Ralph is a cinematographer that has the ability to make anything look really epic. He is the cinematographer of Cargo, and with almost 20 years of experience, Ralph qualifies for telling us what makes a good picture.

It has a lot to do with what you are feeling. You can learn all the rules in school, like the rule of third, but at the end, the picture has to have some sort of a soul. You can create a picture that can stand alone by itself, but as a cinematographer, you have to support the story. It’s a good picture, if the picture tells the story, and that’s how i try to look at it. You shouldn’t be selfish, and create something stunning, just to have a nice picture.

And if you go back to the rules that you learn in film school, are they useful?

It’s subjective. For example, you learn this 3 point lighting rule, which is nice to know, but often it doesn’t work because the story needs something else. It’s all about creating the mood actually. Every story has a different mood, and that’s the diversity that our job brings with it. 

You are very good at working with natural light. How do you do that when you have a fix light source like the sun? How do you position the camera around the sun?

There is not much you can do. If you work with available light, there is just one thing you really have to take care of. It’s a luxury you really rarely have. It’s all about being at the right place, at the right time. If you are at midday on an ugly spot, you can turn it how you want to, it won’t look good. If you choose right, then you won’t have to do much, but that’s the challenge. You have to convince all the other people involved in the project to take a break at midday, and make the day longer, to use twilight light. 

A good example is the one shot we did in Greenland; at midday sun, it looked like on the moon. There was no magic at all, we just had to be patient. As soon as the sun disappeared in the horizon, it started. The sky turned into colours you never could believe existed, and you had this guys standing there simply as a silhouette. You cannot ask for more. Even without any lights, it’s one of the most epic moments that I ever captured.

You have the ability to make anything look epic. Where did you get your inspiration from?

It probably started when I was three, when I started skiing, and noticed that somehow it looked nicer than the living room. Another situation was when I realised, while watching TV, that the movies with a big letterbox, the big black stripes, looked somehow nicer than the other ones. Then I started realising, and looking differently at it. I started to become picky about the things I watched. All I had in my mind was epic or different. What is epic? It’s not just a picture, it has to do with the background, the mood, and the feelings it gives.

So there is a lot of informations you have to consider before you press the bottom and start recording: the time of the day, the situation, the positioning of the camera…

You have to know what you consider epic. Everybody sees it a bit differently, but with experience, you know where you can expect epicness. Often you have a project, and you go, and know there is no epicness. Personally, I seek this kind of stuff where you will have epic stuff in the mountains or on remote places. It depends on what you are doing there. Once the subject and the story are all together, it will look epic.

Say for example a young person would like to become a cinematographer, and has hopes of working in the industry, and creating beautiful stories. What are your 3 steps to success?

First, you have to see for yourself, what you consider success. A successful bank account or creating something you really enjoy for yourself? No matter what you do or how good you are, the first step would be: you got to love what you do. There is no sense to it if somebody else tells you what to do. It really doesn’t matter if you are good or bad at it. If you love it, it makes it real, that’s the cool thing. Second, I would suggest that even if the entire world tells you to stop, but you love it, dont stop! Keep on going, even if you are stuck.

You have been doing it for a long time. what motivates you to get up in the morning, out of bed, and keep on doing what you are doing?

I am asking myself this question a lot. There are different motivations. Often when you have a family, money is a motivation, because you have to pay the bills. Everybody has the same problem. Every project has their own challenges, the stories ask for new solutions. You have to find out how to look at it differently, with a different approach, and that makes it very interesting. That is something that really motivates me; I like that a lot.

Interviewed by Xaver Walser