Where the Camera Behind Citizen Kane Still Rolls

Steve Gainer’s Everything Cinematography

YouTube, 5 episodes

Social media suffers no shortage of lifeless movie channels. Yet, Steve Gainer’s Everything Cinematography is a welcome break from anonymous YouTubers endlessly reshuffling the same old talking points. The canon has long since settled. Refreshingly, Gainer focuses not on the movies but on the cameras and the operators responsible for these classics. For some – including Gainer – the archaic technology housed in the American Society of Cinematographers’ museum is treasure that rivals any mediaeval reliquary.

Why would anyone care about antiquated cine-film cameras? Celluloid is a long-dead shooting medium, and the derivative slop filling cinemas today means the art form is becoming less relevant with each passing year. Of course, this isn’t just a curated eBay page of dusty old cameras from granddad’s shoe cupboard. These are the tools that shaped our cultural heritage and our visual grammar – forceps that birthed the movies. We’re talking the actual hand-cranked camera Billy Bitzer shot Griffith’s Birth of a Nation with, and the camera Greg Toland and Orson Welles dug into the floor for Citizen Kane.

However familiar with these films we may be, looking at the tools used to make such works offers a refreshing new angle. Gainer tells us about the practical issues the pioneers faced and asks who the crazy fools were who risked life and limb to make movies.

For instance, cinematographer Bernard Mather was killed by a blow to the head from a frozen block blasted away from the pack ice surrounding the ship on Amundsen’s Arctic voyage. It’s obvious that Gainer holds such people in the same high regard that others reserve for Picasso or Turner.

It’s hard to imagine a world without Citizen Kane, yet despite the reverence for it, few consider the tools – and by extension the legions of people who made them. Gainer’s channel is a celebration of the pioneering spirit, both technical and human. Someone innovated these cameras, and real needs were met. For an industry that celebrates artistic creativity, it’s nice to see a skilled cinematographer focusing on the practical issues – and the equally important technological innovation that made the movies possible in the first place. Whatever Welles’ talents were, he still needed a director of photography, a crew and cutting-edge equipment.

Gainer makes clear that analogue technology has its own lustre. Seeing century-old technology functioning has its own necromantic fascination. That Gainer jumps up and down with glee as it does so, makes these machines more human. If it’s hard to imagine yourself enjoying the talk of pull-down mechanisms and slide-over parallax viewfinders, trust that Gainer sells it.

With all the forgotten mechanical marvels on show, it’s clear no-one’s going to get excited about today’s solid-state digital cameras a century from now. Nobody reveres last year’s iPhone. Circuit boards don’t have animus.

Anyone who has ever looked through a still or movie camera, or lost hours in Lightroom, Photoshop, or Premiere Pro will recognise something of themselves here. It’s perhaps hard for many to imagine how someone might be singularly focussed on making images to the exclusion of everything else. We photographers know it’s an obsessive’s pursuit, and Gainer helps us recognise something of ourselves in those pioneering fellow travellers from a century ago – these marvels didn’t just show us the stars and dreams of yesteryear, they help us realise there but for the grace of God went we.

The introduction to the ASC’s camera collection starts here and continues on Steve Gainer’s Everything Cinematography. Interview here.

Foundation Season Three: The Mule Rises, Dynasties Fall and Colour Palettes Riot

Three seasons, Apple TV+

The third season of Apple’s Isaac Asimov adaptation Foundation settles into cutting-edge filmmaking and beautiful colour design, quickly becoming compelling – if flawed – viewing.

Foundation’s premise remains recognisable from Asimov’s books. In the far future, Hari Seldon, a mathematician, hits upon a method of accurately predicting the long-term future and foresees the galaxy-spanning empire’s fall and thousands of years of barbarism. He is exiled for suggesting a method of limiting that dark age to a thousand years. He sets up the Foundation to navigate the chaos and save humankind. Of course, it’s never that simple.

At the start of this third season, the Foundation has survived two of Seldon’s predicted crises to become a legitimate political force. The military defeats at the end of season two mean the empire’s dynastic hold on galactic power has been waning for centuries. Each of the three cloned emperors harbour doubts about their nature, purpose and legacy. A new figure – The Mule, a psychic with a talent for conquering worlds – appears, challenging the existing order and the accuracy of Seldon’s maths.

