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The epic tale we tell in Image Makers—the saga of American cinematography—is the origin story of American movies.
It’s rooted in the fearless personalities of camera-cranking visionaries who saw possibilities for the art form that couldn’t be contained in Thomas A. Edison’s peepshows. Edison patented everything about movies, including the sprocket holes in the celluloid.
But a hardy bunch of photographic adventurers and innovators battled their way out of his control and enlarged his limited vision. They went West to film one- and two-reelers and then epic features in locations that to the rest of the globe looked like a brave new world. Because of them, it was.
Pioneer cinematographers spring to life in Image Makers. Using every means at hand, including archival images and sound as well as new interviews with family members and great contemporary cinematographers, we bring texture and shadow to our portraits of virtuosos like Charles Rosher, Karl Struss, William Daniels, Gregg Toland, and James Wong Howe.
We see them empower studios by mastering artificial illumination—and then help studios create stars by lighting magical performers like Mary Pickford and Greta Garbo with passion and ingenuity.
Used to swapping stories about how they created complex shots and in-camera special effects, they establish the first and still the most active and congenial professional club in Hollywood—the American Society of Cinematographers. The ASC, as it is known among friends, becomes a true fraternity of light.
We see the studios strive to enlarge and keep their audience while our heroes bring the silent camera to a peak of fluidity, then free the sound camera from the tyranny of the microphone (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and make it a tool of modern, personal expression (Citizen Kane).
We celebrate stunning accomplishments like Billy Bitzer’s work in Intolerance, Rollie Totheroh’s in The Kid, Rosher and Struss’s in Sunrise, Daniels’s in Grand Hotel, Gregg Toland’s in Citizen Kane and The Best Years of Our Lives, and James Wong Howe’s in Hud. We see Howe smash racial barriers with his brilliance and emerge as our image of the artist-craftsman, rebounding from every setback stronger than he was before.
In his previous feature, Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story, Oscar-nominated director, Daniel Raim proved his ability to convey emotion and character in the documentary form. In Image Makers he tops himself as he gives movie-lovers a new appreciation of cinematographers as master craftsmen, outsize personalities, and improbable poets.
