If you have questions about lighting, equipment, safety on set or any of the other 317.000 things a good cinematographer needs to consider, chances are Shane Hurlbut knows the answer. His credits include Terminator: Salvation, Act of Valor, Need For Speed, Fathers & Daughters, We Are Marshall and many more, but in this context our focus will be on his passion for sharing what he’s learned in his years on the job. His website, hurlbutvisuals.com, is a treasure trove of articles, How-To’s, product tests, and glimpses from behind the scenes of major Hollywood productions. If you want to dive even further, you’ll find Shane’s Inner Circle, which is a member’s only section of his website that offers premium content for a modest fee.

We highly recommend you spend some time getting to know Shane Hurlbut, whether you are an aspiring cinematographer or simply curious about how the pros work.

A few of our favorite posts are linked below. Get to it.

The Power of Shaping Hard Light

Turning Your GoPro Into A Cinematic Movie Making Machine

The Importance of Being Mobile

Photo credit: Shane Hurlbut

The following interview was conducted for the Boulder Writers’ Workshop by Lori DeBoer. Lori is the founder of the Boulder Writers’ Workshop and works as an independent writing teacher and coach. She is a contributing editor for Short Story Writer and has had more than a thousand articles and essays published in newspapers, magazines and literary journals, including The New York Times.

Erik V. Wolter is a screenwriter, author and producer with more than twenty screenplays to his credit.

You have a background in education and taught for many years. Have you always been writing or is this a second career?

If writing a few articles for my grade school and high school newspaper counts, then I’ve been writing a very long time. Like so many writers, I was encouraged by a high school English teacher who took me aside and said I should be an English major in college. I failed to heed her advice, focused on history and political science, only to decade’s later regret it when I found myself scrambling to hone those fundamental skills other writers take for granted. My interest in political and social issues did serve to prompt me to write frequent letters to the editor on controversial issues, causing me to parse every word out of fear that it might actually appear in the paper or evoke the wrath of someone’s rebuttal that would allow them to get the last word. Today, as a result, I’m not one to write quickly in a stream of consciousness style. I tend to dissect every scene and strive to get it as close to my version of perfection before moving on with the story, typically not recommended, especially if you can’t handle sleep deprivation.

But to answer your second question, I began writing Loyalty on Trial in 2001 and it was published in 2004. Before I left teaching in 2011, I was fortunate to be hired to write two screenplays on assignment for a production company, wrote five original scripts, and acquired an agent. It’s only since then I could really claim a second career was launched. Being able to devote full time to writing had everything to do with five collaborations with other writers, an assignment to adapt a novel in development with another LA production company, six more spec scripts, and the Y/A novelization of my screenplay, Break the Stage now in the final stages of filming in Orlando, Florida.

“Get a life, Erik!” Feel free to say it out loud. I have heard that very comment in my own home and not from my two dogs. Seriously though, here’s the subtext for any writer frustrated with trying to find the time to write in the context of family, job, and still have a “life.” I play tennis, ski, and work out. I also have dinner with my wife nightly where we share out thoughts and discuss… you name it. When I was teaching, I made time to write by treating it as a part-time job that required a commitment of a certain number of hours daily. The fact that I couldn’t wait to get to that second job made it the best moonlighting experience ever. I’d bet that any fellow-writer reading this has had more formal training in writing than I have, and can run circles around me when it comes to pounding out pages on the keyboard. Therefore, you know what comes next. If I can do it…

Has your teaching informed your writing in any way?

What made this journey possible was the fact that I was a veteran teacher when it all began. I knew how to organize my time, had the work ethic to stay at it late into the night, and sacrifice summers and other holidays for time to write. And retiring in 2011 clearly gave me an opportunity to establish a second career, and unlike a younger person trying to break into this writing biz, I didn’t have the pressure to make a living solely off of my writing.

You’ve written in many genres—novels, screenplays, nonfiction. How have you come to be involved in so many different types of writing?

Most of the screenwriting gurus advise against writing for multiple genres because agents and managers claim they prefer to market a writer who has a track record of success in one genre. Develop the skills required in that one genre and you will acquire a following and be more marketable, they claim. That may work for some, but I wanted to experiment in as many genres and mediums as I could when I started out. And I couldn’t buy into the idea that I had to focus on one when in fact my interests and experiences were diverse. But I do agree that if you discover that you are really successful in one genre, it makes sense to focus most of your attention there.

Which genre excites you the most or do you like them all?

Other than horror, I like them all. Liking straight comedy though isn’t enough. Apparently, writing comedy works best if you are actually funny. I have had more success in drama than any other genre, but I still get tempted to take a chance and test myself in something new if I have a story in mind.

Tell us about Loyalty on Trial: One American’s Battle with the FBI, which is based on your father’s experience. Could you talk about the book and how that project came to be?

My odyssey from AP Government and Politics teacher to full-time writer began in the summer of 2001. I flew to Chicago to help my sister move my mother out of the house where our family lived since 1945. My mother, a German immigrant, who celebrated her 99^th birthday in March, was moving to Las Vegas to be closer to my sister. Dad, also born in Germany, died in 1994. Mom asked me to bring down a sealed box from a shelf in her closet. She said, “Dad would have wanted you to have this.” What the box disclosed became the catalyst for Loyalty on Trial: One American’s Battle with the FBI.