 The older actors – Jared Harris and Terrence Mann – steal every scene they are in. Lou Llobell as Gaal Dornick is the closest thing to a protagonist, and many of the supporting cast, including Laura Brin, Ella-Rae Smith, Isabella Laughland and Kulvinder Ghir, have played their roles to perfection. Game of Thrones’ Pilou Asbæk as The Mule embodies chaos, anger and psychosis all rolled into one.

Lee Pace – playing cloned variants of the same antagonist across different centuries – is sometimes magnificent as Brother Day, the principal tyrant and galactic dictator. At times he’s hammy, at others he’s boo-hiss villainy, revelling in needless cruelty and caring little for the individual when there’s a galaxy-wide dominion to maintain. Yet, his 170-mile barefoot pilgrimage in season two deepens his character, making him both more and less human. He is excellent in the third season as a stoner version of the same character, becoming sympathetic as he seeks out the courtesan he loved after she has her memory wiped.

Episodes continue to suffer leaps in narrative logic and are still marred by pointless voiceover. Storytelling has declined massively over the last decade or so and those faults are present here. The adaptation continues taking liberties with the original story, largely in the name of maintaining a consistent cast across a generational story. Many will take exception to the race and gender-swapping of key characters. And yes, protagonist Gaal Dornick embodies the biggest of modern storytelling clichés – the girl who is the key to everything. 

The incompetent bureaucrats and petty tyrants are predictably all heterosexual white males. Everyone else is inexplicably diverse and gay – including, cliché of clichés, the sailors. Even the nun is called “Brother.” And the empire is secretly run by an enslaved female android. Androids, we come to learn, are matriarchal. The Mule twist at the end of season three, with its blink-and-you’ll-miss-it climax and plot reveal, ruins much that preceded it. The viewer’s ability to enjoy the show will depend on whether these contrivances can be overlooked.

Whatever one makes of these revisions, they unfold against visuals of such scale and precision that ideology seems almost beside the point. The aesthetics are beautiful – whichever version of Unreal Engine is being used, the visuals of endless inhabited satellites and worlds are breathtaking. The colour palettes, art direction and cinematography push the envelope of cinematic grammar. Little in either TV, streaming or cinema comes close to matching the look. Key sets and props owe debts to Hellraiser and Stanley Kubrick.

Perfect? No. Faithful to the books? Again, no. Suffers needless race and gender swapping? Yes. Stunning to look at and credibly executed? Without fail. Does it put everything else currently being produced in the genre to shame? Yes. Asimov’s books are the granddaddy of epic sci-fi and it’s nice to see an adaptation – however impressionistic – attempted. The showrunners should be congratulated for working out how to put the galaxy-spanning story on screen. The scale and scope of their vision make Villeneuve’s Dune movies look like a provincial footnote. Apple, can we have A Princess of Mars next, please?

If you can look past the narrative flaws and accept the show as an interpretation rather than a faithful adaptation, then this is cutting-edge modern filmmaking. Anyone who has tried to read the books must struggle with its ever-changing cast and Asimov’s dated prose style. The series avoids these issues, giving us likeable and hateable characters set against epic backdrops and futuristic vistas. Apple again proves itself the home of premium modern entertainment and streaming excellence. For all the noise and confusion of season three’s finale, season four can’t come soon enough.

Predator: Badlands, or If It Bleeds, We Can Emasculate It

Predator: Badlands is Emasculated Masculinity: The Movie, complete with championing disability, taking down the patriarchy – and a cute Disney animal.

At one point in the movie, a creature spits acid at an android and completely melts it away. You know you’re watching a bad movie when you’re envious. Yes, Predator: Badlands is so bad – and will leave you with emotional trauma so acute – you’ll want to find a safe space. Hopefully one showing movies of merit – even torture porn would be an improvement.

