Born: 18 February 1964, Ithaca, New York, USA, as Luther Shane Hurlbut.

Education: Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts, USA [BA Film; graduated in 1986].

Career: 'I grew up on a 250 acre farm. We grew corn, wheat, oats, barley, red kidney beans and soy beans. My dad was also a professor's assistant at Cornell University and my mother was a sixth grade school teacher. I had an 8mm camera that my dad gave me when we visited Yosemite National Park in the early 1970's. Some years later, when I was at Emerson College, I started shooting music videos on Super 8 film and processed it in my dorm room bathtub. I majored in film and television. […] I thought I was going to be a producer. My mom bought me a new suit and instructed me to pound the pavement in Boston looking for a job. I spent three months calling on different production companies. When I started running out of money, I went to Film Arts, where I had done an internship and asked for a job. They paid me $3.50 an hour to load grip and lighting equipment. I moved to Los Angeles in 1987 and got a job at KeyLite. One day, a producer who was renting equipment asked me if I wanted to work on the crew for a horror film called 'Phantasm II'. I was the grip truck driver. A cinematographer gave me a break by hiring me as his gaffer on a 7-Up commercial. [...] I was introduced to Daniel Pearl in 1990. I began working with him, as a gaffer or key grip, depending on the need. We collaborated on more than 100 music videos in a single year. Daniel taught me how to push the exposure limits in photography and how to experiment with light. He defined the art of cinematography with music videos and I was his protégé. Around that time, I also began working on commercials with Joseph Yacoe, another talented cinematographer and mentor. He introduced me to Herb Ritts, the still photographer who shot covers for Vogue and Vanity Fair. Herb took me around the world to light his portraits. It was an amazing experience that lasted for five years. I met a music video director named Kevin Kerslake. He was a director/cameraman who hired me as his gaffer/lighting director. We were doing bigger and bigger projects including four Nirvana and two Smashing Pumpkins videos. After a while he had me shoot second camera. We had an amazing relationship from 1991 through 1995, the same time I was working with Herb Ritts. […] I was shooting a music video for a song in the film 'Daylight', directed by Rob Cohen. One of the producers visited the set and told Rob about me. A week later I got a phone call from Rob to interview for his NBC pilot. Rob's implicit faith in my ability is something for which I am eternally grateful.' [From interview by Bob Fisher on the KODAK OnFilm website.]

Ph music videos with a: Nirvana, The Rolling Stones, Donna Summer, Smashing Pumpkins, a.o. Ph commercials dir by Eden Diebel [for Coca Cola, Vodafone, a.o.], Brian Coin [for 7-Up], Barry Levinson [for American Express], Jan de Bont [for U.S. Navy], Chris Spencer [promo for 'Deadwood'-series], Maurice Marable [for Verizon], Charles Stone III ['True Vote' for the Barack Obama campaign and sponsored by Anheuser-Busch (2m30sec)], Bandito Brothers [PSA 'Navy Swimmer' (4m) for U.S. Navy], a.o. Ph a series of trailers for the anim feature 'Bee Movie'.

Directed commercials.

Member of the ASC since 2006.

Awards: ASC TV Award nom [1998] for 'The Rat Pack'.

Websites: Shane Hurlbut & Hurlbut Visuals

'The Rat Pack': "When Rob [Cohen] and I talked about the visual style of 'The Rat Pack', he asked, 'If you're going to say in one word - 'glamour' - in a 1950s or '60s setting, what comes to mind?' I said, 'Hurrell.' And Rob said, 'Right on.' With that in mind, we lit everything like one of George Hurrell's prints. Everything had a high, overexposed key to cream out the skin-tones, and we always had a lot of backlight, and then just the right amount of fill. No matter where the actors walked or sat, they looked like movie stars. During our prep phase, I read tons of books about Hurrell. When we did our lighting tests, we shot several possible key-light scenarios: key, fill, backlight, and so on. I wanted the lighting to be very classic. During that time period, that's what it was all about. I went way over the top with the backlights. My backlights were always searing; I'd usually use Source Four Leikos with a little Hampshire Frost diffusion, and the light they created was about six stops over most of the time."

'Careful planning helped Hurlbut and his crew to make the most of their limited shooting schedule. "We had four basic glamour-lighting setups," the cameraman explains. "If the actors were standing, it was setup number one. If they were sitting, it was number two, and so on. I had a schematic drawn up for each setup, which we laminated and slung around every grip's and electrician's neck. That way, when we'd go in for a close-up, I'd call out, 'We're going for number four!' Suddenly, the entire crew was in motion, echoing out 'Number four!' And within minutes, I'd have a beautifully lit close-up. That was how I was able to light and relight for each shot."

"I used amazingly soft lights with a lot of control - mainly Chimera sources with honeycomb egg crates for all of the keys, and occasionally Chimera's China balls. I also relit for every medium shot and every close-up. On a television schedule, you usually find yourself shooting a wide and a medium shot at the same time. But Rob and I agreed that we couldn't shoot glamour with two cameras rolling - like one on a 14mm and the other on a 75mm. If you do that and light for the close-up, there's so much soft light flying around the room that the wide shot will be flatter than hell. Or, if you want to have contrast in your wide shot, you're lighting with harder light. With that in mind, we used intense, hard light for all of the wide shots, softer light for the mediums, and then extremely soft light for the close-ups. With the mix of smoke and a rear [Fogal] net, it was just magic." [From the 'American Cinematographer' website, 1999.]

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'Digital Intermediate has the ability to create a look that is not achievable with an organic developing process. Specifically, it is a powerful tool to increase speed, achieve greater control of the image, and bypass the formerly necessary widescreen extraction. It enables me, when necessary, to do a skip-bleach process to get the right contrast for a film and then use DI to saturate the colors. I view DI as one more tool in the cinematographer’s toolbox.' [Shane Hurlbut]