Craft leaders: John Mathieson, Cinematographer

The fight to keep film alive is typically couched in terms of its superior look to video, but according to John Mathieson digital capture is in danger of corrupting the craft of cinematography itself.

“Any DP will be a better DP if they shot some film,” he says. “They would be working with their eye to judge exposure, looking at the light rather studying a monitor.”

With credits including Kingdom of Heaven, Brighton Rock, Hannibal, 47 Ronin, Robin Hood and X-Men: First Class to go with Oscar nominations for Gladiator (2000) and The Phantom of the Opera (2004), the British director of photography has the authority to pull no punches.

“Shooting Raw is not being a DP,” he adds. “It’s for pussies.”

Mathieson honed his craft in the 1990s shooting commercials for Ridley Scott’s RSA Films and music videos for artists including Madonna, U2 and Massive Attack. He shot a couple of features for French director Karim Dridi before his work as visual effects cinematographer on Enemy of the State for director Tony Scott at Mill Film caught the eye of Ridley Scott who invited him to lens his next picture, Gladiator.

He says there are several scenes in the multi-Oscar winning film featuring the Colosseum in which the lighting source appears to emanate from different angles, a consequence of the half physical and half CG model build of the centrepiece set and the edit process.

“Nobody has ever pulled me up on it,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if…