Predator: Badlands is a thoroughly enjoyable bad movie – until you stop and think about it. And then it’s just bad. Predator (1987) was 80s machismo. Riotous fun. Endlessly rewatchable and made great by the absurdity of the premise – a group of ‘roided up Reaganite supermen get sent into the jungle to rescue the first rescue team and on the way back get attacked by a trophy hunting alien. It was endlessly quotable, cheesy fun that wore a 40-year groove in pop-culture. Flash forward to today and such grooves are sinkholes filled with the sewage leaking out of modern Disney.

Predator: Badlands is their latest corrupted discharge. The story concerns the misunderstood estrogenic runt of a Predator litter who narrowly avoids being killed by his clan’s emotionally stunted patriarch for bringing weakness and sympathy to the family. Yes, even Predators have daddy issues. Perhaps it’s an Abraham metaphor.

The clichés come thick and fast from then on. Cast adrift in a hostile environment and emotionally vulnerable, our underdog Predator must learn to fend for himself. He does this by deciding to take down the most feared beast on Planet Death – with an extendable glowing sword. Such Freudian subtlety. Unsurprisingly, the weapon he uses against the family at the end of the movie is truly impressive in both length and girth.   

Of course, much of the plot is repurposed from the Alien franchise – this and last year’s Alien: Romulus exist in a shared universe. Yes, that pesky Weyland-Yutani corporation is collecting dangerous creatures for – surprise – the bioweapons division. Again. Wasn’t that the plot for the Alien: Earth streaming show too?

The twist – unsubtly signposted halfway through – kills it. The ending steals the power-loader from Cameron’s Aliens. The story even manages to revisit the wolf pack cliché from The Hangover movies. In the end, Predator finds his emotional support animal and his new tribe – the friends he makes along the way. Vomit.

The singular best line in the movie – the last one – made many in the audience laugh out loud. Yes, it threatens female Predators in Part 2 – of course it does. So, we have domineering females to look forward to that’ll no doubt make the preceding movies look like a hen-pecked boys’ golfing weekend.

When it’s over, you’ll want to applaud the awfulness of what you’ve just seen. The biggest weakness is letting the Predator speak. The filmmakers have turned the character from the Ed Gein of sci-fi into something with human motivations – current year safe space culture motivations – and it is thoroughly boring. Its language seems only to express patriarchal platitudes. It’s not alien if it has your emotional drives, now, is it?

The film does have some technical merit – as the saying goes, it’s at least in focus. The environment and the hostile creatures are functionally done – a bit like a holiday in Australia. However, the Predator design is terrible – the crab-like original is iconic and, of course, someone thought they could improve on it with cheap CGI. Could they not just have used Sora? The Predator home world is dull – they seem to live in a desert that’s less convincingly alien than Vasquez Rocks – which goes no way to explaining what shaped their hunting culture. So, everyone’s hometown sucks? The Predator body suit looks like a cheap Halloween costume.

The two redeeming parts of the film are Elle Fanning playing the goofy over-optimistic android Thia and the more callous Tessa. Thia has literally been torn in two. Her legs still managed to kick-ass though. She gets all emotional at the thought of her duplicate being her sister. Predator takes her along on his hunt for company, referring to her as a tool – scissors, presumably.

So, Predator becomes another classic property reduced to 2025-standard slop. We keep hearing this is the worst decade for movies since they began and on the strength of this film, that is hard to refute. The original film was a textbook example of pacing, creativity and tension. This film has had the adrenaline gland removed, replacing fun and clever with coincidence and feelings.  Perhaps studios could stop trying to make everything “relatable” and rediscover spectacle instead. For the art of filmmaking — and for whatever’s left of the audience’s dignity — Predator: Snowflake’s First Hunt really shouldn’t exist. Seeing this on the big screen feels like going back to your abuser for another predictable beating.

Alien Resurrection?

8 episodes, Disney+

Alien: Earth sets out to expand the Xenomorph’s universe beyond that of the classic Ridley Scott and James Cameron movies. Reassuringly, the show is no reboot, and the showrunners take us to literal eye-popping new territory.

2024’s awful Alien: Romulus was the series’ greatest hits rehashed for Gen Z and a clear nadir. Moving to the small screen seems the only credible option remaining for the franchise as TV is where once great movie IPs go to die. So, is Alien: Earth M*A*S*H or Lethal Weapon?

