PODCAST EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Michael Hall: From ShoHawk Media. This is Filmmaking Footnote with your host, Michael Hall. You’re listening to episode 10. This is the show where we give you the best filmmaking and production information so you can make the best project possible without having to spend a bunch of time or money at film school.
Let’s do it. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Filmmaking Footnote. I am your host, Michael Hall. Today, we are gonna be covering the American Society of Cinematographers also known as ASC for short. If you’ve ever been watching a film and you see the end titles, the end scroll at the end of the film, and you’ve noticed the letter ASC next to a cinematographer’s name, that means that they are part of the American Society of Cinematographers.
Now unlike what we talked about yesterday with AFTRA … Unlike AFTRA, which was a union, the American Society of Cinematographers is not a guild or a union. All it is is an organization that is primarily focused on education. Now it is an organization that pushes cultural and professional ideals as well, and it’s actually an organization that is the membership is by invitation only so you can’t actually go out and apply to become a member of the ASC. The American Society of Cinematographers was founded in Hollywood in 1919. The main purpose at the time was to advance the art and science of cinematography by bringing cinematographers together to exchange ideas.
The reason they did this is at the time there weren’t a ton of organizations around the United States where cinematographers could come together and problem solve and look at making technology better, making art better. So this really served as a forum to bring cinematographers together in order to make really great art and exchange ideas. The organization has continued over the years since 1919. It’s never become a guild or union, like I said, but it is very prestigious. As I said, it’s invite-only and right now, as I record this, the ASC only has 373 active members working and living around the world. Just crazy, because there’s a lot more people in SAG or AFTRA or the Producer’s Guild or even the DGA, but in the ASC there’s only 373 active members.
So as I said, the ASC’s main purpose over the years and currently is education. So over time they have focused on producing magazines, and most recently they’ve started doing these master classes around the world, which is amazing because even if you’re not involved or even if you’re not a member of the ASC, you can go learn from their members if you’re interested in going and learning directly from world-class cinematographers, the ASC is that is where you begin. That’s the place to go. I highly recommend checking out their Instagram feed. There’s some really, really cool and inspiring pieces of art on there. They also have a great magazine called The American Cinematographer Magazine, which is great. I love reading it. It’s out there in circulation. I highly recommend picking it up.
All right, guys. That is all we have for today. Now when you go and see a movie and you see the letters ASC next to someone’s name, now you know what that stands for. I will see you back here tomorrow when we start talking aspect ratio. We’ll talk aspect ratio and cinema scope. What exactly those mean, and how you can use different aspect ratio in your film to create different effects. All right, guys, have a great day. If you’ve not checked it out yet, we have a really great guide for filmmaker’s top four ways that filmmakers can make money online. Check that out by going to filmmakingfootnote.com/free where you can download the free guide. Have a great day and I will talk to you tomorrow.
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