On Soundstage 3, seated on a couch as if in his own living room (that is, if his living room had galleys and elevated passageways where a ceiling should be), is the award-winning cinematographer Stephen Burum.
As this quarter’s UCLA Kodak cinematographer in residence, Burum, whose work with film directors Brian De Palma (“Mission: Impossible”) and Francis Ford Coppola (“The Outsiders”) has made his more than 40 years as a cinematographer an illustrious career, is holding his office hours.
During this time, students from all fields come to ask Burum questions about cinematography and bounce ideas off him.
“Artists always like to teach because the more you talk about what you do, the more you explain it to yourself,” said Burum, a UCLA alumnus. “I wanted to make myself available for the people with burning questions because those are the people who are going to do the job. This is not a profession; it’s a passion.”
Burum will also be holding eight lighting workshops in addition to his weekly office hours to fulfill his duties as cinematographer in residence.
Bill McDonald, chair of the UCLA cinematography program, initiated the Kodak-sponsored program in 2000. Past participants have included Laszlo Kovacs and documentary filmmaker Joan Churchill.
“Steve is the first cinematographer I asked back in 2000 and he agreed ““ we were in the process of planning his residency when he was offered the film “˜Mission to Mars,’ so he had to call me up and say he could not do it. It’s taken me eight years to come around and ask him again,” McDonald said.
In choosing Burum for the residency, McDonald took into account Burum’s talent, his devotion to UCLA and his particular knowledge of cinematography and filmmaking in general.
“He has a bit more depth than other cinematographers in that he really understands how a movie gets made,” McDonald said. “In other words, how the Hollywood system worked then and now, working in the trenches. And how a first-time director works with the studios. (His knowledge) is something that our directing students, our producing students, in addition to our cinematography students, can take advantage of.”
This all-encompassing knowledge seems crucial to the craft of cinematography. Despite the orchestration of filmmaking, in which everyone from the gaffer to the director and the actors play their parts, it is the cinematographer alone who can hold it all together.
When shooting “The Shadow” in 1994, the Northridge earthquake hit and the director could not make it to the set. Burum got the go-ahead and shot three days’ worth of material in one day ““ without the director.
“The director, the producer, the editor, the gaffer ““ no one could have done it but the cinematographer because the cinematographer has to have a working knowledge of everything,” Burum said.
This polymath quality of cinematographers is something created during education. Burum, who received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UCLA, said his time here not only helped him decide to become a cinematographer, but also helped him develop his talent.
“The cinematography is connected to acting ““ it’s important to take acting because it teaches analysis, what the character is, what they’re supposed to be doing,” he said.
When the filmmaker attended UCLA, he tried directing, producing, cinematography and other paths of filmmaking. “The great thing about school is that you’re forced to try out all the different posts and then choose the one you like best,” he said.
The relationship between director and cinematographer is paramount to a picture.
For Burum, choosing projects depends on the script before anything else, but the importance of the director is evident in the fact that he has worked with De Palma eight times to date.
“The director will show you the scene and it’s your job to do something with it. The director directs the eye and the emotion so that it’s very obvious to the cinematographer what the feeling should be,” Burum said.
One example of the effects of a cinematographer on the emotion of a scene is the transformation of the bubble-gum-pink apartment in “St. Elmo’s Fire” to a more muted, darkened pink. This change coincides with the main character’s fall into depression and drug use; the newly subdued apartment reflects its tenant.
“When you go to a movie, you have to give yourself up to the movie. If you don’t cry in a sad movie, you’re cheating yourself. When you’re plotting a movie, it’s a craft tempered by emotion,” he said.
The finality of a film is what makes the medium so appealing to Burum.
“When you do a movie, it will be there forever,” he said. “We want to steal people’s souls and make them immortal.”
If that sounds a little sinister, it shouldn’t. Burum, a purist and a believer in the power of film, has seen the art form through the many stages of its still-young life.
“All the people who taught me worked in the silent movies. I’m the only link these students have to the silent movies and that’s important because we learn by tradition,” he said.
Burum was quick to pass on a piece of advice from one of his own professors.
“If you haven’t been fired from a major studio at least three times, you’re not a real cinematographer,” he said, quoting cinematographer Charlie Clarke.
It’s this sense of tradition and level of experience which Burum is now offering prospective UCLA filmmakers. And though Hollywood is a notoriously difficult milieu to work in, the cinematographer remains optimistic about the process.
“We never fail in movies ““ they always get done,” he said. “In 40 years, I’ve never worked on a movie that didn’t get done. It might not have been done the way they wanted it, but it gets done.”