George Spiro Dibie, ASC, was born and raised in Jerusalem. He earned a bachelor’s degree in theater arts from the Pasadena Playhouse and began his career directing, shooting and editing some twenty 16 mm documentaries and motivational films for Dibie-Dash Productions. Dibie broke into Hollywood as an electrician, best boy and gaffer, until he finally gained an opportunity to realize a life-long dream as a cinematographer. His first major Hollywood project was on the landmark TV series Barney Miller. Dibie subsequently became the first Hollywood cinematographer to move freely between film and video productions. He has earned six Emmy Awards and a total of 10 nominations. His credits include such TV series as Buffalo Bill, Night Court, Room for Two, Growing Pains, Mr. Belvedere and Just the 10 of Us. Dibie also photographed and established the look for many pilots which launched hit series, including Murphy Brown, My Sister Sam, Driving Miss Daisy and Head of the Class. His body of work also includes 60 to 70 telefilms and TV specials. In 1985, Dibie was elected president of Local 659 — the Hollywood region of the International Cinematographers Guild. In 1996, he became the first national president of the International Cinematographers Guild (Local 600) following the merger of the three previous Locals.

ICG: George, where were you born and raised?

DIBIE: I was born in Jerusalem in what was previously called Palestine. My father came from Corfu (in Greece) to visit the Holy Land. He was a Greek Orthodox. My mother came from Beirut, also to visit the Holy Land. She was a Roman Catholic. They met and got married. Maybe it was destiny. He converted and became a Catholic because at that time that’s the way it was. My mother would have been excommunicated if she had married outside of the Catholic Church. Of course, today we don’t worry about things like that.

ICG: What did your father do?

DIBIE: He became a government health inspector in Jerusalem, which was a very big job. He was there before Israel was declared a state by the United Nations and also during the conflict between the Arab nations and the new Israelis. I remember when I was growing up, we were welcomed by both sides because we were Christians and neutral.

ICG: Were you raised in Jerusalem?

DIBIE: Until 1953 when I moved to Amman and then to the United States to go to school.

ICG: What language did you grow up speaking?

DIBIE:  My mother's language was Lebanese, and I am sorry to say that my father never taught us much of the Greek language. I wish he did. I also spoke a little Hebrew, as well as French, Italian and also Latin, because I attended Roman Catholic schools.

ICG: Did you have any contact with movies when you were growing up?

DIBIE: Being in Catholic schools, I wasn’t supposed to go to the movies, but I loved them. Even before I was in my teens. Every Sunday I’d go to church and then I’d use the money I earned by running errands for my parents to see movies. During vacations, I’d go to the cinema from 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning until 7:00 in the evening.

I got the idea of having my own cinema when I was eight or nine. There was a magazine with cartoons that we received from America. I’d cut the cartoons out, glue them together and build reels. I built a small tent in our back yard and made a shoebox into a projector. I used a flashlight to project images of the cartoons, while I was telling the audience a story about the cartoons. I charged people five cents. My relatives, including my brothers and our neighbors always came to my shoebox shows.

ICG: Did you also take photographs as a youth?

DIBIE: We had a Rollicord camera with 120 format film. I always took pictures of my family and friends, and later of trees and landscapes. I still have some of those pictures. It’s interesting looking at them, because I can see that I understood contrast and composition without realizing it.

ICG: Do you remember your dreams and aspirations as a kid? Did you think about where you wanted to live and what you wanted to do?

DIBIE: I dreamed that I would move to Hollywood and become a director or a cameraman. I didn’t know what a cameraman did, but I remember thinking that if I couldn’t become a director, I would become a cameraman. That was when I was between nine and 12 years old. Later, when I was in high school, I’d take black and white pictures at proms. I was paid five cents a roll.

ICG: How did you get to the United States?

DIBIE: After graduating from high school, I was hired by UNICEF, which is part of the United Nations. I was teaching in refugee camps. For a while, I was teaching the Koran, but after about two weeks they told me that was a mistake, because I was a Christian. So, I taught English to first, second and third grade students. There were 80 students in a class and I never flunked anybody. I figured if somebody showed up at school it was worth a C. If you did better, you got a B or an A. By then, I had moved to Amman, which is the capital of Jordan. I applied for a job with the U.S.I.A. (United States Information Agency) at the American embassy. They hired me to translate reports that came from the Jordanian army. One day, I told the head of the U.S.I.A. in Amman that I had always wanted to go to the United States to learn to become a filmmaker. He handed an envelope to somebody, and said something like, "See that Mr. Dibie's papers are in order." I’ll never forget him. Seven days later I was on the way to the United States with a scholarship from the U.S.I.A..

ICG: No kidding. Where did you go and what did you do?

DIBIE:  Originally, I went to San Francisco, but the weather was bad, so I moved to Los Angeles and enrolled at Los Angeles City College. I studied engineering, because it was the only thing open. But the next year, I transferred to the Pasadena Playhouse where I could study directing.

ICG: How did you support yourself?

DIBIE: I worked as a busboy and later as a waiter at a cafeteria. I would go to classes from eight a.m. until one p.m., and from one until nine or 10 or 11 o’clock, I worked in a restaurant. Then, I went home and studied. The next day I would start all over again.

ICG: The Pasadena Playhouse was actually a college?

