Working with Directors

Working with Directors

The director–cinematographer relationship is one of the most intimate creative partnerships in filmmaking. Over the years I've been fortunate to build long-term collaborations with directors whose instincts I trust completely — and who trust mine. Each partnership has its own language, its own rhythm, and its own way of arriving at the image.

Working with Kurt Martin

Among my longest creative and personal partnerships is with director Kurt Martin, whose feature Moon Rock For Monday, The Room Below and the short film The Briefcase I shot for Lunar Pictures. Kurt and I first crossed paths through a mutual friend, and the partnership clicked instantly — same sense of humour, same shortlist of director–cinematographer pairings we'd both been quietly obsessed with for years.

Kurt is a strongly visual director but likes to hand over the keys early, preferring to see what I bring before he commits to a look. On Moon Rock For Monday that meant multiple scouts of the outback to find the right country, time of day and shoot schedule. Filming there in the warmer months pushed temperatures to the extreme — so we structured most days around controlled interiors at midday and used heavy overhead skims to soften the high sun on exteriors.

What I love about working with Kurt is the room he leaves for the process. Giving him space to discover things on set keeps him responsive to the environment and to the actors — and he's exceptional at both.

He's particularly gifted at reading people: at seeing what holds true for a performer and chasing it. That means the camera has to stay flexible and ready to follow rather than dictate. His willingness to be led by the room, and mine to be led by him, is what makes the work feel honest.

Working with John Mavety

John Mavety and I have been working together for years — multiple series of Deadly Women for Discovery Channel, two of John's short films (one of which placed third at Tropfest), and most recently Ron Iddles — The Good Cop for Fox. John comes from a visual design background, and it shows the moment he steps on set: an eye for perfection that keeps every department honest, and a frame-first instinct that means we're rarely just talking about coverage — we're talking about the shot.

John has an unusually high bar for what makes a shot worth shooting, and that bar lifts everyone around him.

What I value most about working with John is the discipline that visual rigour brings to fast-turnaround productions like dramatised documentary. The Silver Logie and ACS Gold Award that came out of Ron Iddles are a fair measure of what that discipline pays out.

Working with Josh Groom

Josh Groom and I first met at AFTRS — he was completing his Master of Arts in editing while I was doing mine in cinematography. My first-year film at school was cut by Josh, and we've worked together steadily ever since. Josh is a genuine triple-threat: a Masters-trained editor, an accomplished music and live-event photographer, and a director with a deep instinct for performance. His love of visual arts and filmmaking is second to none, and that breadth shows up in every project he touches.

Josh arrives on set knowing exactly what each shot needs to do narratively, which lets the camera serve the cut rather than fight it — a clarity that's unsurprising given his editorial background.

Our collaborations have ranged from short-film drama (Manifestation) to music video (Snow Droppers — Love Letters, and the IF Award-nominated, ACS Gold-winning Birds of Tokyo — Wild Eyed Boy), and the same principle holds across every format: pictures in service of the story.

Glenn Hanns ACS is a Sydney-based Director of Photography specialising in feature drama, television and documentary. For project enquiries visit the contact page.