Bradford Young is an award- winning cinematographer best known for his striking, contemplative big-budget motion pictures like Arrival, Selma and A Most Violent Year, in addition to his work on important indies, such as Pariah and Mother of George. His most recent endeavours include the creation of a lens company, Tribe 7, with technologist Neil Fathom, and making work with Ummah Chroma, a dynamic new collective of black filmmakers and collaborators. He studied at Howard University under the mentorship of filmmaker Haile Gerima, and remains one of the most sought-after cinematographers working today.

Can you talk about how you prepare for a project? After you receive a script, what's your process?

First it just has to speak to me. Hopefully by the last page I have found a moment of myself in there. Then I’ll speak with the director and I'll read it again like a cinematographer, because first I have to read it as a lover of stories. Then, I pull out an archive. I aggregate and pull material from all types of sources.

How do you feel about the state of cinema right now?

I think we've lost sight. The efficacy of capturing actors is what it's all about, but that's also what destroys us and destroys the art form. There's a lot to gain from the camera being vulnerable and the actor being vulnerable, but you’ve got to know how to harness both of those elements.

So I don't work with actors, not in that way. I don't want to. I want to understand what it is they need to do, and I want to understand the story they're telling and what that space is, and once I understand that, then I know how to light it and where to put the camera. I know what kind of relationship the camera needs to have with the subject.