The Status of Cinematography Today

Curtis Clark, ASC, studied theater at the Art Institute of Chicago's Goodman School of Drama and cinematography at the London Film School. After graduation, he began his career by shooting numerous documentary films in Britain before transitioning to shooting feature films. Clark's feature film credits include such critically acclaimed narrative films as The Draughtsman's Contract; Dominick and Eugene; Alamo Bay; Extremities and Triumph of the Spirit. He started shooting television commercials in the early 90s, which put him on the forefront of the digital/film frontier. He continues to add to his hundreds of commercial credits working with cutting-edge directors and ad agencies. — Clark is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers and is chairman of the ASC Technology Committee, an important motion picture industry forum that both investigates and influences the development of emerging digital technologies that impact filmmaking practice. Since its inception in 2003, The ASC Technology Committee has achieved a series of notable successes including its collaborative work with Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) to produce standardized test material for evaluating the performance of digital projectors and other elements of digital cinema systems. Among its multiple initiatives, the ASC Technology Committee has been developing a groundbreaking project to create cross platform data exchange for primary RGB digital color correction referred to as the ASC CDL (Color Decision List). Broad-based Industry implementation of the ASC CDL is well advanced. Prominent among the ASC Technology Committee's recent achievements is the ASC-PGA (Producers Guild of America) Camera Assessment Series, which evaluated the performance of seven digital cinematography cameras compared to film. Clark and the ASC Technology Committee have been active participants in the development and implementation of the revolutionary new AMPAS color management workflow architecture known as the Image Interchange Framework (IIF)—Academy Color Encoding Specification (ACES). Clark is also a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.