Noah Hawley’s series starts with a specimen-gathering starship, the USCSS Maginot, crashing onto the Earth of 2120, with the property of one evil mega-corporation falling into the hands of its rival. The illegal biological cargo remains intact and isn’t exactly friendly. The first episode opening plays as a recreation of Ridley Scott’s original film. After the Alien slaughters its way around a condo complex during the second, it quickly becomes clear why the franchise stalled – it has little beyond Alien = death.

The filmmakers rightly confine the animal in a lab at the Prodigy corporation, one of five that run a post-democracy Earth. In the same location, its robotics division produces androids, cyborgs and experimental hybrids, prototypes for marketable immortality. Several dying children have their minds transplanted into synthetic bodies during Beta-testing. It isn’t an act of charity.

After decades in deep space, the crashed ship’s security officer Morrow (Babou Ceesay) sets out to return the stolen cargo. Newly created hybrid Wendy (Sydney Chandler) shines as an uncertain entity struggling to come to terms with who/what she is. Samuel Blenkin is rightly hateable as Boy Kavalier, the Zuckerberg-like genius behind the Prodigy corporation. He’s happy to risk humanity’s extinction just because he is trying to find a like-mind to talk to.

The real stars, of course, are the menagerie of delightful new aliens – including blood-sucking leeches and corrosive-venom spewing insects. The highlight is a squid-like creature that burrows into the eye-sockets of the living and the dead, taking control of the body. The filmmakers’ joy at what they created is obvious as they’ve realised the novelty of the original creature made the movie series. Recognising the Alien long since exhausted its novelty value, the show embraces original exotic body horror elements, killing off characters in pleasantly gross ways. Viewers will never trust a flask of water again.

Still, not everyone within the fanbase is happy with the result. The 8-episode series has been criticized for sidelining the Alien. While there is some validity to this, the terrible Alien vs Predator movies show how iconography alone isn’t enough; a long form show demands story and character. The audience needs to care who is being mutilated.

Many wanted a return to the action of Aliens with a climax where the Earth goes to parasite-infested hell. Hopefully the writers are saving that for later. Others object to Wendy’s ‘the girl-that’s-the-key-to-everything’ character and seemingly mysterious godlike powers.

The series’ relatively low budget is obvious, and it would benefit aesthetically with better cinematography and a more vivid colour palette. Its current genre rival is Apple’s visually stunning Foundation, and by comparison, Alien: Earth feels like a 1990s TV movie. The money was clearly spent on the opening episodes and the flashback to what happened aboard the Maginot – a masterful fifth episode that expertly twists everything the series has established up to that point. Yet, the final episode stops rather than concludes, making the show a build up to a resolution it fails to deliver.

The question is where will the writers take all of this? Three globe-dominating corporations have yet to be even named, so obviously the makers have confidence in a further season. It can only be hoped that confirmation brings a higher budget, dystopian vistas and street-level views of a for-profit future world that fits the story better than the remote Thai setting. Overall, Noah Hawley’s series is recognisably Alien, thankfully absent characters running down endless corridors awash in genre clichés. The show successfully brings many new story elements into a played-out film series, giving it a new setting for hostile creatures to lurk in. While the show might alienate those wanting a familiar retread, anyone willing to take a chance on something expansive and unpredictable will find much to enjoy.

Hawley and Disney’s Alien resurrection series offers fresh creatures and topical ideas about AGI, undercut by a drab look, an anticlimactic finale and budgetary limitations. It starts strong but delivers about half of what it promises.   

Nepalis take a bow for the new revolution

After years of anti-corruption protesting, it took cutting off access to PUBG, TikTok and trans-influencers to move Nepali Gen Zs to revolutionary fervour. A deposed government later, they couldn’t agree who should lead, or even what they stood for. Lee Russell Wilkes draws conclusions from witness testimony.

At the start of September, the pro-China Nepali government was making moves against social media platforms. The Kathmandu government was demanding local restrictions on content with the predictable excuse of combating misinformation and harm. Many suggest it was an extortionist grift.73-year-old Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, an alleged recipient of organ ‘donation’ from China, had just returned from the Victory Day Parade in Beijing on September 3rd.

