Make a date in your diary

Silver service

There are many anniversaries during 2017. Camerimage and IMAGO are both 25 years old, and ARRI will soon turn 100. There are a lot of IMAGO events coming up. So check out the dates, and put them in your diary.

IMAGO Educational Conference

The celebratory year started with the IMAGO Educational Conference in Munich, on 13^th and 14^th of March, in cooperation with the German Film School and the German Society Of Cinematographers (BVK), followed by masterclasses and workshops from 15^th to 17^th.

One of IMAGO’s chief aims is to help improve education for student cinematographers by debating new and different teaching techniques, and facilitating the exchange of information and ideas between film schools around the world. Feedback from the 130 participants at the conference was very good indeed, so we can definitely conclude it was a great success, as well as a very useful branding exercise for IMAGO.

The preparatory work done by Tony Costa and the IMAGO Education Committee, in cooperation with the German Film School was professionally done, first class, and IMAGO’s gratitude goes to them all.

Conference on Archiving & Restoration

IMAGO participated in this conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 11^th and 12^th of April, arranged by the Slovenian Society Of Cinematographers (ZFS). IMAGO’s view is that whilst acceptable image quality control, during the restoration and digitisation of our film heritage, is secure among many of the largest and most experienced European film archives, this is not the case everywhere. National archives in Europe need increased funding, more education has to be put in place for new and young archivists/restorers, and IMAGO believes that a closer cooperation, between film archivists/restorers and the cinematographers of the films being protected, will be a necessary and positive step to ensure maximum quality. With the cinematographer’s involvement one can obtain a higher assurance that the colour, contrast, exposure and overall film quality can be restored as close as possible to the author’s original intentions.

IMAGO/FNF Masterclass with Roger Deakins CBE BSC ASC

IMAGO has cooperated with the Norwegian Society Of Cinematographers (FNF) to arrange a special, one-day masterclass in Oslo on May 27^th with the legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins CBE BSC ASC who so rarely is available for masterclasses. If you are considering attending, please see more information at www.imago.org.

IMAGO/FNF Oslo Digital Cinema Conference

This conference, from September 8-10, will be arranged for the sixth time. The latest developments in equipment, software, technical and artistic production methods and the most recent advances in digital cinematography, will be presented and extensively discussed during this three-day event. More than 200 cinematographers and experts from around the world will be there. The IMAGO Board and the IMAGO Technical Committee (Committee For Creative Technologies In Cinematography, CCTC) will hold meetings with colleagues and partners, as well as hosting extensive social gatherings and valuable networking opportunities between cinematographers.

IMAGO is still working to finance this important conference, but we trust we will succeed. Details about how to register for participation will be published by June 1^st on the main IMAGO website.

IMAGO Authorship Committee Questionnaire

This committee is gathering information from all IMAGO member societies about the cinematographer’s authorship situation in each member country. The work is headed by Luciano Tovoli AIC ASC, working with colleagues including Nigel Walters BSC, Vittorio Storaro AIC ASC and Jost Vacano BVK ASC, with invaluable assistance from IMAGO’s legal advisor Dr Cristina Busch.

As you know, in many countries cinematographers have full authorship rights, but in many others they do not. When the important surveys, sent out to all societies by the Authorship Committee, are returned, the results will be published and shared with all IMAGO’s member societies before the way forward for IMAGO’s work regarding authorship for cinematographers is concluded.

Conference On Working Conditions

The IMAGO Working Conditions Committee, which is headed by Louis Philippe Capelle SBC, will meet with central EU delegates during the last week of June, to research how IMAGO can proceed with its aim to raise awareness about unacceptable working conditions in many countries – not only for cinematographers, but also for other colleagues in the audio-visual sector. The meeting will be the first of many towards our planned extensive Conference On Working Conditions in Brussels in 2018.

Reports about degrading working conditions for cinematographers and other colleagues in film production, come to IMAGO from all corners of the world – even Scandinavia. The tax return systems that many countries have implemented to attract foreign film companies, sometimes results in worsening working conditions being brought to countries that historically have good working conditions. Nationally employed staff, especially young people, worry about being black-listed by visiting film companies, so they often accept up to 15-hour days and seven-day weeks without sufficient rest and without being paid for the overtime.

IMAGO International Awards For Cinematography

To celebrate both IMAGO’s 25^th anniversary, and the art of cinematography, the IMAGO International Awards For Cinematography has been established. Invitations have gone out to all member societies for them to each nominate and submit up to two feature films, one TV-drama and one documentary film for consideration for the IMAGO Award.

We can only do this in close collaboration with IMAGO’s many valued partners. ARRI is the main sponsor for the 2017 Awards, with RED and many others collaborating with IMAGO in this unique and grand celebration of the art of international cinematography.

Only national cinematographic societies can nominate and submit films for the awards, not individual cinematographers. Several juries, consisting of highly-respected cinematographers, will select three films in each category, to get a final list of nominations. The awards will be handed over to the winners during the IMAGO Awards Celebrations in Helsinki on October 28^th. These will be the first major awards given “to cinematographers entirely by cinematographers”.

IMAGO at Camerimage 2017

IMAGO plans to arrange several conferences, seminars and masterclasses in cooperation with Camerimage during this year’s great festival in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The IMAGO Gender And Diversity Committee, led by Nina Kellgren BSC and Elen Lotman ESC, arranged several extremely popular seminars and conferences in 2016 and will, in cooperation with Camerimage and Illuminatrix (the British-based collective of female cinematographers) continue the momentum in 2017.

IMAGO will also collaborate with the American Society Of Cinematographers to arrange several activities focussing on the work of cinematographers. So we hope to see you during Camerimage 2017, from 11-18 November.

New Administrative Assistant

IMAGOs ambitions are high – higher than our present administrative capacity. The new IMAGO Awards, for example, will need a lot of attention and work from us all, both this year and in those to come.

We have therefore employed Katrin Richthofer to help. Katrin is presently working as an administrator for the German Film School in Munich, with special responsibility in arranging educational conferences, seminars and masterclasses. Although not a cinematographer herself, this work has given her great experience in working with and administrating cinematographers, cooperating with suppliers of equipment, sponsor partners, logistics and finances. From May this year she will be work one day a week for IMAGO. We believe this will help to increase IMAGO’s efficiency and capacity in the work we do for our more than 4,000 members world-wide. We welcome Katrin to our team and family!

For more information about IMAGO, please visit www.imago.org and www.imagoawards.org, and sign-up for our regular newsletter.