Mathis took a semester off to work on Sean Penn's directorial debut
film, The Indian Runner. "Thom Mount, one of the producers, has roots in
Durham. He came to speak at the University and I asserted myself as
someone who was really interested in a career in the film business. He
allowed me to come and be a film loader/second assistant cameraperson
on the movie . . . That was my first taste of Hollywood filmmaking."
In his senior year he met producer Bill Hayes, a Duke alumnus, who
had landed a series for the Discovery Channel called The Operation and
would be shooting in the area. Mathis submitted his résumé and was
hired as cinematographer. While working on the show, he managed to
finish school, earning a bachelor's degree in art history in 1992. He stayed
on with the series for another year.
In 1994, Mathis relocated to Southern California and took work shoot-
ing segments for Entertainment Tonight, while looking for feature and
series work. He submitted his résumé and reel en masse to independent
productions, and for the next couple of years worked for free or for little
money to gain more celluloid experience. "I had done some 16mm and
video, but I hadn't done a lot of 35mm production." During that time he
also cold-called agents.
"I didn't want to go the assistant cameraperson route because having
a taste of that during Indian Runner, I realized that I wasn't good at it.
Having been a cinematographer, I found myself on the set just stopping
and watching what Tony Richmond was doing, much to the chagrin of the
other assistants I was supposed to be supporting and helping . . . While
[working as an assistant]
would have meant the most
immediate financial stability,
my wife and I decided to just
eat peanut butter sandwiches
and live in a 20
× 20 apart-
ment in Burbank and try to
tough it out."
By 1997, Mathis had gar-
nered enough credits to resume
cold-calling agents, connecting
with one who was looking to
diversify her client roster to
include cinematographers. She
submitted his reel to Tollin
Robbins Productions and
secured him work on three
one-hour youth programs
"I think a key to
anybody's career is a
generous dash of
luck."--Clark Mathis
"[Cinematography] is a demanding
discipline on your time and on your emo-
tional and physical being . . . The jobs are
very grueling and long. My acid test, looking
back, was the fact that when I was doing it,
I lost track of time and forgot to eat. If those
are things that happen to you while you're
experiencing filmmaking, you're in the right
place."--Clark Mathis
CAREER TIPS
User Comments Add a comment…