“The Prime Minister was so confident. He said: ‘We will be in power for 20 more years.’ People just wanted to end the corruption,” says Rupa Poudel, a 24-year-old undergraduate from the capital.

Protests were provoked by TikTok videos – #nepokids and #nepobabies – exposing the shameless luxury lifestyles of the ministers’ children living abroad. This stoked social tensions over double-standards, lack of employment at home, and hardships imposed on generations of young people forced into going abroad for work and education. A quarter of Nepal’s GDP is sent from overseas.

The coalition communist government demanded social media companies register and censor their content. Twenty-six companies refused –YouTube and Facebook included – and nationwide access was turned off on September 4th. This hit young Nepalis – later identifying themselves as Gen Z – firmly in their smartphone ennui.

“The Prime Minister didn’t hear their demands,” says Keshav Bhatta, 48, from Kathmandu. “There was no table talk between the Prime Minister and other parties.”

The students protested. Somebody okayed the police using live ammunition.

“The police were supposed to use rubber bullets,” adds Rupa. “They were shooting students in the head.”

Many of the protesters were wearing school uniforms. At the time of writing, the official body count from the shooting on September 8th is 19 with 400 injured.

“But on September 9th things took a different turn,” says Rupa.  

One Facebook post read: “Need more ZenGs [sic] to fuck this corrupt politicians and fucking police.” #CorruptPoliticians #corruptpolice #fuckGovernment

A Teenage Wasteland

“The mob went to the Communist Party and Unified Marxist–Leninists compounds,” Rupa continues. “They destroyed it. They went to Nepal Congress ministers’ houses. They beat them. They were kicking the finance minister. They were beating everybody. The ex-Prime Minister’s wife was badly burned.”

Businesses connected to the elite, including private schools and the popular Bhat-Bhateni supermarkets, were all looted and burnt. The Kathmandu Hilton went up in flames.

“They even broke into the central jail and released the prisoners. The convicts are roaming outside now, with guns and knives. I saw reporters asking how they got out and what they did,” adds Rupa. She said one even boasted of his crimes against children and his unexpected freedom.

“A day before that, police were after people, and then a day later, the public were after the police. Most of them surrendered. So, there’s no police force at the moment.”

“People were happy when the Prime Minister resigned, but it went too far. What’s the point of burning Parliament? We’re already behind [in economic terms, in infrastructure development], and now they are destroying everything.”

Fatalities from rioting and fire vary between 50 and 70.

Change It Had to Come

Teacher Bikram Thapa, 36, from Biratnagar, says:

“Hundreds of college students in their uniforms supported the First Day Movement, which was said to be a peaceful protest against corruption. Students, the self-employed, and entrepreneurs all expressed solidarity — firstly because they wanted to end corruption, and secondly because they were frustrated by the social media ban.

“Of course, some elements wanted to express their anger through vandalism. And perhaps 20 percent were there for entertainment — to enjoy throwing stones, to vandalise, and to create content for their TikTok.”

“Our society lacks employment opportunity and many lack a monthly income. Some are jealous of those who earn money through business. Some people just want to steal, snatch and loot.

“The parties in power know there’s lots of anger from the youth in Nepal and those abroad. But they’d prefer it if there was no social media because in the next election, they are uncertain if they will win their seats. We have seen the power of social media.

“There was a young mayor elected in Kathmandu, called Balen, a 35-year-old rapper, and it was all because of social media. The political parties didn’t want that to happen in future elections.

“When the military called for talks, the problem was the Gen Z group didn’t have leaders. Twenty of them went to see the Chief General. He said: ‘No’ and ‘You must come in a minimal group of two, three or four.’

“I saw on the news that the Gen Zs outside the Chief General’s offices were fighting because they have different names for the head of the interim government.

“Gen Z wanted transparency. Let’s say they can lead a classroom. But becoming a college leader and becoming a national leader are very different things. They are not mature enough.”

Meet the New Boss

On September 13th, 73-year-old Sushila Karki was sworn in as interim Prime Minister. The election is set for 5th March 2026.

