Image courtesy of Ryan Adams
Tate Hildyard is a young cinematographer based in Los Angeles. After five years of working as a visual journalist in Iowa he set out on a path to becoming a working DP. He got his start in the independent shorts scene doing grip and electric on high end short films through AFI and Project Involve, learning what he could about the process and collaborative journey of making films and working with with the talented below the line crews from those to realize their own passion projects. Through a style and work philosophy of "proactive observation", Tate likes to work closely with directors and producers in pre-production to go through a script line for line to find the right place for the camera to live but always with emphasis on honoring the emotional honesty of the text and characters. Reflexively, he's very anti-panache, imagery is only rewarding to him when the viewer can just observe and fall into a complete world and he thinks it’s easy to spoil that with over indulgent technique. He is open to shooting anything, but the work that speaks most to him is about uncharismatic people fighting an uphill battle for acceptance and validation in an increasingly alienating world.