Tell us about your collaboration with Richard Linklater and what makes it so successful. How did you first start working together?

Shane Kelly: We first started working together as DP and director on A Scanner Darkly in 2004 (released 2006). It was a project unlike anything I’d done before, shooting on mini DV Panasonic cameras with the knowledge that it was all going to be painted over. I learned quickly that Rick wants a space lit so that he has the freedom to move his actors within that space and the time to work on their performances. As a young DP, you set out to impress and that can sometimes get in the way of the story, in the sense that you eat into the director and actors’ time to finesse their craft. To be able to work quickly and manage your time efficiently is an essential skill in filmmaking, especially low-budget filmmaking.

After A Scanner Darkly, I moved up from operator to DP on Boyhood and after that success we continued to collaborate. Rick tends to use the same heads of department once he finds the right one, so I’ve been able to work with the same production designer [Bruce Curtis, designer of ‘Hit Man’] and assistant director on many of his shows. This leads to a knowledge on what he is looking for and a shorthand between the departments. We are encouraged to interpret the story our way and I think that’s the success of our relationship: he trusts me to give him what he needs and I trust him to let me know what he doesn’t like.

Read the full interview here.