My father was that American. He chose to keep his experience with the FBI sealed in that box for nearly sixty years. The box revealed that he was charged with disloyalty and subsequently denaturalized after a high-profile trial in 1942, but on appeal to the Supreme Court the decision was overturned based on First Amendment rights of speech and association. In the box, I found a 700 page trial transcript, newspaper clippings, and a scrapbook of columns he wrote for a German language newspaper in the 1930’s.

After staying up the entire night and digesting it all, my sister said, “You should write a book about this.” My response was something like, “Yeah sure, me… write a book.” But after returning home to Florida, I was intrigued. How did this ever happen? And from what I read, it was obvious that there had been thousands of other German Americans and German nationals interned in camps across the country and many deported. As an American History major and U.S. Government teacher, I had to wonder how this slipped through the cracks. Here was an untold story from WWII that demonstrated how patriotic fervor can lead to paranoia, intolerance, and repression when government seeks expedient means to achieve an alleged “greater good,” only not to be found in any high school textbook.

How did the research and writing of that book unfold?

I filed a Freedom of Information request with the Federal Government, and two weeks later a box was at my doorstep when I came home. The 1,000 pages of FBI files, including, confidential informants, illegal “mail covers” and letters about my father signed by J. Edgar Hoover was enough to convince me that a book should be written, at least by someone. About that time, the horrific attack on 9/11 happened. The parallels of how German Americans and Americans of Middle-Eastern descent were treated based on societal hysteria and unjustified profiling by the government were striking. So I took the plunge into documenting my Dad’s story.

What was the biggest challenge in writing and publishing the book?

After months of pursuing university press publishers, only to receive praise for the work but polite rejections due to not having a PHD, I took the self-publishing road. By 2004 I was an author of a book that was positively reviewed in history circles and by First Amendment advocates, including the president of the ACLU. Without the resources of a traditional publisher, and despite my own efforts, marketing the book never amounted to much. But then I heard, and not just from my sister, “This would make a great movie.”

How did you move from that book into being involved in screenwriting?

While still teaching, I immersed myself into studying screenwriting. There was no shortage of material online, including how-to books, consultants, script analysts, and sample screenplays. But my early attempts to transform my book to a screenplay produced a script that frankly was quite awful. And that was a good thing because as you know, writing is rewriting and that is doubly true for screenplays. Ultimately, the fictional version of my book made the Finals in 2012 of the Page Awards. During that time, I gained experience as I wrote more scripts about that with which I was most familiar, teenagers and history. Coverage and contest results continued to be more positive than negative. One thing I learned along the way, making stuff up (or should I say creating), even if it is drawn from actual events, real people, or your own experience is much more enjoyable than writing nonfiction, at least for me. I tried my hand in other genres just to see if I could and discovered that only horror and straight comedy weren’t my cup of tea.

Was it difficult writing about something historical that had personal ties?

Despite having personal ties to the story, my training and experience as a teacher told me the best approach was to document the story from the perspective of the government acting in wartime versus an immigrant torn between his devotion to his new country and his attachment to the ongoing turmoil taking place in the country of his birth. Balancing those elements within the broader context of civil liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution would be my challenge. According to the Midwest Book Review, I was reasonably successful, “Loyalty On Trial relies so heavily on primary sources and the transcript of the trial itself that it does not pretend to read like a novel; instead, it offers the straight facts to the reader, leaving him or her to judge Wolter’s loyalty and the dubious American policy that almost certainly forced unjust imprisonment and deportation upon thousands of innocent German-Americans.”

How many screenplays have you written and what has been your experience in pitching them and getting them produced?

To date, my resume lists twenty-two screenplays. Five of those were collaborative efforts with other screenwriters, and another five were writer for hire assignments. Pitching the remaining original specs was time consuming and a never-ending process. Having an agent is a foot in the door when it comes to queries and credibility, but promoting your own work is a given. The film industry provides numerous opportunities to pitch one’s work online and in person via pitch fests in LA. I have had good results online from Ink Tip and Virtual Pitch Fest. Coverage services like the Black List and the Tracking Board are sources to get your work noticed, and screenplay contests, although extremely competitive, have been known to launch careers for those who make the finals.

Getting produced is the goal, but the reality is it is a long shot. Actually, it is more like a buzzer beater three-quarter-court desperation shot when your team, the lowest seed in the tournament after a Cinderella-run, is down by three in the national championship. You not only make it to tie the game, you get fouled and head to the free-throw line while the rabid home crowd of the undefeated #1 team in the country does everything possible to make you miss. All alone on the line, because the clock has run out, you clank it but somehow it bounces three times on the rim and finally rolls through. You now get to take the place of Christian Laettner as the most hated college basketball player. On the other hand, one of my former students, Jamie Linden, wrote We Are Marshall, and it was his first. Diablo Cody’s, Juno was not only her first but won an Oscar for original screenplay. Hope springs eternal on the court and for those pounding on the keyboard into the wee hours of the night on that last rewrite.