“She is ex-chief justice,” says Rupa. “That’s all I know. I’m just happy that the country has an interim government before either India or the US could interfere.”

Bikram adds: “This is not merely the appointment of an individual, but our collective victory against corruption, reaffirming the people as the ultimate sovereign power. Sushila Karki has a proven record of doing good work. She is bold, brave, and knowledgeable of the constitution.”

Damien Tidmarsh, a 52-year-old ex-pat and Kathmandu resident, adds: “The new key ministers are very good choices, all educated, competent and respected for their honesty.

“The new guy in charge of energy and urban development was the previous head of the Nepal Energy Authority. He ended load shedding by uncovering dedicated industrial feeds that were milking the grid.

“That cost him his job as the industries were in cahoots with the ruling politicians. His first directive as minister has been to force them to pay – something like nine billion rupees [£47 million] in total. So that’s a huge thing.”

“The new home minister was involved in anti-corruption investigations over politicians’ illegal land grabs in the city. We can expect to see the cases he filed reopened and pursued, and prosecutions made.”

“The people wanted change in the system,” says Bikram. “So now we have a change.”

Business and public services reopened on September14th. “Since Sunday, everything has been back to normal,” Rupa adds. 

And the World Looks Just the Same

Of course, political change is scalable. Just how much of it has been achieved is a vital question. The youth-led protesters in Kathmandu walked straight into entirely predictable infighting in record time. Without a youthful Solon, the revolutionary moment was squandered, and power quickly reverted to the grown-ups.

Against the backdrop of our time, these events prove the often-tweeted dream of a youth-led utopia is sadly unworkable. Recall how Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité ended. Young Nepalis, brave as they were, just confirmed flash-mob emotionalism – absent leadership with a fully formed frontal cortex – will never build a stable polity. Like every other historical conflict, it’s depressingly back to sober, rational – and above all – aged minds negotiating the peace.

The result is that after youthful blood was spilt, the familiar process of Nepal’s elder-dominated politics seems set to resume. Mourn the victims, celebrate the ousting of despots, but perhaps temper expectations of the always disappointing new tomorrow. As well-intentioned as this interim government seems – and don’t they all – many young Nepalis may yet come to regret handing their country – and their trust – back to the over-thirties.

Jumping aboard Singapore’s Knight Bus

Singapore’s Harry Potter: Visions of Magic dives into the world of the Daniel Radcliffe movies. With controversy surrounding the pending HBO remakes, fans should enjoy the nostalgia while the magic remains.

By Lee Russell Wilkes

I can’t shake noticing Harry Potter got into Hogwarts solely because of who his parents were. If the exclusive school were a comp in Redditch, would the world care? Like congenital syphilis and the cast of Megan Markle’s polo series, the power struggles of Harry’s world only seem important set against the privileged lives of the landed gentry. Why fans celebrate this parodic class nonsense is beyond me.

I flew to Changi airport and took a cable car to Harry Potter: Visions of Magic on Sentosa Island. My scepticism was only tempered by honeymoon diplomacy. I console my sense of good taste with the excuse that the trip is fieldwork – imagineer Margaret Kerrison’s Immersive Storytelling for Real and Imagined Worlds has been on my Kindle for a while.

My suspension of disbelief almost didn’t survive staff asking who needed the bathroom. Nothing exercises the cynicism muscle like walking the retrograde way through the tat-filled gift shop, knowing the designers didn’t factor incontinence into their plans. I half-expected to be handed a mop and bucket. However, once infantilised bladders were safely voided, we were given a wand glowing like E.T.’s finger. Wiggling it at patches of swirling light rewarded us with some animation and a dopamine hit.

Inside is a tour through familiar movie locations. The wizardry begins on the Knight Bus. Hyper-lapse images flash past, indicating rapid motion. The audience loved it, ignorant of the drunks and late-night ranters needed to make the experience real-world authentic.

The Ministry of Magic is impressive. Its mystical globes emit a pale blue light, illuminating a dark room, while an ethereal ghostly soundscape fills the space. As the Chamber of Secrets opens, the snakes on the door really move. The movie used unconvincing CGI. Here it’s all mechanical. The battle at Hogwarts – the final room – has some impressive animation of duelling wizards and some excellent sunrise graphics.