DIBIE: Yes. They had stages on the second floor, and I practiced lighting and directing on a lot of TV shows. Dustin Hoffman was a student. They told him he’d never go anyplace. For my thesis, I directed a play based about the last four days of Jimmy Dean’s life. It was called The Wild Harp. The school administrators were very upset, because I chose to direct an original play and I advertised to attract an audience. You weren’t supposed to do that either. We played to a full house twice in one night because of the crowds. It got a very good review, so we took it to a theatre somewhere near Echo Park (in Los Angeles). We were playing to full houses, and the actors were getting jobs. That’s when I decided that directing theater wasn’t doing anything for my future, so I began working on documentary films.

ICG: How did you get started shooting film?

DIBIE: In college, I was getting paid $8 a day for waiting on tables, but I was also making $25 to 30 in daily tips. I used some of that money to buy Bolex and Auricon 16 mm cameras and a projector. The first thing I tried to shoot was my own movie. I organized a crew and cast, shot for two weekends until I ran out of money. That’s when I began to understand what it takes to produce a film. Then, I started working for other people, shooting bar mitzvahs, weddings and events like that. I worked for a guy named Don Erkel. We used the Auricon camera, if there was sound. Don gave me my first break. He's still alive doing working somewhere in Los Angeles. We talk once in a while.

ICG: It doesn’t sound like you had an easy time at school?

DIBIE: I worked day and night, but I was determined to become a director or a cinematographer. I learned what it takes to survive in Jerusalem. I met a lot of people who survived the Holocaust. I’ve never been reluctant to work harder than the next guy. I learned that work ethic, and it helped me overcome all handicaps, including working 13-hour days, having a strong accent and no connections in the film industry. I never gave up or allowed myself to become discouraged.     

QEUSTION: How did you get started in Hollywood?

DIBIE: A lot of the more established film schools like USC, UCLA and Loyola have connections to the industry which helps their students get started. I’ve been helping my wife begin a program like that for students at California State University Northridge, so we can help film students. We didn’t have connections like that at the Pasadena Playhouse. When I finished school, I worked in a supermarket stacking groceries and also as a checker. There was a woman customer who I told about my ambitions. She worked for 20^th Century Fox, and promised to see what she could do. The next day, I got a phone call asking me to report to (20^th Century) Fox at 6:30 in the morning. They told me to bring pliers and a screwdriver. I put on a beautiful tie and suit, and I had a screwdriver and pliers in my pocket. I reported to work, and two seconds later someone said, "Okay, Dibie, follow Doggy." Doggy was a short guy who smoked cigars. He was the gang leader. We jumped on a truck and drove about 10 minutes on the Fox lot to an area where Leon Shamroy was shooting Cleopatra. That’s how I began working on electrical crews. Meanwhile, my neighbor, a teacher named Roger E. Dash, started talking to me about working together on documentaries.

ICG: Didn’t you have to join the Electricians’ Guild to get work in Hollywood?

DIBIE: In the beginning, I was working on a permit. About 10 percent of the manpower worked on permits. Everyday, it was a different studio. Eventually, I was allowed to join Local 728. Meanwhile, Roger Dash and I formed a company to produce documentaries and motivational films. That was during the mid-to- late-70s. Our first film was called They Beat The Odds. It was a story about of six black students who came from the ghetto and made it. It was 22-minutes long, and we intended to rent it to high schools. They were stories about real people, including someone who worked in the space program, and the first black mayor of a white city, Richmond, which is north of San Francisco.

ICG: What happened with that film?

DIBIE: We showed the first print to Ph.Ds from the Los Angeles Board of Education. They thought it was too national and not local enough. One of them told us, “Black people don’t think like that.” That made me pretty angry, because Dr. Roger Dash happened to be a black person.

ICG: What did you do?

DIBIE: I was pretty pissed off, because Roger knew a lot more about this issue than all of them put together. I said something like, ‘I'm sick of you white people telling a black person how to think. That's ridiculous. Roger, let's get the hell out of here.’ We went out and sold it on our own. NBC showed it to employees and Pepsi Cola bought 100 prints for $220 each. That was a fortune.

ICG: How did you divide the work?

DIBIE : We were co-producers. He wrote the story, and I made it into a scenario or shooting script. I directed, photographed and edited the films. We won some awards at film festivals. I did one film on my own about a black artist who was respected more in Europe than here. His name was Frederic Holly. It won the Golden Award at the Houston Film Festival. Roger and I shot about twenty 16 mm films together during a 10 year period. Meanwhile, I was working my way up through the electrical crew system until I became a gaffer. I worked with some very talented cinematographers.

ICG: How did you become a gaffer?

DIBIE: I worked my way up to best boy and then gaffer. I gaffed with Jim Wong Howe (ASC) on This Property Is Condemned and The Molly Maguires. I gaffed with Harry Stradling Sr. (ASC) on On A Clear Day with Barbara Streisand. I fell in love with her. I created a special light for her. It was called a Stri-light. It was a scoop that I painted for reflectivity. Every place she moved, I carried it and held it on the left side of the camera to key her right side. One day, we were getting ready to go to England and my right arm was sore because we had these shots. So, I gave the light to my best boy, Norm Harris. As soon as she saw him moving, she said, ‘George?’

