Paul Babin, SOC
Terminator, Magnolia, Indiana Jones, True Lies

Paul Babin was born in Washington, D.C and grew up in Gardena and the San Fernando Valley, CA. He attended University at Cal State Long Beach, and the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. While in art school Babin discovered the love of film making. He returned to Los Angeles, enrolling at the University of Southern California, earning a Bachelors then a Masters degree in Cinema, majoring in cinematography and writing.  

Paul began his career as an assistant cameraman while at the same time shooting documentary and industrial films and videos.  In 1984 he became a full time cameraman, and has worked with Spielberg, Coppola and Cameron. In the early 90’s he became camera operator to Allen Davaiu, ASC, and experienced a career high on the movie “Fearless”, directed by Peter Weir. Weir's method of summoning the creative potential within a cast and crew was an inspiration, and gave Babin a model of the ideal in collaborative film-making.

As digital image capture took hold, Paul began to direct small projects. Most recently he wrote and directed a 30 minute drama, “Two, Four, Six.” In 2009, Babin documented the death of his friend, Douglas Wright, in the documentary short, "The Place Beneath".

From 2005 to 2007, Paul was the editor and contributing writer of "Camera Operator" magazine, published by the Society of Camera Operators. It was also during this time that he taught two semesters at the USC School of Cinema. In 2008, Paul was elected to the National Executive Board of the International Cinematographer's Guild.

Paul is a member of the International Cinematographer's Guild.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0044977/

Alexander “Sasha” Calzatti,  SOC

Alexander “Sasha” Calzatti was born in St. Petersburg Russia on June 2 1935, the son of top Russian cinematographer Arkadi Koltsaty. As a teenager he gave up his boyhood dream of becoming a physicist and studied at the State Institute of Cinema in Moscow. He worked as an assistant at Mosfilm Studios, working his way up the crew. He shot stills on director Mikhail Kalatozov’s classic The Cranes Are Flying, and that relationship eventually led to a place on Kalatozov’s crew on a film that was later stopped for political reasons. Soon Calzatti was asked to travel to Cuba to operate the camera on what became Yo Soy Cuba (I Am Cuba).

For I Am Cuba, Calzatti devised intricate camera moves that combined platforms on hidden cables, handheld, underwater shots and shot operators sitting on crane platforms—often in the same shot. When necessary, the camera was handed from crew member to crew member. For the under-water portion of the shot being recognized, he used plastic shopping bags and glue to seal the camera body, and allowed air to escape through an improvised snorkel so the rig would sink easily. The shot in question originally emerged from the water and continued, but was cut, Calzatti says, by “a cold-hearted editor.”

Calzatti says the film could not have been made without the French Éclair CM3 camera they used. It was one of five cameras used on the film, but the only one small and light enough to make the elaborate moving shots possible. The camera was fitted with a 9 mm wide angle lens that Calzatti says helped smooth out the images.

After I Am Cuba, Calzatti returned to Moscow and later shot, wrote and directed his own projects. Eventually in 1972 he escaped to Israel where he worked in television and documentary. In 1982 his father moved to Los Angeles and Calzatti joined him there. Calzatti’s daughter is a professional still photographer and his son teaches filmmaking in Los Angeles.

Calzatti continued his career in Los Angeles by shooting second unit and music videos. He notes that music videos often require an approach similar to that of I Am Cuba —inventive, dynamic camera movement, integration with music, and asymmetric skewed framing.

Jan Crittenden Livingston, Product Line Business Manager for AVCCAM and 3D camcorders, Panasonic Broadcast

Jan Crittenden Livingston is Panasonic Broadcast’s Product Line Business Manager for the company’s popular lines of AVCCAM and P2 HD handheld camcorders and workflow tools.

An industry veteran of 35 years and a Panasonic employee since 1986, Livingston has been instrumental in the launch of many of the company’s most successful products including the popular AG-HVX200, the industry’s first solid-state handheld professional video camcorder; and more recently the AG-HPX500 shoulder-mount, AG-HPX170 handheld and the AG-HPX300 shoulder-mount P2 HD camcorders. Prior to her current marketing position, Livingston held key training and sales management roles at Panasonic Broadcast.

Her earlier career included positions in audio/video sales as well as media training and management.

