Part artist, part chemist, part meteorologist; dops, no matter where or how they were trained, must have a mind for the mechanics and an eye for the more elusive elements like composition, light and shadow. And whether they made their name American-style (climbing the crew ladder from third, second and first camera assistant to camera op and then dop) or launched themselves over the wall from an altogether different discipline – stills photography, for instance – the bottom line is always the picture they can create and who likes it.

Lance Carlson, vp of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers, says Canadian shooters – ‘in Canada in general and in Toronto in particular’ – are as good as any you’ll find. ‘In fact,’ says Carlson, ‘we have people coming from all over the world to shoot here and, in that respect, working here as a shooter is as competitive as in Hollywood.’

That’s not to disparage the importance of inbound American work and the role it’s played in developing the Canadian cinematography pool. Carlson believes the prevalence of tv movies shot here for American nets has been a boon for shooters from a series background.

Imported work

‘tv movies have opened up opportunities for guys who do series, and now we have a pool of dops who alternate between series and mows. A handful of guys have been able to turn those opportunities into worldwide careers.’

However, on the other side of the coin – although admittedly it’s happening less often – Carlson says there are still instances when an American project brings up a u.s. shooter who’s in and out of here before anyone has time to complain. ‘It’s difficult to police,’ says Carlson, ‘but it does still happen.’

The bigger picture, though, is more encouraging. Carlson does see more willingness and openness on the whole to using indigenous shooters on projects which bring Americans north of the 49th.

Incidentally, the csc, which currently has a membership of about 600 including camera operators, camera assistants and trainees, is mounting a campaign to increase its membership across the country. Carlson guesses the current membership includes about 70% of Canadian feature and tv shooters and maybe 50% to 60% of commercial shooters.

Rates vary widely

As to how much Canadian dops are commanding for their services of late, it’s hard to pin down. No one wants to speak too freely – for reasons of confidentiality and for negotiating purposes – but commercial rates seem to be fairly standard. A high-end dop can command $3,500 a day plus overtime for a 14-hour shoot day.

For features and for tv movies or series work, the range is wide depending on variables like the budget of the project and what’s on the dop’s cv, and rates are negotiated on a per project basis. A ballpark figure (with a cautionary note that it still varies widely from here) for a Canadian feature could be $5,000-$10,000 a week. A working dop gave the figure of $5,000 as standard for a week’s work on a Canadian series.

Getting there

Another element which varies widely is the training ground for Canadian shooters, but Dean Bennett, cinematographer for North of 60, took a pretty traditional route.

He started as a grip and a gaffer in 1981, spending the majority of his time as a gaffer until he eventually moved up to camera assistant. In 1987, he started shooting, mostly for commercials until he did a low-budget feature for David Winning called Killer Image. He also shot two episodes of The Ray Bradbury Theater with Tom Dent-Cox and Doug MacLeod.

As a camera operator, Bennett joined North of 60 in its first season, working under dop Rene Versiers and then Manfred Guthe. He moved into the dop position last year, and he’s currently entrenched in his second season. In the off-season, he shoots commercials.

‘I would say my advancement happened very much in the traditional way,’ says Bennett. ‘I originally jumped from gaffer in my commercial days, not actually into commercial work but through industrial and educational. I sidestepped for awhile as a camera operator, and when I signed up for North of 60 to camera op, Manfred Guthe had very strong ideas about camera operating and how it should be done right. I learned more than I had in the 12 years previous about visual storytelling.’

Bennett believes training under an established dop allows time to focus on the artistic. ‘You’re not just feeding off their knowledge of exposures and stock and all that. You’re feeding off their passion and their artistic point of view. The learning process is about really learning to see, it’s not about the basic simple things like reading a light meter.’

Lighting challenge

The biggest cinematography challenge on North of 60, according to Bennett, is maintaining consistency. On a set where shooting takes place out of doors at least 50% of the time, changes in natural lighting can wreak havoc.

‘It has a lot to do with the fact that our set is on a beautiful spot on the river,’ says Bennett. ‘There’s a ridge that obscures the horizon, so we could be two hours into a scene and suddenly have massive clouds coming in without warning.’

In order to counter the effects of changing natural light, Bennett says he shoots back-lit and raises silks over the top of the set whenever possible. ‘It’s much more flattering on the faces and it gives us a more matted look, plus it saves us when the clouds comes in.’

Bennett uses almost 100% hmi lighting and the show has used daylight-balanced, daylight-matched Fuji stock for the last four years. While the lighting is very soft, a lot of it is due to the usage of 64 asa film.

‘We use an enormous amount of light inside our sets because in 16mm we’re going for as grainless a look as possible,’ he says. ‘All of our interiors are 64 asa, which means building up light levels inside significantly, but I find it holds detail so much more and I like the contrast range better than the 250.’

The natural look

North of 60 has traditionally tried for the most natural look possible, and the choice of camera gear reflects that. ‘Our gear,’ says Bennett, ‘is just an SR3 camera with predominantly zoom lenses and very traditional in every other way. It’s very much in keeping with the creative needs of the producers in trying to get as much realism as possible, going for the most natural look.’

Chasing realism also means very few effects. Bennett says that aside from installing the northern lights from time to time, effects are kept to a minimum: ‘There’s definitely nothing blowing up or anything.’

Working and living in Alberta, Bennett says he continues to be impressed with cinematography from the region, particularly work from the West Coast.

‘There are some wonderful shooters who’ve had access to a lot of international work, and not even solely American work. Most of them got the bulk of their work as a dop in tv, but many of them have stretched their talent to reach an international level. Having seen work from all over, I’m very confident Canadians can hold their own, and in many cases they are among the very finest.’

As for his own career, Bennett would love to eventually shoot a feature or ‘a well-told documentary.’ ‘I just want to be involved in a project with a sense of quality,’ he says, ‘surrounded by people with a sense of passion.’

Commercial work

Features have been less and less of a draw for Toronto dop Doug Koch. Although his career has included shooting pictures like Michael Gibson’s Defy Gravity, Steve Withrow’s Friends, Lovers & Lunatics, and, his latest feature, Patricia Rozema’s When Night Is Falling, he’s turned most of his focus back into his commercial career.

‘I’m trying to get into doing more short films, but as for features, I’ve done a lot less than I used to. Once you’ve done a number of features you become more fussy, because you can be. They’re a lot of work and a lot of time, so you want to pick them well.’

Koch, who’s repped by Sesler & Company, has a mixture of music videos and tv drama under his belt in addition to feature and commercial work. His awards include a ’96 Silver Bessie, a couple of Genies and a host of Canadian Music Video Awards.

It was a quick entrance into shooterdom for Koch, a graduate of Ryerson Polytechnic film school in Toronto. Instead of working his way through the camera crew, he ended up jumping the whole process. It was a necessity at the time.

‘After finishing school I was an assistant for a very short while, but I actually found it easier to find work shooting rather than assisting because there were a lot of assistants around at the time. It was the sort of thing where you have to just go out and do it or you don’t.’

As for whether his method of training was better or worse than the more traditional (i