November 2019

Image Makers: Documenting Hollywood’s Early Masters of Light

This new feature doc chronicles the life and times of key contributors to the creation of motion-picture storytelling.  At top, a frame from Image Makers, depicting cinematographer Billy Bitzer and director D.W. Griffith amidst an image from their silent epic Intolerance (1916). As detailed in the new documentary Image Makers: The Adventures of America’s Pioneer Cinematographers, director of photography Billy Bitzer was faced with a seemingly insurmountable obstacle on the set of the classic 1916 silent epic Intolerance.  The film’s director, D.W. Griffith – with whom Bitzer would go on to forge a longtime collaboration – wanted a nighttime shot of the movie’s epic battle scene between the ancient Persians...more