I said, ‘Yes, dear?’

‘What's wrong? Why is he carrying this light?’

I said, ‘Well my arm, I took a shot.’

She said, ‘Did you take a shot in the left arm?’

I said, ‘No.’

‘Well...hold it with your left arm’

She’s a perfectionist. Barbara has gotten a lot of bad publicity because of that. If you are lazy and want to do things the easy way, you’ll never survive with her but she makes great films and she was beautiful with me. She is the most underestimated talent in this country, Show me a woman who acts, directs, produces, sings and supervises editing of all her movies. She knows how to hit a key like I’ve never seen.”

ICG: About how long were you a gaffer?

DIBIE: For about three years from 1967-’69. I also worked on Love American Style and some episodes of High Chaparral. I worked with Howard Schwartz (ASC), Jack Marta (ASC), Harold Stein (ASC) and Harkness Smith (ASC). I learned a lot from each one of them. They were all different. When I worked on High Chaparral with “Harkey” (Smith) he’d use reflectors on these big exteriors. The skies were always a beautiful, bright blue, and yet you could always see the faces. I watched how Jimmy Wong Howe dealt with sources. I learned that he started with the source and everything else came after that. If it was a street lamp that’s what we’d start with and he’d decide how hot or cool it should be. When we were shooting This Property is Condemned, we were in a small apartment with Natalie Wood and Robert Redford. Jimmy said, ‘George, give me a quad.’ It was a square box with four globes on individual switches. We hid it in a closet, and we were shooting a scene where Natalie opened the door. I made the mistake of asking what was the source was in the closet. He said, ‘It's my source. Don't ever ask me that question again.’ He gave me quite a lecture. I apologized, because I realized that I was very lucky to be his protégé because I could learn just by watching him.

ICG: How did you get into the camera Guild (Local 659)?

DIBIE: Warner Bros. needed a cameraman to do lighting for a multi-camera video show, and none of the members of the Guild wanted to do that type of work. The studio heard about me through a lighting rental company. My first show was called New Zoo Review. It still plays on cable. Within one month I got into the camera Guild because they needed someone to do this type of work, and none of the regular members were interested. It wasn’t easy, because in those days, you had to pay your dues in one lump sum, and I was just getting started on my career. Today, we allow new members to take as long as two years to pay their entry fees a little bit at a time.

ICG: How did you get into shooting situation comedies?

DIBIE: It happened during the early 1970s, after I worked on New Zoo Review. They were looking for people with experience shooting videotape. That's the irony because except for that one show, all of my experience as a cinematographer was shooting 16 mm film documentaries. The Barney Miller pilot was shot on film but when the show went to video, it gave me an opportunity. Danny Arnold was the executive producer and co-creator. He was a genius. I was very sad when he passed away a few years ago. We shot the first two episodes on stages at Channel 11 in Los Angeles and we broke every rule in the book. At that time in history, tape shows had technical directors who dictated the look to the lighting director. They basically looked at a wave form monitor in the control booth and made certain that the key to fill ratio was 2:1 which was the SMPTE standard. I spoke with Danny and he agreed that no technical director was going to dictate the look. The story takes place in a police station that’s open 24 hours a day. Danny wanted a gutsy and somewhat dark look. The rest is history.

ICG: Have you been concentrating on multi-camera ever since?

DIBIE: Everyone knows me for my multi-camera work but I also shot around 60 to 70 movies of the week. Some were on stages and others on location, and I shot both film and video. I also shot the Dibie-Dash film documentaries well into the 1980s.

ICG: I didn't know they produced telefilms in video format.

DIBIE: Oh sure. One was a regular series called The ABC Armchair Mysteries. We shot them in three days, 120 pages with big name stars. They were on at 11:30 in the evening for 90 minutes.

ICG: So, all the hype about shooting TV drama with video cameras isn’t new?

DIBIE: No. It was the same arguments. We shot at four or five locations a day. We traveled in a truck from a company called Compact Video. We were shooting and there were people in the truck looking at the video. The one-inch video cameras were very small for that time. I think they weighed 57 pounds. We did everything. We shot exteriors and interiors. You name it. Everyone said we’d be able to work faster and save money. So, history is repeating itself.

ICG: How did you get together with Danny Arnold?

DIBIE: I met Danny on an MOW called The Satchel Paige Story. He was going to be the producer-director. After Danny had a heart attack, he asked me to direct and shoot the film. That’s when I got a DGA (Directors Guild of America) card. Danny was the producer. I shot some other films after that, before we did Barney Miller.

ICG: So, you never worked as an assistant cameraman or operator?

DIBIE: I did, but it was on my own documentaries, where I did everything. I was the director, cameraman, and also the assistant and operator. I also edited the films.

ICG: Wasn’t there an issue about you being limited to a special category when in the Guild?

