I believe the best approach to cinematography is one of complete openness to the material and abandonment of the self. I avoid consistent style between projects and like to build an aesthetic sensibility from the ground up to best convey the themes of each story. This dissolution of personal aesthetic values is not always possible and I have been accused of style before, but I think the play between the trying and the result is always where the most interesting things are born. For my graduate work, I was the Director of Photography on the short film "Florence" which was directed by Tess Doolan Burke. Florence is a character driven thriller set in a dark fictional world. This was a fascinating world to explore visually and in the end we drew up a palette of lurid and sickly colours and used wide lenses to emphasise the strange and unsettling setting. We played along the line of trying to make the images uncomfortable but also beautiful. Showing the darkness within each of the characters but also the humanity. At all times, the cinematographic approach was designed to highlight and cater to the performances the actors gave and never to override.
