JAMES MATHERS

Born: 5 May 1955, Los Angeles, Calif., USA.

Education: Film School at California State University, Northridge.

Career: Started at a young age as an actor [sometimes cred as Jimmy Mathers], joining the Screen Actors Guild in 1960. Retired from acting in the 1970's and attended film school. Worked on a variety of staff and free-lance production assignments rising to doph in the early 1980's.

Has recently been specializing in shooting 'film style' digital and is co-founder of The Digital Cinema Society, a nonprofit educational cooperative created to address the information needs of producers, directors, cinematographers, postproduction specialists, and exhibitors. The Society's purpose is not to advocate for digital, but to objectively examine all media, solutions, services, and technologies without favoring any one brand, service, or format over another. He is also a regular contributor to several industry trade magazines including Studio Monthly, Definitions – The HiDef Source Book, and Digital Cinema Magazine.

While still active as a cinematographer, he has also compiled a long list of credits as a director including 4 short dramatic films, music videos and numerous commercials, PSA's & doc's.

With wife and writing partner, Charlene Mathers, he has recently formed The Migrant FilmWorkers. His brother Jerry [1948-] is an actor.

Website: James Mathers

Note: Not to be confused with the Irish doph James Mather [e.g. 'The Last Bus Home' (1996) & 'Adam & Paul' (2004)].

'Last Night with Angel' [2002]: Panasonic Broadcast's new AJ-HDC27V HD Cinema camera was recently selected to shoot a narrative short, 'Last Night with Angel.' The feature was produced by Geoff Garrett, directed by Mike Henry, and James Mathers served as director of photography. The AJ-HDC27V allowed these digital filmmakers to capture film-like 24-frame high-definition progressive scanned images; in addition, the camera, with a wide range of variable frame rates - 4 to 33fps, 36, 40 and 60fps - provided the capability to 'overcrank' or 'undercrank' the camera to achieve fast or slow motion effects. This is the first time this traditional film technique has been applied to a high-definition digital camera system.

'With a plan to submit a film print for inclusion in film festivals around the world, but with a very limited budget, HD seemed to be the perfect choice for 'Angel.' The AJ-HDC27V performed extremely well on location, and I was especially impressed with its sensitivity, which came in very handy in the many low light situations we found ourselves in,' said Mathers. 'Our main location was the penthouse of the Century Plaza Hotel. Many of our shots played against the night skyline and shooting at low light levels really helped in playing, and not overpowering, this unique background. I found I could rate the camera at the equivalent of 600 ASA, even at -6db, more than sensitive enough to balance against the background. I even stopped down a little, which I usually try to avoid when shooting electronic. In this situation, however, it was helpful to keep the background lights a little crisper because when they got too fuzzy they tended to disappear,' Mathers noted. He continued, 'Another location was a large cavernous nightclub where the action played in pools of hot light. This is a difficult situation for an electronic camera, especially given the deep red crushed velvet background [a real 'lumen eater']. I was very impressed with how the camera held the hot highlights in the lit spots, but also reached into the darkness to provide enough detail to play the practical set - even the folds in the velvet tapestry. […] We were able to take advantage of the AJ-HDC27V's variable frame rate capabilities in different situations. The director wanted to achieve a surreal feeling as the main character, Angel, entered the nightclub environment. Shooting her entrance point-of-view at 60fps really took the edge off reality and helped set the tone for the scene. We were also able to take advantage of variable speed to shoot a time lapse of the sun coming up over the downtown L.A. skyline as viewed from our penthouse location. We shot this night-to-day transition at 4fps with no shutter, to quite an interesting effect. Our only challenge was stopping down enough by adding neutral density as the scene brightened so dramatically.' [From DVformat.com website, Jan. 23, 2002.]

'Balancing the Books' [2008]: "I'm coming to the end of the first week [January 2008] on a modest Indie feature, 'Balancing the Books', shooting with my RED camera, #30X. It has not been without some small bumps and idiosyncrasies to work around, but the pictures have been beautiful, and overall I would say things are going well. The project is low budget, but quite dialogue intensive. With long dialogue scenes, it was a challenge to "roll out" every 4 minutes [we started the shoot on the 8GB CF Cards], and have to reload. We also found that 3 takes had data errors which caused a loss of at least part of the material. We were aware of these problems in time to cover ourselves after transferring the cards to RAID's [= Redundant Array of Independent Disks - the simultaneous use of 2 or more hard disk drives], verifying, and playing them back in within minutes via RED Alert and Quick Time.

Midweek, however, we finally received our RED drives, which has been a great boon to the production; we can now roll many times longer between reloads. We are still only using about a fifth [perhaps 30 minutes out of 150] of the drive's capacity at this point until we gain more confidence, so we can playback and verify the data before moving too far along. The RED drives, however, have been 100% so far, and ergonomically work so nicely into the system; easy on and off of the camera, and quick downloads into the RAID's. From now on, we will only be using the CF Cards when we need a very small camera, and when there is a lot of gyration or vibration which could cause problems for a drive; however there isn't much of that on this picture.

The camera stays mostly on a jib arm which I use a lot as part of my style, set up in studio mode with an Angénieux Optimo 17-80. It's a very fast system, without the need for constant lens changes, and the Optimo, at T2.2 is about as fast as the standard speed Zeiss primes which I keep in a smaller, hand holdable mode on the B-camera, which is mostly there for back-up and hasn't seen too much action so far.