DIBIE: They created a special category for me when I got into the Guild, director of photography (E). The E stood for electronic. That went on for about three to four years. Around 1976, George Slatter had an idea for shooting 90-minute movies on location in video format, and he wanted to hire me to shoot the first one. The union said he couldn’t hire me because it was a feature even though it was electronic. The truth is that there were a lot of roadblocks which were designed to keep people out of the camera Guild in those days if you weren’t related to a member or had some other influence inside. Allen Daviau (ASC) was among a number of really talented people (see Daviau chat) who were locked out. George LaFontaine was another one. We filed a lawsuit that was settled without going to court in 1976. The Guild got rid of the E in my category and they also let Allen and a number of other people in. One person who helped a lot during that period was Frank Stanley (ASC), who became president of the Guild. He was a supporter of everybody who he thought had talent. He didn’t care if you shot video or film, or if you had a father or an uncle in the Guild, or you were starting out on your own.

ICG: I just want to make sure I have this straight. When you were a director of photography (E), you could shoot movies of the week but not features?

DIBIE: That’s right. The leadership of the Guild didn’t think that someone who worked with video cameras should do movies.

ICG: What is the green book?

DIBIE: The green book is the videotape agreement, which is a supplement to the basic film agreement. It’s called the green book simply because the original contract had a green cover. There are a lot of disadvantages for our members. The salaries are 20 to 30 percent lower, turn-around time is eight hours instead of 11 hours and there are many fewer benefits.

ICG: How did it come about?

DIBIE: This happened way before my time, but my understanding is that the main television networks took over the production of variety and other video shows including situation comedies. They were using their own stages and working with NABET crews. The Camera Guild didn’t want to deal with video shows, I suppose because they didn’t think it affected their members. That’s when IATSE got involved in negotiating what became the green book supplement to the basic film contract. It effected all the Locals—make-up, hair, everyone. There are 23 Locals effected, including the Teamsters. Even the major studios were behind it because their stages were empty. They wanted to bring the sitcoms and game shows back to their stages.

ICG: When was all of this happening?

DIBIE: Sometime during the mid- 1950s to the early ‘60s.

ICG: When did the Guild’s attitude toward video change?

DIBIE: In 1974, the Guild asked me to conduct a video workshop that dealt with both location and studio shooting. We held it on the Barney Miller stages. I looked around the audience, and Jimmy Wong Howe, Howard Schwartz (ASC), Phil Lathrop (ASC) and Lenny South (ASC) were watching us. We were showing them how to light multi-camera programs and they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. We were using one-tenth of the light the networks were using on their video shows. A few years later, we began offering workshops preparing cameramen and crews to work on multi-camera shows. One of the networks was really pushing the idea of shooting on video to save money. All in the Family was their model. They said you could save time and money by editing it as you shoot because it was on tape. Panavision worked with them to develop a video camera that was supposed to look and work like a film camera. A lot of that changed after Rank-Cintel brought out a telecine that you could use with original negative. That was during the late 1970s. Before that you had to edit on film and make a print for transfer with a film chain. About that time, many sitcoms converted from video to film production. All that time, we were helping to train our members to work on film and video sitcoms as assistants, operators and cinematographers.

ICG: Did the membership in general support the workshops?

DIBIE: Some of the older members were upset with me. They said I was giving away all of their secrets, and that people should learn for themselves. Up until that time, the Guild was very protective of the seniority system that favored the oldest members. Even if you became a cinematographer in the Guild, chances are you were put into Group 3. The producers could only hire you if everyone in Group 1 and 2 was working. When you gained seniority, you got into Group 2, and finally into Group 1. It could take 10 or more years, depending on how fast people died or retired. I remember when a producer couldn’t hire John Alcott (BSC), who had won an Academy Award for Barry Lyndon because he wasn’t in Group 1. Those things made us look bad and they discouraged younger members. 

ICG: Why did you run for president of the Guild?

DIBIE: Frank Stanley, who was president, encouraged me to run for second vice president. That was around 1984. Unfortunately, Frank got sick and retired. The first vice president was Wade Bingham, and he took over. Wade was a good person, but he was a camera operator, and he didn’t think he would get the respect he needed to run the Guild, so he resigned. That’s how I became president. I ran for re-election the following year, because I thought I could do some things to help our members. I felt the Guild had to be open to everyone who was qualified. I also saw what happened with the green book, and I knew that it was important not to allow them to use new technology against us.

ICG: I’m going to change the subject again and go back that I forgot to ask about Barney Miller. Didn't you invent something called the quad system at that time?

DIBIE: Remember, we were all film people and the first thing they told me was that I had a lighting director instead of a gaffer. The first thing he said was that the stage demanded 250 footcandles of keylight. I made a little joke and said, ‘as soon as you leave, I'll talk to the stage and we'll convince it that we only need 50 footcandles.’ They thought I was crazy, but that's what we did. We used very sourcy light. I was told that two video controllers refused to work with me, because I was shooting scenes at T-3.5 wide open. They had been taught that all video shows were shot at T-5.6. They complained that the pictures were noisy, which is the video equivalent of grain. They went to Danny Arnold and complained about me. They said I was watching everything they did and insisting that they adjust colors. Danny listened and then he said, ‘That's why I hired him.’ They complained about the noise, and he said that’s what a New York police station is supposed to look like. Remember, in those days we were getting camera operators who were coming from game shows where everything was shot at T-5.6 and 8. They also did a lot of zooming in and out. I told them that there wasn’t going to be any oozing. They said, ‘what do you mean oozing?’ I explained that there wasn’t going to be any zooming in and out. I said we were going to light and shoot it like a movie. The operators also went to Danny Arnold and complained. I explained that we didn’t have selective focus with video cameras, so we had to make adjustments to make it look like a movie. He really let them have it. In the end, instead of hating me, they learned to respect me. They realized we were doing something different than a Norman Lear show. They joked about the cartoon lighting on other multi-camera shows.

