Multimedia
Blogs
Forum
Affordable HD
Whitepapers
Newsletters
Events
Advertisers
Blogcast
MillimeterNew Chair for Color Timing at USC
Nov 3, 2005 4:54 PM
Professor Judy Irola, ASC, was named the Conrad Hall Endowed Chair in Cinematography and Color Timing at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television on Oct. 24. The chair was endowed by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, who have encouraged USC to broaden the scope of the cinematography curriculum to include color timing.
"Color timing is a natural extension of the creative role that cinematographers play," says Woody Omens, ASC, who represented Spielberg and Lucas at the event.
Omens notes that cinematographers have been timing feature films at photo-optical labs since the beginning of the industry, and have been collaborating with colorists at television postproduction facilities since the early 1980s.
"The rapid evolution of digital intermediate technology is now expanding the role that cinematographers play deep into the postproduction of feature films," Omens says. "Steven Spielberg and George Lucas appreciate the importance of preparing the next generation of filmmakers for this transition because it affects directors, cinematographers, and everyone else who is involved in the collaborative process."
Omens is a USC alumnus and award-winning cinematographer who joined the school's faculty in 1990. He headed the cinematography program until he retired in 2003. He is now Professor Emeritus.
The endowed chair is named in honor of Conrad L. Hall, ASC, a 1950 USC film school graduate. Hall subsequently earned Oscars for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, American Beauty, and Road to Perdition, along with seven other Academy Award nominations. He died on Oct. 4, 2003.
Kate Hall, the cinematographer's daughter, was in the audience applauding.
Irola was born and raised in Fresno, Calif., the daughter of Basque sheepherders. After completing a two-year stint with the U.S. Peace Corps in Niger, Africa, in 1968, she found a job as a secretary at KQED-TV, the PBS affiliate in San Francisco. Irola earned a quick transfer into the news department, where she worked as a cinematographer on PBS documentaries and local news. She also co-founded and was active with Cine Manifest, a San Francisco film collective during the early 1970s.
Irola moved to New York City in 1977 seeking broader horizons. She worked on news magazine stories for 20/20, visual spoofs for Saturday Night Live, and a diverse array of other nonfiction and narrative projects. Irola, won the Camera d'Or Award at Cannes in 1979 for Northern Lights, her first narrative film. She returned to California in 1989 and has compiled an eclectic mix of more than 20 nonfiction and narrative film credits, including An Ambush of Ghosts, which won the Sundance Film Festival Cinematography Award in 1993. Irola joined the USC faculty in 1992. She became a member of the American Society of Cinematographers in 1995, and an associate professor with tenure at USC in 1999.
Irola has chaired the cinematography program at USC since Omens retired in 1999. She heads a department with 26 cinematographers on the faculty. She is concurrently working on a documentary about Cine Manifest, focusing on their projects, the people with whom she worked, and how a political film collective functioned in the 1970s.
"There is an intimate connection between cinematographers and their subjects," Irola observed. "You're not just pointing the camera, shooting in available light and planning to fix it in post. You are thinking about the environment and mood, and lighting, and framing to tell that story. Color timing is an extension of that role."
Irola concludes, "This is a collaborative art form. The role of cinematographers, sound and production designers are shaping cinema today. Conrad Hall was the greatest example of a cinematographer with a diverse background. The picture enhances the story that the movie wants to tell."
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.