Those expecting a ride or a haunted house experience will be disappointed. Visions of Magic is a 3D interactive art exhibit aimed squarely at Instagram. Although, you don’t have to be a fan – or a wannabe influencer – to admire the worlds created in the animation and layered sound design.  

Potter fans now have the HBO remakes to look forward to. You don’t have to dig too deeply to find online accusations of stunt casting and gender controversy. I suspect these changes are unlikely to win over many of the fans in Singapore who like their Harry Potter twee – and Anglo-Saxon. Such Disney-style reimagining is proven to kill franchises and divide fanbases. If you love Harry’s world as it is, book your trip before the revisionist Death Eaters suck all the magic out of it.

American Cinematographer’s Photography Issue is Light on Story

The ASC give us trees. Lots of backlit trees. 

Cinematographers know a thing or two about making movie scripts into the images on our screens. You’ve seen the initials ‘ASC’ after countless screen credits and probably don’t know it stands for the American Society of Cinematographers. The acronym signifies the bearer is an industry-recognised master of their highly technical and artistic craft.

The ASC’s monthly magazine – American Cinematographer – has been published since November 1920. It pre-dates sound. Few industries offer as much scandal and drama as the film industry but there’s not a whiff of it in the magazine. Much like the Oscars, it tends towards mutual congratulation. Lots of gear adverts though.

The May 2025 edition is their annual still photography issue – intriguing given the skill of the ASC members involved. The cover image is a child in a red dress taken through frosted glass. It’s a strong image with high contrast, a dominating primary colour and a clear subject. The two images on the contents page vary in quality – two people silhouetted on a swing at night with atmospheric blue, green and red neon lights behind them. What are they talking about? There’s mystery here. The second image comes straight from a stock image archive: a small boat on a beach with a rope leading the eye to the anchor in the foreground.

Like most recent movies, it goes downhill after a strong opening. The first collection is Places. David Mullen’s leading image is a high-contrast monochrome shot of the Eiffel Tower shrouded in nighttime fog. All very Lonely Planet. And then lots of dull images of backlit trees. Shana Hagan and Ravi Varman’s are flat compositions with an orange sunrise. Nancy Schrieber shows us two skies and four trees in one image: A blue sky taken through a car window capturing an orange sunset in the exterior mirror. Eben Bolter and Mihai Malaimare Jr’s images are colour studies. Charlie Lieberman shows us a hazy Malibu Creek Park. Then some rather dull black and white images of corridors and stairwells. The highlight is Roberto Schaefer’s ‘After Hopper’ – a worker silhouetted in a patch of light seen through partition office windows.

People and Faces offers mostly unspectacular images – photos of children playing and a man jumping into the ocean. Long exposures and Dutch angles add nothing to dull subjects. Yet, Jon Joffin’s image of a shop window dummy in a red wig caught in yellow light stands out. As does Dana Gonzales’ Girl on a Red Bus contrasting a red frame with yellow electric light and a hint of blue exterior daylight. Crescenzo Notarille’s is a selective colour image of a cat. Richard Crudo captures a seagull. The still life section is entirely lifeless.

What a dull collection of Vermeer and Rothko clichés, absent subjects, and flat compositions.   For self-proclaimed master storytellers, this collection suggests they started shooting once the book was closed.   

Surviving in the Nepali Diaspora

Rupa Poudel navigated an abusive grandmother, the threat of forced marriage, and Nepal’s soul-destroying education system before finding a future studying in Germany.

You can safely say a culture is in trouble when it comes down to wisdom. Imagine growing up in a country slowly collapsing under the weight of its own straight-jacketing traditions. Savvy educated young people are expected to defer to the wisdom of their uneducated elders. Imagine mothers describing the horrors of arranged marriage – and then forcing the same on their daughters.

This bleak picture is maintained by inadequate rote learning in Nepali schools. Seeking something better, many take A-levels at colleges in Kathmandu. Not that these offer anything better – U-grades are widespread as the students lack the necessary study skills. Many teachers admit privately to not understanding the questions.