ICG: What was the situation with the technical director?

DIBIE: There was a guy in the booth who was the video controller. He would look at this scope that measured the brightness of the image and the key to fill ratio. I told him we don’t look at scopes. We look at pictures. Two video controllers refused to work for me, and they lived to regret it because Barney Miller was a big hit which ran for years. The operators were a little nervous during the first few shows. They’d tell me other programs were using 350 to 400 footcandles. I told them to look through the viewfinder and trust their eyes and instincts. I wasn’t called a director of photography during the first few shows. I was called a consultant. The technical director was a very nice gentleman. He’d come in and say good morning to everyone. He’d say roll tape. Stop tape. Let’s take a five-minute break. It’s time for lunch. But that was it. Danny Arnold knew exactly what he was doing. He also brought a traditional film editor onto the show.

ICG: What was the quad system?

DIBIE: It was like how we use video assist today. We had four monitors in the control booth with industrial quality video camera recording the images on the screen and transmitting them to monitors on the stage.

ICG: How long did you work with Danny Arnold on this show?

DIBIE: It ran for seven years, but I also did other things during that period.

ICG: What was your first film sitcom?

DIBIE: My first big network film show was Buffalo Bill, which featured Dabney Coleman, Geena Davis and Joanna Cassidy. That was in the early 1980s when Kodak came out with their first high-speed film. It was rated for an exposure index of 250. Before that, they only had one color film, 5247, which had an E.I. of 100. I think I was the first one to use the 250-speed film on a TV show. John Alonzo (ASC) used it to shoot a movie called Blue Thunder. One of the things we did was cut it down from shooting 14 hours a day – which was typical – to 12. We also eliminated the use of big lighting units.

           

ICG: Weren’t you the first cinematographer, or one of the first to move freely between shooting film and video shows?

DIBIE: Yes and the secret was simple. I approached lighting identically whether I was shooting film or video. It was about the story, the situation and mood, and not about the equipment or technology. I shot Buffalo Bill with a maximum of 20 to 30 footcandles. I knew with film we could shoot in a fairly dark room and have a bright source maybe 200 footcandles coming through the window. You couldn’t shoot with those ratios on a video show. All you would see is a blotch of light in the window. It is getting a little better today but there are still differences…for example, in latitude. You have to do some more lighting with video if you are shooting in the same situations.

ICG: When you shoot video shows today, does it come under the green book contract?

DIBIE: I’ve been fortunate during my career that since my first hit shows I haven’t worked for scale. However, everyone is affected by the green book. A couple of years ago, I was shooting two shows on adjoining stages at Paramount. One was a film show, Good Behavior. We shot that on Monday and Tuesday. On Thursday and Friday, I shot a video show called Sister, Sister. I had the same electricians doing the same work on both shows and they were getting paid less for Sister, Sister. It was the same with the other departments like makeup. The bad thing is that there is no excuse for having a separate video agreement today. We are doing the same work whether it is a film or a video show. The green book also affects the size of the crew and benefits. You don't have a best boy in electric or grip departments. Every time you shoot a film, whether it is a movie or TV show, it is like going to war, and this agreement takes away a critical person who you need to win the battle. It’s unfortunate that a video vendor has gone to the labor relations people at the studios and told them they can cut the crew and save money by using their video equipment. We are working very hard on this issue.

ICG: You mentioned earlier that there was a time when there were very few women and minority members. How has that changed?

DIBIE: I give a lot of the credit to Bruce Doering, who's our executive director. He has a very difficult job and has to be a tough guy, but underneath he is a true humanitarian who loves people and is committed to our cause. He was the first one who pointed out that we didn’t have many women or minority members. We started talking and having small meetings with members. Little by little we brought this issue to the Board, and discussed why it was important to be fair to everyone. We also had to attract the most talented people whether they were male or female or Black or white, Latino or Asian. In 1987, we began to change our roster system. We took down one of the biggest barriers. In the old days, we had a Catch 22 situation. You couldn’t get into the Guild unless you had experience on Guild films, and you couldn’t get experience without being in the Guild. In 1987, we said that if you had 100 days of experience doing non-union work, it qualified you to apply for membership in that position in the Guild. That was a big breakthrough. Within one to two years, we had 1,000 new members, and many of them were the people that producers went to as alternatives to the Guild. Right after that, we introduced out-reach programs which encouraged women and minorities to join the Guild. That also got us a lot of talented new members.

ICG: Did some of the old members resent that?

DIBIE: Some members felt that we were giving away their jobs by letting other people in. A few weren’t very kind to me but I don’t hold a grudge. The problem with most of them is that they don’t realize times have changed. The studios aren’t run by filmmakers. They are international conglomerates and don’t care about Hollywood’s traditions. For the most part, they don’t care how important this industry is to the country or our economy. They want the most work for the least money, and some of them are willing to compromise our artistic contributions.

ICG: How many members were in the Guild when you became president?

