“During his time with the filmmaker on The Process, Cutter discusses his first read of Prey‘s script and visual references he brought to the project; why he feels pre-production is “the most stressful part” of the filmmaking process; how he landed on choices of camera and lenses which would do justice to the film’s “scale” and the “beautiful landscapes” within it; scenes in Prey that wound up exactly as he’d imagined them, and those that wound up entirely different; the most fundamental component of his and Trachtenberg’s process, which comes down to finding “the soul of the scene”; what it is about their collaboration that works so well; and Trachtenberg’s “muscular” approach to filmmaking.

The DP also touches on his love of Star Wars, The Terminator and the more recent The Batman; the “pain-to-reward ratio” that informed his pivot to cinematography after starting film school with the ambition to direct; early experiences in the industry shooting music videos; his notion that a movie tells you “what it’s going to be” in the first week of shooting; his aspiration to create “big cinema”; and his creative goals as he looks ahead.”

Read the full conversation here.