The role of the cinematographer

My role in the group is as cinematographer. When creating a music video the cinematographer is the main person responsible for the technical aspects of the image. It is down to them to decide on the use of masking, the choice of camera lens and camera angles used. Although the director has the ultimate control over how the video looks, the cinematographer is the person that records the image on film and translates the directors ideas into the film, so therefor the two have to work very closely together. When creating a music video there is usually a ‘camera team’ which consists of a director of photography, a cameraman and an assistant camera man. The cinematographer is usually the person that has control over the lighting team as they will know how exactly they want the video to look.