DIBIE: I think there were around 1,200. Then, it went to 2,000, 3,000 and up to 3,600. That was Local 659, in Los Angeles. Everybody knows the rest of the story. The IATSE merged the Locals in Hollywood, New York and Chicago into a national Guild. That changed 70 years of history as three allied camera Guilds with separate jurisdictions. A cinematographer would begin a film in New York and when it moved to Hollywood, he or she was replaced by someone else. They’d have a new director of photography and crew. It was bad for the production and bad for us. The director or actors didn’t leave the movie because they changed locations. It also made negotiations much more difficult because the producers could play us off against one another. They’d bring a Guild member from Chicago into Los Angeles to do non-union work. The Western Region contract allowed cinematographers who started films in Los Angeles finish those projects in other parts of the country, but there was a lot of in-fighting. Once we had a film shooting in the Western region and members of Local 644 crossed our picket line. We began talking to Tom Short (IA president) and he agreed with us that the best thing for everyone would be to unify the three Guilds into one national organization. He helped us get together and plan a strategy for putting up a unified front. On May 16, 1996, a judge ruled that it was in the best interests of the majority of our members to have a single, national organization. The producers can’t run and hide from us anymore. We are organizing shows all over the country. There are some 6,000 members in Local 600 now. IATSE has about 92,000 members in the United States and another 12,000 in Canada. We still have big challenges, including run-away production and the green book, but we are in a better position to deal with those problems today. IATSE is also getting stronger all the time, and I think we have a lot to do with that.

ICG: You know George, there are members of the Guild who simply don’t identify with unions. Maybe they are see unions as working people; or maybe they see themselves as strong individualists who are philosophically opposed to unions. What do you tell them?

DIBIE: I tell them to wake up. This has nothing to do with politics or philosophy. The world has changed. We are working for global conglomerates who also own the theatres, the TV networks, the satellite companies, the cable casters and they are taking over the internet. Some of them are also interested in selling hardware to producers, broadcasters and cable companies and TV sets to the public. Their lobbies have enormous influence in Washington. I don’t care who you are or how many Oscars or Emmys you have won. If you try to stand alone against them, you are eventually going to get crushed. Our best chance is standing together and encouraging others to join us. 

ICG: You mentioned the number of MOWs and documentaries you have shot. How about multi-camera shows? Have you figured out how many episodes of sitcoms you've shot over the years?

DIBIE: No, I haven’t. I know that I have a have half-a-dozen souvenir tee shirts from shows which have gone over 100 episodes. I have won six Emmys out of 10 nominations but those were only for the video shows, because until this year, there was no category for multi-camera film shows. Meryl Marshall (the CEO of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences) helped us to change that this year. We began talking to her about that three or four years ago after she was first elected, so she deserves our thanks. I would guess that I have shot between 2,000 and 3,000 episodes of TV series, and between 10 to 20 pilots for successful shows.

ICG: Do you have favorite series in that body of work?

DIBIE: Off the top of my head, I’d says Barney Miller, Buffalo Bill and Growing Pains.

ICG: I think that wasn’t a fair ICG, because I know you are forgetting Night Court. I never missed an episode of that show, and don’t forget Just The 10 of Us. Let me ask it another way. Sitcoms tend to get overlooked. ASC doesn’t even have a category for them in their annual Outstanding Achievement Awards, and the TV Academy never recognized film sitcoms before this year. Did you ever find that difficult to deal with?

DIBIE: Like you said, there isn’t a lot of recognition from the industry, so you find satisfaction in your own feelings about your work. You have a different script to shoot every week with no time to rehearse, maybe a couple of days to prepare each episode, almost always with a different director. There are also times when writer-producers seek you out, and actresses and actors insist that you shoot their shows. One of my most memorable sitcoms was the Halloween episode of Growing Pains. It was a one-hour episode, and we had four days to shoot it. We had to create moods and looks that touched on all of the emotions in that one show. The camerawork was an important part of the story-telling. We had an important interior scene mainly motivated by a fireplace with some night light coming through a window. There was a black and white sequence and one where colors were very important. We had interior and exterior scenes, and one where a Steadicam was important. If someone said to me, Dibie give me an hour that represents your best work, I’d probably pick that show.

ICG: Can you recite a list of your favorite pilots, where you didn’t shoot the series?

DIBIE: That would be a very long list, because I shot every pilot that was made by Warner Bros. for

10 years when I was under contract to the studio, including Sister Sam, Head of the Class, Murphy Brown and The Trouble With Larry to name a few. That’s a very difficult question.

ICG: What are the biggest changes, to your way of thinking, about what’s happened in the industry during the past 20 or 25 years?

DIBIE: I think most people will tell you that the big thing is that we have faster films or better lenses, or digital postproduction, but I think the most significant change is in the people who are running the industry. We use to deal with producers who loved the game. They were very passionate. They are still there, but now they have to satisfy people who are mainly motivated by money. In some ways it is more difficult today to deliver the same quality we produced in the past because we are being forced to do the same things in less time with fewer people and resources. It comes down to a bean counter deciding that you can’t use a lens you need in order to save a couple of hundred dollars on a show which cost a half a million dollars to produce. That little nuance can change the mood of a scene and the tone of a show. How many times have you heard someone say the audience can’t tell the difference? All the great filmmakers knew and know that isn’t true. The audience knows how to read film, and they they know what they like. Maybe they’ll decide a favorite show is slipping, and tune into something else the following week. Then, they talk about that new show at work. Next thing you know the ratings are sliding and the producer is blamed, but it happened because a go-fer was trying to impress a foreign-owned studio which doesn’t respect the audience or the filmmakers.