For data backup, we are going to a 5 Terabyte eSata RAID, and also to two secondary smaller drives, one simultaneous via eSata, and another via Firewire 800. One of these goes to the editing room and the other travels to the lab, FotoKem, which also makes LTO-2 data tape backups before being recycled.

Now if only I could get my EVF's [= electronic viewfinder], the final backordered item from RED, I would be styling. We have been working around it with an onboard HD monitor for the operator split off from the directors feed, but it's cumbersome with extra wires, power considerations, and weight.

[...] I've now had a chance to screen selected dailies projected in 2K courtesy of FotoKem. They took some of our material, created 4K DPX sequences, color timed them on a Quantel Pablo, as they would for a DI finish, then scaled them to 2K for projection. It was great to see everything through our post workflow path and see it on a big screen to make sure we were up to snuff in all areas. I can't recommend highly enough that you see your work, at least occasionally, projected on a big screen." [By James Mathers, Cinematographer & President of the Digital Cinema Society.]

1982        Deadly Eyes/The Rats/Night Eyes [Robert Clouse] c; cph: René Verzier

1985        50 Years of Action! [Douglass M. Stewart Jr.] 16mm/c; doc/60m; addph; ph: John Alonzo, Caleb Deschanel & Charles Clifton

1987        Outlaw Force [David Heavener] c; cph: David Huey

1987        Take Two [Peter Rowe] c

1988        Memorial Valley Massacre/Valley of Death [Robert Hughes] c

1988        Zadar! Cow from Hell [Robert Hughes] c

1989        Down the Drain [Robert Hughes] c; 2uc: Tom Callaway

1989        The Forgotten One [Phillip Badger] c; 2uc: Robert F. Smith

1989        Syngenor [George Elanjian Jr.] c; 2uc: Geza Sinkovics

1989        The Game [Cole McKay] c

1989        Night Eyes/Hidden View/Hidden Vision [Jag Mundhra] c

1990        Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever [Deborah Brock] c; 2uc: Michael Delahoussaye

1990        Last Call [Jag Mundhra] c

1990        Legal Tender/Ladies Game [Jag Mundhra] c; cph: Ricardo Jacques Gale

1990        House IV/House 4: The Repossession [Lewis Abernathy] c

1991        The Search for Signs of Inteligent Life in the Universe [John Bailey] c; comedy perf/120m; addph

1991        Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker [Martin Kitrosser] c

1991        Round Trip to Heaven [Alan Roberts] c

1991        The Other Woman [Jag Mundhra] c; 2uc: Andrew Bowley; as James Michaels

1992        Play Nice [Terri Treas] c

1992        Wild Cactus [Jag Mundhra] c; 2uc: Ken Arlidge

1992        L.A. Goddess [Jag Mundhra] c

1992        Night Eyes Three [Andrew Stevens] c

1993        Snapdragon [Worth Keeter] c; as James Michaels

1993        Sexual Malice [Jag Mundhra] c

1993        Improper Conduct [Jag Mundhra] c; as James Michaels

1994        Young at Hearts [Don Campbell] c; doc/73m; cph: Denis Maloney, Charles Burnett, a.o.

1995        Tainted Love [Jag Mundhra] c; or ph Blain Brown

1996        Beetleborgs: Vampire Files [Worth Keeter] c/V

1996        Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie [David Winning & Shuki Levy] c; co-2uc; ph: Ilan Rosenberg

1997        Curse of the ShadowBorg [John Putch] c/V

1998        Sex: The Annabel Chong Story [Gough Lewis] c; doc/86m; cph: G. Lewis, Kelly Morris, a.o.; as James Michaels

1999        Intrepid/Deep Water [John Putch] c

2001        XCU: Extreme Close Up [Sean Cunningham] HD-to-35mm/c

2002        Last Night with Angel [Michel Henry] HD/c; short/20m

2004        American Crude [Craig Sheffer] c

2005        Who Is Harry Nilsson... ( And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him?) [John Scheinfeld] c; doc/93m; release was

                    delayed until 2010 due to copyright issues

2005        For the Bible Tells Me So [Daniel Karslake] c; doc/95m; cph: Kevin Bond, Jared Manders, Rob Van Praag, a.o.

2005        Tranced [David Mickey Evans] HD/c; as James Michaels

2005        Getting Around: Alternatives for Seniors Who No Longer Drive [Dale Bell] dv/c; doc/28m; cph: Jonathan Bell; addph: Jaimie Morris

2006        [Leonardo DiCaprio Presents] The 11th Hour [Nadia Conners & Leila Conners Petersen] film+dv-to-35mm/c;

                    doc/95m; co-interview ph; ph (16mm): Peter Youngblood Hills; ph (35mm): Andrew Rowlands

2006        The U.S. vs. John Lennon [David Leaf & John Scheinfeld] DVCPRO HD-to-35mm/b&w-c; doc/96m; filmed 2005-06

2007        Dystopia [Brandi Centeno] c; short/14m

2007        Dummy Hoy: A Deaf Hero [David Risotto] c; 2uc: Kelly Christian Lynch

2007        Waiting for Yvette [Justin Ross] c; short/14m