Exclusive Interview with Patrick Cady, ASC

Camerawork, Lighting, and Transitioning from DP to Director

Can you talk about your experience as a cinematographer who has occasionally transitioned to the director’s chair?

From Cinematographer to Director

Patrick Cady, ASC: I’ve been a cinematographer for 20 years now. I was an electrician and Gaffer, and before that I learned filmmaking at Ithaca College.  It was a very hands-on school, we learned on film, there was a lab at the school, we learned all the technical things, light meters, cutting on film, we basically studied films and made films.  So, I thought knowing all the mechanics was being a director.  It wasn’t until I got to see John Sayles and Roger Deakins ASC, BSC working together on Passion Fish that I started to think that maybe all the stuff I was interested in, of to do the lighting, framing, exposure… that visual part of the storytelling, was Cinematography.  Then I went to NYU’s Tisch school and met other students that had run theater companies, and realized they were directors.

Several years ago, I got to direct an episode of Rectify (season 4, episode 1) and I concentrated on performances and working with the actors. Rectify was a very good opportunity to approach that because it was a performance driven show. If the scene got better as we went into it, and it changed the blocking, we would go back and reshoot the master. Not that we had to do that very often, but every now and then, that would happen. The show was that committed to the performance.

Transitioning from DP to director, the biggest help in the 20 years of being a Cinematographer has been getting to work with amazing directors.  From Karyn Kusama and Bethany Rooney (who wrote “Directors Tell the Story,” with Mary Lou Belli) to fellow DP turned Director Ernest Dickerson, I’ve shot for great people. They just epitomize the prepared, calm director, that person who makes the whole crew get really happy when they show up. And when you’ve gotten to work with directors like that, you start stealing little lessons from them just by watching the way they do things. And that’s really, really helped when I’ve had the chance to direct.