SM: Do you consider yourself a cinematographer?

AS: First and foremost I would probably consider myself a documentary filmmaker, and certainly a huge part of that role is the cinematographer because I think in an ideal world the person with the idea is the one doing the shooting and eventually the editing, so I think that’s a big part of it. I certainly like being designated as the DP because there’s sort of less responsibility…well, nominally anyway.

SM: (laughing) See that’s funny because I always feel like on a set the DP has the most responsibility.

AS: To be honest, I haven’t had much responsibility DP’ing for narrative. Natural Causes was my first time doing that so I don’t have too much to base that on. With that experience in particular, the four of us [Siddiky and collaborating directors Michael Lerman and brothers Alex and Paul Cannon] were sort of sharing the load of making that film. And so in some ways I had the least to worry about of the four of us.

I’ve definitely worked on films doing behind the scenes documentaries for bigger productions, and I’ve seen that; I’ve seen the hundred man crews and all the lighting and all the stuff that goes on to produce the one shot after hours of work, and as I’m thinking about where I want to go with this, that’s really not the direction I want to head in at all. I prefer to work with small crews.

Natural Causes was probably the best experience I’ve had so far. It’s weird, Mike will tell you, I really don’t like that many movies, but I enjoy making them a lot. But I always sort of end up—not being disappointed, but…a lot of things have to come together for me to really appreciate the final product.

SM: Were you the type who took a lot of pictures as a kid?

AS: I actually started off doing a lot of drawing, you know, sort of 2D art when I was growing up. I thought I was gonna be an illustrator or a painter or something. And like most kids, Dad’s handycam when you’re twelve, I sort of picked that up. My dad took us traveling a lot, so I went to a lot of cool places around the world, and I always really enjoyed sort of preserving my memories that way. So I started off doing documentary without even realizing it, and it was weird, my parents were always like, “Why aren’t you filming us?” when we were on these trips—‘cause I was always just getting the scenery and the people there. And so, I started doing that and eventually decided, probably around tenth grade, that that was what I was gonna do.

SM: How old are you by the way?

AS: 25.

SM: Man, everybody’s so young.

AS: Yeah…I guess sometimes I feel that way and sometimes I don’t. Because there are all these kids I know who are 17 or 18, and they’re doing amazing things already.

SM: I want to ask you if you liked working with three co-directors…but because this is your first narrative you may not know that’s it’s crazy to shoot a film with three directors!

AS: No, no, no, it’s all everyone ever talks about. That’s the only question that keeps coming up in all the Q&A’s; when I tell my friends, it’s the first thing they ever comment on. But really, those guys had such a clear idea of what they were doing that I never felt like we were in danger. Yeah, there was the potential for it to get fucked up, but after the first day, after the first meeting, really, I knew it: “This is gonna be okay.” And it’s totally rare. I can appreciate that.

One thing that kind of sucked though, and I’m sure they’ve mentioned this a couple of times, but they were the ones that got to take the naps and work in shifts, whereas I had to keep working with all three of them at all times. So yeah…that was a little stressful!

SM: I’ve worked with the same cinematographer [James Laxton] on every film I’ve done, and even though we’re pretty comfortable with one another now, I always wonder — and I think to some degree it must be true — that there’s an image in his head, and there’s an image in my head, and it’s impossible to at the very least start off with the same image. I always wonder what that process is like, because you the cameraman are making the movie, and you have a solid idea of what the next image will look like. And so I wanted to ask a cinematographer what that’s like. Because I haven’t had the heart to ask James!

AS: For me, what was really important while we were doing this movie was to get these guys what they wanted. I definitely wanted to have input and my own personal take on the scene, but also my priority was to make sure they were happy. And there were times where I would do something that they didn’t like, and I honestly just felt bad about it. You know what I mean?

SM: Hmmm.

AS: I did.

SM: How so?

AS: There’s one scene in particular where [the main couple, David and Cara are] playing Wii while they’re both naked, and they’re just standing in the living room. I think there were some minor disagreements between the four of us about how it should look, whether it should be completely natural looking or whether it should be really soft. I think one camp kind of wanted this really bare look, just the light from the TV, very minimal things. The other side wanted a really soft, like a nice golden sort of look. We ended up going with the latter, and after it was done, I went over to one of the guys who was half sleeping and I was like, “Oh, did you get a chance to see the shot?” And he’s like, “Yeah, I hated it.”

AS: And I was just like, “Well hell, I wish you had told me that earlier.” So I think I’m always gonna wanna do what I can to meet the director’s vision. I think in future projects, when I have more time to think about it, I’ll probably fight for my own take on little things like that.

SM: And so you’re gonna do more narratives, right? How was the overall experience for you?

AS: I was definitely afraid, I’ll be honest with you, I thought it was something that was outside my capabilities. But this has definitely given me sort of a push, and I feel like this is something I definitely want to keep doing with these guys. They’ve said—I don’t know how true this is—but they’ve said that everything they do from now on I’m going to shoot.

SM: (laughing) I’ve heard that.

AS: Yeah, so as long as they’re willing to keep me on, that’s great. I would love to learn more of that, but really I want to keep making documentaries. I want to keep shooting and cutting those with my partners. It’s all a matter of creating.

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