… check back for Part II of this interview with Erik V. Wolter!

I recently stumbled upon DP Shane Hurlbut’s website, HurlbutVisuals.com, which has turned out to be a great source of know-how from working film professionals, including of course Shane himself. For those of you that don’t know, Shane Hurlbut is an accomplished cinematographer with credits like Need For Speed, Act of Valor, Terminator Salvation, We Are Marshall and Swing Vote to his name. One particular article of his that I’d like to highlight today is his breakdown of how to light day exterior shots.

Before getting into the nitty-gritty, here’s a word of wisdom from Shane.

[Sometimes] you compromise the light to gain the big picture … You do not worry that the light is not exactly how you envisioned it. Making a film is about compromises. Period. If you don’t approach a movie this way, you are being a little naive. It is all about making those compromises and turning them into a positive, every time!

With that in mind, let’s get to it.

1. Use tools for finding the best time to shoot

Shane highlights a few different tools he has used to determine the best times to shoot. Helios is the Rolls Royce of the bunch. Sun Seeker is the runner-up. These are both apps for your smartphone that will tell you where the sun will be at specific times of the day in specific locations, how the shadows will fall and more. Lesson to be learned here? Don’t just wing it. Do your homework before grabbing your camera and your crew. If you anticipate certain lighting needs for a scene or if your director has a particular vision of how the scene should look, make sure you have the elements on your side.

2. Shape the natural light

There are many ways to shape, redirect and/or filter the natural light at your location. According to Shane, know that back light is your friend:

I would always try to look for a back light orientation for your scene. This enables you to shoot for a good amount of time without the light changing. As the light gains its height in the sky, I just slightly rotate my actors to match that rotation, always keeping them back lit. The reason for this is that frontal sunlight can be very harsh at times. It can make it very difficult for the actors to keep their eyes open without squinting. That never looks good unless you are Clint Eastwood and it works like a million bucks. You can bring a bounce in to fill or use as a key light, which is passive. This means using the sunlight, the same source that is back lighting the actor, not adding another light into the bounce. I love all types of bounces no matter what output I need from it.

With the back light working to your advantage, perfect the lighting with negative fill:

Just using a bounce can work great, but there are some times when you want more mood in your scene. That is when you use what is called Negative Fill. During the day, light is all around us. It is coming from the sky, from the horizon, from the ground, you name it. I use large solids, which are black in color, for wider shots and then 4 x 4 solids for close ups that I can work in as a ballet dance with the bounce. Usually I work the bounce. I have a grip doing the negative fill as the actors move if I am not operating.

When shooting a wide shot, I try to shoot them at the most perfect time. Let Mother Nature do the lighting and the contrast control for you. For the medium shots, I bring in 12 x 20 clay coats to reflect a key light source and a 12 x 20 and a 12 x 12 solid for negative fill.

This negative fill can sometimes be a frustrating process because of the daylight coming in from all over. Shaping this light to your liking can feel a little too stylized if you hit it with too much contrast, so beware. If you are in an alley or around tall buildings, then you can get away with steeper contrast. But if you are out in the open, I find that creating a contrast of about 2 to 2.5 stops down on the negative fill is good and plays nicely with almost any scene.

Working in the ability to block a scene where your actors land in a side light scenario is always very pleasing as well. This is done by orienting your actors in a way that they are lit with one side of their face keyed by the sun. Getting this just right is what I learned from Herb Ritts, that perfect angle of light which shapes the face in a way that is beautiful. If you are shooting this kind of light in the morning, then I would shoot the close ups first, while the sun is still in their eyes, before it goes skull eyes. I am sure that you have seen this before. It is when you shoot outside when the sun is too high and the actors look like skeletons because they have these deep shadows in their eyes when the light is too toppy.

3. Substitute natural light with Daylight Balanced Lights

If your scene calls for a more dramatic lighting that Mother Nature can provide, you do have the option of helping Her quite a bit. Enter daylight balanced lights. Shane uses his work on The Rat Pack as an example:

On the The Rat Pack, I lit almost every shot during the day with HMIs. These are daylight balanced lights that match daytime Kelvin color temp, which is around 5500 Kelvin. I would either bounce 18Ks off 12 x 20 Ultra Bounces or drive 18Ks through light grid or full grid diffusion frames. Then I would add a searing back light with a mirror board off the sun, or an 18K spotted in. Sometimes a 7K Xenon was needed. This was the look and feel of this movie. Rob Cohen, the director, wanted the character’s life to be a stage. So every time you saw them, they had the perfect key light, back light and fill level. Most of my other films have been more naturalistic. I don’t choose. I go with the director’s vision and the best way to tell the story.

About Shane Hurlbut:

Shane Hurlbut, A.S.C., is a world-renowned cinematographer who shoots multimillion dollar blockbuster films. Shane brings a level of unparalleled passion and excitement to everything he does. He is an innovative cinematic pioneer that deploys new techniques on every project to challenge him and enhance the quality of his work. He seamlessly blends different camera emulsions to enhance storytelling. One of his recent films, Act of Valor, was shot primarily using the Canon 5D Mark II camera and is the first HDSLR full-length feature released by a major studio.