ABOUT C.M.C.
Born in Gardena, California but raised in the beautiful desert of Arizona in the small town of Mesa. Ever since he was a child, he wanted to be a film director. He us to shoot small videos on an Old School JVC Broadcast camera with VHS Tapes of him and his friends screwing around. However that was short lived because the camera mysteriously broke. This left C.M.C without the tools and inspiration to continue his directing career.
Mesa, Arizona
The Film School at Scottsdale Community College
When he started going to film school he realized that he loved lighting. He did anything to get on student films as a chief lighting technician to expand his knowledge on quickly and effectively light scenes. He discovered that he want to be a cinematographer after watching "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" over 100 times. Roger Deakins CBE, BSC, ASC style of camera composition and lighting inspired him to start the journey on perfecting the craft of cinematography.
He had to start somewhere to find his taste in cinematography, so he started advertising myself as a cinematographer for novice directors. His first year of being a serious cinematographer was a huge struggle. It consists of a lot of trial and error, but all in all it was one of the best years of his life. Like most college students, C.M.C. was working a main job, going to school and shooting short films on the side.
Hotseat Media Video Production Company
After two years of shooting short films, he finally got a job at a small video production company called Hotseat Media. This company was located in the middle of the desert of Apache Junction Arizona. C.M.C spent countless hours shooting and editing at the location. He would sometimes sleep in the editing room to insure the edit was good for broadcast. Working at Hotseat Media was like cinematography bootcamp. It was the first job C.M.C. had that was getting paid to shoot videos for clients and meet deadlines on the desired budget. He learned a lot from working at Hotseat Media, mainly how to solve problems and how to quickly adapt to unexpected situations. He quit Hotseat Media after two and a half years to finish college. The whole time he was going to school and working for the production company, he was shooting films in my free time.
The passion that he has for cinematography and filmmaking is astronomical. C.M.C is always doing something film related. Such as: reading film books or magazines, researching new technology, looking for directors to shoot films for, watching films ect. He also paints and sketches to exercise the eye on details. C.M.C can talk about films day in and day out. He is a full blown filmmaking addict and he is waiting for another director to use him to shoot their next film. Please contact C.M.C for a project, any questions, or if you want to simply talk about films or filmmaking.
All the best.
Charles Michael Cartwright Jr. IV
