"Almost Perfect," Paolo Cascio

"Aftermath," Jason Ellson

Ellson launched his career in television news in Adelaide, Australia. After five years of documentary and Steadicam work in Singapore, he moved to the United States to pursue his dream of becoming a narrative filmmaker.

Aftermath is a vignette from the 2008 Oscar-nominated feature documentary Operation Homecoming, and a firsthand account of an American serviceman's experiences in a war zone who attempts to come to grips with what he has witnessed. It was the third time that Ellson has collaborated with director Richard Robbins on a documentary.

They shot the majority of the vignette at high-speed. Ellson had one day at Edwards Air Force Base to shoot Aftermath. The content is a blend of an interview with a soldier and high-speed images recorded with a V9 camera provided by Vision Research.

"We had a rough storyboard," Ellson recalls. "However, we had to rely on the military providing helicopters, guns, and vehicles, so many things were in constant flux. We shot a helicopter sequence at 1,000 fps, which gave us a very surrealistic look that is right for the story.

"I must thank Local 600 for honoring me in this way," says Ellson. "I feel humbled, astonished and grateful to even be thought of as someone worthy for such an award."

"Crust," Russell Griffith

Griffith was a "military brat" who grew up on Air Force bases in Japan, Spain, Texas and California. Looking back, he feels that experience gave him insights into different cultures. He studied filmmaking at a community college for six months, and then hounded people at a local television station in San Antonio until they hired him to light studio sets and operate a video camera. After moving to Los Angeles in 1996, he practiced loading film at rental houses and worked for free until he got jobs, initially as an electrician, and then as an assistant cameraman, gaffer and operator.

Griffith has worked on more than 50 films on crews with Bill Butler, ASC, Russell Carpenter, ASC, Elliott Davis, Simon Duggan, ACS and other cinematographers. "I watched and listened to everything they did and said," he says. He directed and shot Crust, a 12-minute film written by his friend, Topper Renee. It's a story about a father and daughter who are caught in a war zone in Serbia.

Griffith shot Crust with a RED One camera at practical locations on a friend's ranch outside of Los Angeles, as well as in an old house and in his own basement.

"A lesson I've learned is that you have to take every opportunity," he says. "I never hold back. You have to always keep trying for that break until you find it. We also gave the people who worked with us opportunities to advance in their careers."

"Idiot Box," Patrick Meade Jones

Jones grew up in the Chicago suburbs. He made home videos with a Hi8 camera during his youth. Jones studied filmmaking at Loyola Marymount University. He interned with James Whitaker on Crossing Over and became a Guild member as a camera loader on Deadline this year.

Idiot Box is a nine-minute satire about how America is represented on television. The protagonist has it made, until he loses everything, causing him to question the meaning of life. There is a surprise ending designed to leave the audience confused and unsettled: The characters have television sets instead of heads.

Meade and writer/director Lee Citron agreed that a high-contrast look with deeply saturated colors was right. They produced the film in Super 16 format composed in 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Meade chose to record images on KODAK EKTACHROME 100D Color Reversal 7285 film with cross processing done by the lab. The television sets that serve as faces were recorded in standard video format to create a flat, pixilated look.

"We wanted Idiot Box to feel like a film and not a TV show, which was why I opted for a high-contrast ratio with deeply saturated colors," says Meade. "Since we were going to digitally composite the TV sets and time digitally, I felt it was really important to acquire and set the look for colors and contrast photochemically. FotoKem processed the film."

"Watchtower," Julie Kirkwood

Kirkwood was born and spent her earliest years in California until her family moved to the Detroit area, where her father worked for Chrysler. She attended Michigan State for two years, and transferred to the College for Creative Studies, where she majored in photography. After graduation, Kirkwood worked at museums and art galleries, which led her to San Francisco, where a friend got her a $50-a-day job as a PA on Dumbarton Bridge in 1999.

Subsequently, Kirkwood worked as a loader and second assistant on commercials. She moved to Los Angeles in 2000, and became a member of the Guild in 2001. Kirkwood worked as a second AC and shot short films for students at UCLA. That's how she met Chien-Wei Yuan, who wrote and directed Watchtower.

"The story is set in 1926 when two hit men go to a small town in Iowa and kill a man," Kirkwood describes. "One of the men is an experienced killer, and the other one is a young guy on his first job."

Yuan, Kirkwood and production designer Mona Nahm collaborated on defining the right look for the time, place and story. They chose to produce the film in Super 35 format in widescreen (2.4:1) aspect ratio at practical locations in Davenport and Muscatine, Iowa. "We didn't want a clean, pristine look," Kirkwood says. "We wanted some grain and desaturated colors. I chose to use (KODAK VISION2 500T) 5218 film rather than the newest stock for that reason. We shot in eight days."

Deluxe Labs did the negative processing and the transfer. Kirkwood says, "We did a low contrast transfer so we could work in After Effects to finesse the final timing and effects--a sort of homemade DI process."

"Two, Four, Six," Robert Kositchek

Kositchek was born and raised in Los Angeles. He earned a bachelor's degree in Photography at The Art Center in Los Angeles. Kositchek began his career as a film loader at Universal Studios. He moved up to second assistant cameraman in 1990 with Chuck Arnold on the television series Blind Faith, and subsequently worked on crews with Donald M. Morgan, ASC, Michael Watkins, ASC, Curtis Clark, ASC and Jonathan West, ASC. Kositchek became a camera operator at the Howard Andersen Company, where he filmed inserts and pickup shots for features and TV series.