On average, forty-thousand young Nepalis take the language test required for university entry in an English-speaking country every year. Who can blame them for dreaming of a better life away from this dysfunctional mess of conflicting ideologies?  

Rupa

My first memory of Rupa was her looking me in the eye and confidently asking where she could study Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE). Her peers were all playing PUBG. One of those forty thousand was trying to stand a little taller.

She later described her insular emotional life – she was wracked with insecurities and cripplingly under-stimulated. She didn’t know her introversion was perfectly normal – and widespread – until I described exactly what she was experiencing. Her world didn’t offer even a popular psychology understanding of self or others.

She spent a lot of time in dark rooms paralysed by procrastination. She said she liked breaking things – no surprise with the catalogue of frustration she dealt with every day.  Today, a student in Germany, she continues to exhibit shades of Wednesday Addams. Her Instagram handle is tellingly apocalyptic.

Before I called her, I imagined skulls, Green Day posters, and dripping candles. Instead, she sat comfortably in a messy room devoid of any such pretention.  

“Some of my professors say, ‘mathematicians and computer students should love the dark,’” she says ironically. “They’re encouraging us to be darker than we already are.” Clearly, she’s found her people.

Family

She grew up in a fibreboard shanty house in Ramkot, Kathmandu. Her father mostly abandoned them, and his mother – Rupa’s grandmother – made her life hell. You hear the glee in her voice as she says relationships have improved now she’s abroad – she blocked their social media accounts.

Her father’s family started searching for a husband for her while she was still a student. “My grandmother was constantly saying it would be very nice and healing for them if they can send me to some guy, so I would be his responsibility.”

Her older brother, then a student in Germany, intervened. He volunteered to look after her there. “My brother took a stand. After that, they couldn’t say anything,” she says.

She laughs bemusedly. “I don’t even have the skills to be a housewife. I’m so proud of my mother for not letting me do anything. She taught me things, but she never let me do anything. She said, ‘It’s not your job to do it. You go and learn.’  If my mother raised me to not do this thing, then why should I be doing this?”

“I’m really proud of half of my family, whereas I hate the other half. They were tolerating me. They would have thrown me away.”

A Terrible Time at College

The sixth form she attended only made it worse. The college – I briefly ran its A-level programme – offered reduced fees. She accepted a place, not wanting to be a financial burden to her family.

She says, “It turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life.”

“You were there teaching us something, and after you left, no one taught us. The principal tried. He organised classes on Saturday. He provided us notebooks and pencils – coffee, food to eat. I think it went for one or two weeks.”

Teachers would keep students waiting and then dismiss the class as students said they were too tired. If she arrived home early – or late – her grandmother would accuse her of skipping classes.

She later quit the school out of sheer frustration with its methods and completed her studies from home. She faced a difficult choice: she could study the subject she wanted in Kathmandu or go to Germany and study something she hated. She chose Germany and mathematics.

“And then there was no emotion, not happiness, not sadness. On my flight, I was thinking, ‘Okay, I’m going to meet my brother.’ I thought nothing else.”

Escaping to Germany

I ask what her first impression of Germany was. “That was the first time I saw a train,” she replies. She manages to express mild enthusiasm for life there.

 “The teachers are punctual. They teach us,” she says. She’s shocked she’s the only student in one class. It would never happen in Nepal. “At least students won’t come just for dating,” she adds.  

For the first few months, she felt numb. “And then I thought, ‘No. It’s a lot better here. No one is judging me, no one is stopping me from doing anything. I can do whatever I want without my family interrupting me.’ So, it’s actual freedom. It’s nice.”

“I used to think where I grew up was a very nice place because of the environment. But as I grew up, my family got worse. I can see that place objectively now, and I realise how awful it is. It’s not just my family. It’s the villagers and the neighbourhood. The way they think, the way they behave to other people.”

Today, she’s trying to decide what to study next. She’s looking at finance, getting her German language qualification and her Deutsche Pass.

I ask if the dreamcatcher on her wall works. With pure understatement, she adds: “I’m very glad that I left Nepal.”