ICG: You sound pessimistic, but you have won some big battles. One that comes to mind was the FCC standard for Digital Television. The broadcasters and video equipment manufacturers wanted the FCC to lock into an analog HD system with a 16:9 aspect ratio and interlaced scanning. That would have helped the manufacturers sell their HD camcorders and other HD equipment to postproduction companies and TV stations. It would have also made every TV set in the country obsolete.

           

DIBIE: That was a big fight. You have to give Victor Kemper and ASC credit. Victor organized a focus group that made some interesting recommendations to the FCC. It called for an open standard with no fixed aspect ratio. They wanted all films shown in their original format with no panning and scanning, which you can easily do with digital transmission. They called for a convergence of TV standards with computers so you can use either box for receiving content and it can be interactive. They also called for digital transmission and a progressive scanning standard. We were the first organization to join ASC, and then the DGA and Artists Rights Foundation came onboard. Steven Spielberg was a tremendous ally. Everyone thought the manufacturers would win because of their tremendous influence in Washington. More than a few people who were on the FCC committee recommending standards ended up working for those manufacturers. It ended up as kind of a stalemate. The FCC set a date for conversion to digital transmission and itemized 18 different acceptable standards. They left the rest up to the marketplace to decide. 

ICG: Is the outlook grim for younger cinematographers at the beginnings of careers?

DIBIE: No. There were always barriers. When I was starting my career, it was almost impossible for someone like me to get into the Guild without a relative or someone on the inside helping you. You can read the chats we’ve done with John Bailey (ASC), Laszlo Kovacs (ASC), Jim Chressanthis, Steve Poster (ASC), Allen Daviau and others, and they all tell the same story. All of them had the talent, the desire and willingness to work very hard, and eventually they became stars. Today, if you want to be a member of the Guild, we are going to help you join. If you work on a non-union show or two, we’re going to organize it and you are going to become one of our brothers or sisters. If you are a woman, black or another minority, you have a much better chance today than you did 15 to 20 years ago. We have problems today because of run-away production and the green book, but if you persevere, you can succeed. What were the odds when I was growing up in Palestine that I’d end up shooting films and heading a Guild in America?

ICG: Do you have figures on the number of members who are women and minorities?

DIBIE: I believe that 12 to 14 percent of our members are women and about 10 to 11 percent are minorities. That compares to one or two percent of our members being women, and a smaller percent being members of minorities when we began this initiative 13 to 14 years ago. You can do the math for yourself. That’s as many as a quarter of our members. The important issue is that there are no barriers today for women and minorities joining the Guild.

ICG: Is there on-going effort in the area?

DIBIE: Everyday. You know we have published editorial inserts in ICG Magazine on diversity to encourage and highlight women and minority members of the Guild. We are active in our communities with out-reach programs. We lecture in inner city elementary and high schools. We are helping the TV Academy with their diversity program. It’s not just talk. We are open to all ideas.

ICG: What’s a young person to do today. You get out of film school, and chances are you have a big tuition loan to pay. Do you join the Guild and work your way up through the crew system and get that experience, or do you try to find a job shooting?

DIBIE: Get as much experience as you can, doing everything that you can. We have people who join the Guild so they can learn by working with other cinematographers. It’s not just about learning how to focus and operate a camera. You also learn about set etiquette and attitudes. You learn what works and what doesn’t. If you are running a set with 60 to 70 people, that’s important. You have to learn how to work with the A.D. and how to talk to people so they cooperate. You see how the cinematographers work with the gaffer and grips, the boom guy and the make-up and hair people. You don’t learn those things shooting low budget features where you are doing all of the jobs. We also encourage our members to shoot every chance they get. That’s what our Short Film Showcase is about. We encourage them to shoot short films with young directors, writers and actors.

           

ICG: How does the Showcase work?

DIBIE: It was Rob Kositcheck’s idea and he has run this competition for four years. Any member who isn’t a cinematographer in the Guild can enter. We get between 70 and 90 entries a year. They’re judged by blue ribbon panels of peers. We select eight or nine films every year. Kodak has helped us with this event. They sponsor a reception where the finalists meet agents and the press. Then, we have a premiere screening at the DGA. After that, Kodak takes the films to Cannes where they are shown at the American Pavilion. We also show them in New York, Chicago and Orlando and this year in Boston. About half of the finalists from the first four years are now shooting films.

ICG: You mentioned that this was the first year that multi-camera film shows have been nominated for an Emmy. How did that happen?

DIBIE: We brought it up with Meryl Marshall when she was elected president of the TV Academy and she told us what we had to do. I joined the peer group, and we got very active writing letters and creating a lot of pressure. About a dozen of our members were involved. The Academy finally set up a new category this year.

