Director of Photography German Valle with Panavision lenses. (Courtesy of German Valle)
ArtsATL’s new series, Set Life, focuses on local creatives who work in Atlanta’s film and television industry. We’ll talk to those who work on both sides of the camera and explore their struggles and successes in navigating Georgia’s volatile film and TV scene.
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When German Valle was 7 years old and sitting in a movie theater watching The Lion King, he had a defining moment — a tiny tick of time that opened a window to his future.
“I remember watching one specific shot when the hyenas are on the top of the cliff with the wildebeest herd, and Simba’s dad, Mufasa, is thrown off the cliff by Scar, his brother,” Valle describes. “Simba comes up to him and he’s saying, ‘Wake up, Dad!’ And the shot goes over the hill and into Simba’s face (what a professional film director of photography calls a vertical effect, he later learned). And I thought, ‘How did they do that?’ I was little and it was just so cool and impressive, and I thought, ‘This is what I want to do.’”
So he kept his eyes open. And he learned more about the role of a director of photography.
“You direct the photography, everything that’s in the frame. You design the shots, the lighting, set the tone of the film and work hand-in-hand with the production designer — and most of all, the director,” Valle says of the DP. “You’re basically dealing with everything technical.”
The word “director” is formally included in just two roles on a professional film crew. One, of course, is the director. And the other is the director of photography. Even as a young film buff, Valle’s life experiences gave him what it takes to embrace the directorship portion of the role.
He was born in Honduras and came to the United States with his mother, under asylum, when he was 4. His father was a colonel who remained in Honduras.
“I had to find my own circle of life and make my own destiny, to move into the future and enjoy the present,” Valle reflects.
Valle’s “present” in the United States led to television production classes in high school, where he excelled and had the opportunity to work on the set of Any Given Sunday (1999), directed by Oliver Stone.
“It was a huge movie with lighting towers and a stadium, and I said, ‘This is amazing! How do I get into this?’” Valle says.
So instead of going to the University of Miami on a football scholarship, as planned, Valle took a pause and listened to a high school coach who knew about his passion for filmmaking. The coach told Valle about a friend who might be able to help out with securing financial aid at a school of the arts.
“So I went to University of North Carolina School of the Arts and toured it, and I auditioned. Out of 16,000 applicants, only 80 get in, and I was lucky No. 13,” Valle says. “Then I prayed about it — and I got an academic scholarship, too, since I was a Coca-Cola Scholar.”
By age 18, Valle joined the union for both camera and lighting work.
In his second year of college, a cinematography project proved to be formative in helping Valle gain the chops he needed for a professional film career as a DP — a job that entails figuring out how to do a multitude of things to capture the perfect shot. The assignment: Create a jib crane shot (a cinematic technique where a camera is mounted on a special arm to create a sweeping camera movement) without mounting the camera to anything.
“Obviously, it’s hard to do a crane shot without mounting the camera, so I ended up building a slide (woodworking is also one of Valle’s skills) with a rope and pulley system, and I would literally descend on this slide, from 50 to 60 feet up, and then walk with the camera in my hands toward the actors and make it feel like a crane shot,” he describes. His professor, acting as director, loved it.
To this day, long out of film school and deeply entrenched in a professional film career from an Atlanta home base, Valle still loves figuring things out.
“As a DP, you have to learn geography and culture,” Valle notes. “Knowing people’s cultures and where they come from helps you manage how you go about your art, and it helps you make sure it’s not offensive in any way. You have to know these things.”
He continues, “I’m always doing research, watching movies and TV shows, reading magazines. I love rigging, and so I look at the way other people do their techniques and see if it matches the quality of what I like, and then I create it myself.”
When asked to divulge a tricky part of his craft that people may not know, Valle says, “The hardest part about this job is being away from your family for long hours of the day. The job is long hours, and you tend to lack sleep.”
He adds, “If you’re good at what you do, the art part will come, but you can’t please everyone. I can work with anybody, but you have to know how to navigate people’s emotions.”
Valle has 20+ years of experience practicing his craft and learning to deal with people — on films such as The Hunger Games: Mockingbird parts 1 and 2; Black Panther; and on series’ including Tyler Perry’s Young Dylan.
From his vantage today, Valle says the international film community is seeing Atlanta quite a bit differently than it did five to 10 years ago.
“We’re just different here in Atlanta because we know how to grind,” he says of the professional film crew base in particular. “We’re [always] working to be the best, and we are the unsung heroes in the film industry. We have so many creative people in the metro area today.”
In closing, the DP observes, “We have grit as a workforce here in Atlanta that’s unmatched in other places.”
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Carol Badaracco Padgett is an Atlanta-based freelance writer who focuses on film and television, the automotive industry, architectural design and collaborative storytelling projects.
