Don Burgess; A Director Of Photography.
Don Burgess is a fifty-eight year old Cinematographer from Santa Monica, California. Having started off at the Arts Centre College of Design in Los Angeles; Don made his first appearance as an assistant cameraman for the film ‘The Sorcerer’ back in 1976 and since then has been working on multiple genres of productions up until this present day.
Inside an interview, don replied to a question with ‘If you want to learn the craft then you have to shoot as much as you can’. Furthermore, not only does this answer show us Don’s determination and drive to succeed but it also reveals his hunger to pursue and grow within his line of work.
In my opinion, whoever you work with will shape your career to some extent and with this being said Don has worked with American Film Director Robert Zemeckis on several occasions which has resulted in world class pieces being made here such as The Polar Express, Spiderman and Forrest Gump which received an academy award nomination for Best Cinematography. Continuing on, the films stated above are all different to one another in terms of their given style/genre which leaves versatility being brought up whenever Don Burgess is mentioned now.
Burgess become highly recognized for his work within the industry; primarily from Forrest Gump and collected a number of awards in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. A BAFTA, Satellite achievement and an ASCA are a few awards he managed to receive. Also, with this point being made now it doesn’t necessarily mean Don was in his prime then as he is still around today and many people know of the work he is doing in some respect.
Pondering on and discussing equipment as something which can help bring pieces of media to life if delivered and executed properly for a target audience to see; Don was of course introduced to Panavision cameras on his first ever experience in this field of work as discussed in a talk with the Source Code. After evolving and seeing more than the average at such a young age, Burgess went on to shooting his first sole movie ‘The Ruckus’ at 23 years old which was then distributed by New World Pictures who held a big name within the industry back then.
Upon research; I straight away found Don to be using a similar type of frame in any place relevant for setting the scene now in his films which is indeed a track shot. On the trailers for both ‘Spiderman’ which aired in 2002 and the ‘Forrest Gump’ piece he performed this establishing shot.
Burgess began taking Black and White still Photography classes in school before moving onto the cinematography side when graphics co-incidentally upped which could definitely have had an impact on the way he thinks whilst a camera is in his hands. Previously, we would’ve had to understand the deeper meanings of a still frame that had no colour before we went on to showcasing them to our chosen viewers. This does still remain the same; however having tackled these situations beforehand, Don seems pretty ahead in some way shape or form and more on the ball when it comes to a particular situation. To co-inside with this, he was seen giving advice to the up-and-coming cinematographers of today’s generation and preaches they put themselves in any place possible in order to expand and grow which results in them being more comfortable and familiar with routes that may need to be taken at any point due to the nature of the industry he is now a part of.
Don claims to have used ‘Tiffen Filters’ throughout most of his productions as they do not affect neutral colours. Furthermore, he weighed into a talk about these pieces of equipment with the initial company after saying this, adding ‘I find it especially helpful when we are shooting in open shade locations where there may be excessive blue in the image, but where total control over lighting may not be possible’.
Burgess tends to differentiate between spherical and anamorphic lenses depending on what film he is working on at the time. He says he goes with whatever he feels is right and almost ‘hopes for the best whilst trying to make it happen correctly’. With Forrest Gump, he shot anamorphic as this depicted the characters relationship to the world and how he saw it. Also, to co-inside with this; anamorphic lenses have a tendency to short-sight anyway so on the same film Don decided to use really wide-lenses focused in on him as well, as he felt this created the relationship the main character had with everything else visually for others to see and pick up on.
It seems to me that Don Burgess really tends to focus on his pieces being visually interesting and for me looking in now; that’s what is going to help something sell. Furthermore, we live in a world where people are always looking at what is new and what is next for them so prizing those individuals with something fresh and clean is only going to result in them being interested with it?
To conclude, I feel you always have to take your target audience into account when attacking different forms of media and presenting them to these people if so be it. Nowadays, if we as the viewers are given a piece of material to look at we want to feel a connection between ourselves and the content; if this is unsuccessful we may not take a strong enough liking to it and this results in everyone involved feeling more so negative about the information they have just received.
If you come to terms with music videos being the most watched things to date for example; this intertwines with the meanings that come with a song now that it has visuals with it. If I was now to be in the shoes of a cinematographer, I have to understand that what I like may not be what the people like so therefore I need to improvise and meet my purchasers halfway as they are the individuals who will help me to excel as such within the industry.