He is on the film school faculty as a cinematographer instructor at the University of Southern California. Kositchek is also a cinematographer for Oncars.com, a new media company that produces documentaries about automobile racing.

Two, Four, Six was his third co-venture with director Paul Babin, SOC, who also wrote the script about a boy and his mother who live in an urban ghetto with her abusive boyfriend. The boy seeks to remedy the situation by hiring a hit man, but decides to do the deed himself. Kositchek amplified the visual grammar with increasingly dark shadows as the story evolved.

"It was interesting shooting a film with Paul, who is a talented camera operator and cinematographer," Kositchek says. "We had a real shoestring budget. We borrowed RED One camera bodies from different owners. Birns & Sawyer loaned us Cooke and Angenieux zoom lenses and the accessories we needed."

They produced the 29-minute film in six days at practical locations, including a church, streets in downtown Los Angeles and in Kositchek's own backyard. The post house was Secret Headquarters in Culver City.

"Oh Baby I Love You," Eduardo Mayen

Mayen was born and raised in El Salvador. He studied film at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas under cinematographer Michel Hugo, ASC. Mayen was mentored by Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC when he operated the Kodak Look Manager System (KLMS) for him during the production of Alexander in 2004. He is an assistant cameraman.

Oh Baby I Love You was directed by Mary Angelica Molina. The film is a romantic comedy, but it's also a modern fairy tale. "I thought a slightly magical and poetic look was appropriate," says Mayen. "I followed Mary's request to 'make the characters look beautiful,' but I knew she would allow me to be a bit more dramatic with lighting at certain points in the story. To get the softest possible light, we built softboxes using Kino Flos, show card and Duvetyne. We let the light wrap around faces, maintaining some contrast at the same time. We used a RED One camera with a 1/4 diffusion filter to take away the digital edge. I was also very lucky that we had an amazing production designer, Cindy Chao, who did a great job."

"Rain Rain," David Speck

Speck was born in Washington, D.C., into a military family that moved every couple of years. He began taking pictures with a Kodak Instamatic camera at age 5. Speck studied filmmaking at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. After graduation, he moved out to Los Angeles and worked at AFI's Sony Center while working as an assistant cameraman. Reality television provided enough work for him to accrue enough hours to earn Guild membership in 2006. Speck credits an opportunity to work on Pineapple Express, with Tim Orr, as launching his union career as an assistant cameraman.

Rain Rain is about a little girl home alone with a lot of unspent energy because she can't go outside and play. She enters her father's office and comes upon a unique item that sets off her overactive imagination. The film was directed by Speck's UNC classmate Matt Brown. Production took place over three days at a house in the Venice canals in Los Angeles. A fourth day of shooting with a homemade greenscreen was held a week after principal photography.

Speck used his own Panasonic HVX200 camera to shoot Rain Rain in standard 720/24p format. "As much as we would have loved to shoot celluloid, it made sense to stay in the digital realm because of the number of special effects shots," he says.

They made their "rain machine" by puncturing one side of a garden hose, and created an airplane battle that takes place once the story enters a more dreamlike state.

"I wanted the windows to be soft and blown out for this sequence," he says. "We didn't have the money or manpower to get enough source lights outside the house, so we accentuated the blown-out look in post. "Getting a phone call from Steven Poster (ASC) saying I was one of the finalists is a huge honor," he adds.

"Wick," Damian Acevedo

Acevedo was born in New York and raised in Northern California. He became interested in filmmaking in high school, where he made basketball highlight and short films. Acevedo decided to concentrate on cinematography after realizing his films told stories without dialogue. He earned a degree in film studies at San Francisco State University in 1998, and then launched his career as an electrician on independent films, before becoming a camera operator on reality shows. He cites cinematographers John Kelly and Bruce Douglas Johnson as inspirational mentors. Acevedo was previously honored in the 2006 ICG ECA showcase for The Fourth.

Wick is a story about a young woman who is incarcerated in a mental facility. Through horrible nightmares and visions, bits of her past are revealed. The script was adapted from director Micah Gallo's feature film screenplay. Acevedo says he enjoyed making the leap to the horror genre with his longtime friend. The film was produced in East Los Angeles in HD. "I'm incredibly thankful to the ICG for this opportunity, and proud for our team that made it all happen," says Acevedo.

"Getting a phone call from Steven Poster (ASC) saying I was one of the finalists is a huge honor," he adds.

"Learning To Fly," Timm Roarke

Roarke is a native of Albany, New York. He remembers borrowing his father's windup Bell + Howell camera at a young age, and wearing out the springs while making his first films, which were inspired by Planet of the Apes. Roarke earned an undergraduate degree in the film studies program at Columbia College in Hollywood, while working on music videos as an electrician for gaffer Ray Peschke. He assisted Rolf Kestermann for more than 14 years on music videos, commercials and a feature film. Roarke became a Guild member in 2001.

Learning to Fly is the story of an Alzheimer's patient, who drifts between the present and the past, struggling to comprehend what happened to her once loving children. Roarke collaborated with his friend, director Jay Torres. The short film was produced at practical locations in Los Angeles and Malibu with a Sony F23 that was loaned to the filmmakers by Panavision in Woodland Hills.

"I have a passion for capturing human emotional moments in the right light," Roarke says. "I am honored to have this opportunity to show my film and be judged by my peers."