it this way. I teach them to be considerate of the story and the director's goal, to convey what he/she wants the audience to feel at any given moment.

My kids learn the responsibilities of the other crew members and their importance to the production as a whole. It helps them to understand and be considerate of everyone on the set, not just the camera department. My youngest son, Ryan, started with me like Peter banging slates as a second assistant and has aspirations to be a camera operator.

I see value in learning skills from the person above you and knowing what the jobs are. I think there is tremendous importance in the awareness and knowledge of other jobs on the set.

It disturbs me that many cinema classes and colleges do not teach set etiquette and sometimes the students come right out working as DPs without the understanding and appreciation of the other members of the set. Crew members are human beings and should be treated with respect.

I think that the schools work well for the academic learning but students should also work on the set to gain an understanding of the human interaction and interpersonal relationships involved. How well you get along with others is actually more important than doing good work.