Livingston currently serves as a speaker and presenter on panels at numerous filmmaking and video production industry events, and participates as an expert on various professional video blogs and websites. She graduated from Ferris State College with a Bachelors of Science in Learning Resources Management & Systems Utilization.

Mitch Dubin, SOC
Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report, War of The Worlds
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0239307/

Born in Dallas, TX, Mitch Dubin discovered the Super 8mm movie camera in high school and made his first movie of reflections in moving water with a Miles Davis soundtrack.  After two years of film school at Boston University, he couldn’t stand the cold or the lack of equipment in the film department and transferred to the University of Texas at Austin. After UT he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated with a film degree.

Mitch credits his postproduction PA job at Francis Coppola’s Zoetrope Studios as the formative years of his career.  He moved moviolas and flat bed editors up three flights of stairs and projected dailies and rough cuts of “Apocalypse Now”.  There was a point in his career that he could have made the choice to be a DP. He shot one movie (Meet The Applegates) and realized that he was a better operator than I was a cinematographer.

In 1993 Mitch met Janusz Kaminski on the movie “Tall Tales”. Fourteen movies later, ten of those with Steven Spielberg, I still look forward to working with the dynamic creative power of Janusz and Steven.

Through all the years he spent behind the camera, the films I have done with Steven Spielberg have been the most challenging and the most rewarding. He is a master storyteller and a remarkable artist with the camera.

Mitch says it was the lessons of thirty years in the business from all the talented people I have worked with that opened up in me the ability to see and to understand the art of visual story telling.

Mitch is best known for his work on Saving Private Ryan, Se7en and Minority Report.

Jack Messitt, Director of Photography / SOC
Irreversi, Bones
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0582230/

Jack Messitt's work as a Director of Photography and Camera Operator is extremely diverse. His international experience includes Feature Films and Television, Music Videos and Commercials. This includes shooting in Thailand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Belgium, Canada, Philippines and throughout the United States. He is currently the 1st Vice President of The Society of Camera Operators.

Jack has worked with just about every shooting format and camera available and his reels showcase great examples of both film and HD footage.

Always one to keep up with current technology, Jack was recently seen on CNN as he completed intensive 3D training at the Sony 3D Technology Center. This training is hugely important to every cameraman because the techniques we have all learned in traditional filmmaking do not necessarily work in 3D. Because our visual storytelling vocabulary needs to change with this technology, Jack's training makes him ready for anything.

Daniel C. Pearl, ASC / Cinematographer
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, The Obama Effect
Within months of receiving his Master’s degree from the University of Texas in 1973, Daniel Pearl photographed the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a legendary independent feature which is part of the permanent film collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art. He spent the next several years shooting low-budget fright flicks with high production values, most notably She Came to the Valley, The Stuntmen, and Invaders from Mars. He went on to add music videos and commercials to his credits.  In the music video realm, Pearl's work quickly became the benchmark for all music videos and has earned a total of ten MTV Video Music Award nominations

Having photographed over three hundred commercials, Pearl also manages to create some of the advertising industry's best images - earning industry-wide acclaim for his work on Motorola's "Wings" spot in 1999, which is also in the permanent collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art.

Lately spending his time more equally split between commercials and feature films, and has recently completed photography on Alien versus Predator: Requiem, The Kings of Appletown, and Michael Bay’s Friday the Thirteenth. Both Bay’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th were the top grossing films the week of their release.

Presently he is in Berlin filming Joel Silver’s The Apparition being directed by Todd Lincoln.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0669050/
Photo be credit to Owen Roizman, ASC

Christopher Guilford Tufty, Director of Photography
The Spirit of Yosemite, The Closer, Boomtown

Chris is an Emmy award-winning Director of Photography.  He has shot eleven feature-length movies as DP, the latest of which is "Somebody Help Me."   Born in Washington, DC, Chris moved to Hollywood, CA at age 23 where he has worked as an assistant cameraman, camera operator, cinematographer, electrician, gaffer and grip on over 175 features, TV shows, music videos, commercials, documentaries, and industrials.  

Chris is a member of the International Cinematographer’s Guild as a Director of Photography and is also a Board Member of the Society of Camera Operators, having served as Treasurer of the SOC for 3 years.  He lives with his wife of fourteen years, Margot Janet Ott Tufty, a children’s book illustrator and TV commercial producer.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0876212/