ICG: Why is there so much emphasis on technology in the media today? When Mike Figgis shot Time Code in digital format you’d think he painted the Mona Lisa. He was on the front page of the New York Times, including a picture of him with a digital camera on his shoulder. CNN had a 15-minute segment on a Sunday show showing Figgis running around with a digital camera. The CCN anchor predicted it was the end of traditional filmmaking. Not film, filmmaking. They said anyone can make movies now. Just point the camera and shoot, and someone will fix everything in a computer. There were similar reports in many trade magazines. Is there really a technological revolution?

DIBIE:  No. There are companies trying to use technology to market their products, and they have hit on the strategy of claiming it is easier to shoot video than film and it doesn’t require lighting. I shot video movies 25 years ago, and a company called Image Transform did a pretty good job of converting it to film. We have been shooting with digital cameras for years and the Guild has been holding workshops for members. Sony is making a big deal out of George Lucas using their high definition camera on Star Wars. But, we have had high definition since 1982, and this version isn’t all that much different. The press just seems to write whatever the publicists tell them. Mike Figgis qualified as a camera operator, but it was only one of four camera operators. No one pointed that put. They all said it was a new concept, but people have been using montages in movies since the 1920s. Time Code was nothing special. Despite all of the publicity, it had a limited run for about a week.

ICG: What drove the publicity?

DIBIE: Marketing by the manufacturers and advertising. Some producers want to believe Sony when they claim you need fewer people and less or no light. I confronted Larry Thorpe of Sony on a panel at an ITS meeting, where he denied saying those things . He said he would pay us $100 if we could prove he said it. Bill Bennett was on the panel with me. We showed Larry a magazine article quoting him, and he said he was misquoted. Recently, someone sent us pages from a Sony brochure which made those claims. It was published in December, 1999. It says, ‘Certain labor agreements and/or workplace traditions can possibly provide for cost savings when producing on video rather than on film.’ Does anyone doubt they are talking about the green book? It also says that if a ‘DP is willing to learn, they can create imagery very close to 35 mm film.’ I’m sure they have no idea of how insulting that is to cinematographers who have to learn new things 1,000 times every day they shoot.

ICG: What’s the outcome of the green book debate?

DIBIE: We have had many discussions with the studios regarding these false marketing claims. I’ve personally lit enough video shows to know that the cameras aren’t easier to operate. It doesn’t require less skill or fewer people. I testified that you have to work harder to light because there’s less latitude. We have won the first round of that battle. The studios have agreed to shelve the issue until September of 2001. We aren’t alone on this issue. It’s not only an attack on us. It is an attack on 23 IATSE Guilds, plus the DGA and SAG, since they are also affected.

ICG: Did you ever get your $100?

DIBIE: No. I’m still waiting, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

ICG: There was just an article in The Hollywood Reporter about independent filmmaking with digital cameras. It pretty much repeats the digital video mantra, including an un-attributed comment saying that you can ‘get away with using fewer lights using DV, reducing equipment costs’ and a vendor is quoted saying that when you record video out to film it looks just like film. Do producers read articles like that and tell their cinematographers to shoot digital video with fewer lights?

DIBIE: When they write an article like that, chances are there will be ads placed by the people they’re quoting in the newspaper or magazine. I know that’s true, because we have had companies tell us they’ll advertise more if we print their propaganda. I tell them we cover legitimate news and don’t make deals with advertisers. I think publishers and editors need to be more responsible.

ICG: Do you have an opinion about the outcome of the film/digital debate?

DIBIE: Everyone knows that I’m not against video or digital video. I have been shooting it my entire career, and a lot of good things happened to me because of Barney Miller. Based on what I have seen and heard so far, I believe we will still be shooting film 20 years from now unless there is some new invention that we haven’t seen yet. It is obvious to anyone who is paying attention that film will keep longer in archives and the format hasn’t changed 70 times. Second, there is nothing that looks like film. It’s a lot of things, the contrast ratio, the range of colors and the texture. Digital video cameras have gotten better, but it’s still a live look. It doesn’t have that dreamy quality of film. Film gives you so many more options. It’s like having more brushes and paints on your palette for creating different looks. A talented cinematographer and crew can use light and diffusion and other tricks to make video seem more film-like. I’ve done that for decades. But, now some of the video vendors are telling the producers they can work with smaller crews, pay them less and use less light. I think that was a big mistake. It is true that a lot of young people are using video cameras in schools and for low budget productions, because they are cheaper and more accessible. I think that will give them good experience shooting, framing and moving the camera, but very few of those pictures are going to be seen by large numbers of the public. Despite all of the hype, there are very few digital projectors in cinemas and even at festivals, and a very small percentage of these videos are ever converted to film.

           

ICG: Why does it seem like the Camera Guild is fighting some of these battles alone?

DIBIE: There are 23 locals in Hollywood and around 600 in IATSE. When we take a strong stance on runaway production, sometimes we’re lectured by the IA which has thousands of members in Canada. We also fight for sane working hours. We know from government studies that when you work more than 12 hours a day and are deprived of sleep you are as dangerous on the road as a drunk driver. Some of the other Guilds won’t join us on that issue because they are afraid of run-away production and they are worried about losing overtime. The IA has supported us along with SAG and the DGA, but there hasn’t been much progress during the three years that have passed since Brent Hershfield was killed. We are making some headway at the grass roots level. Our members know the issues, and a lot of them aren’t afraid to speak up. But, we have a lot of work to do. There was a vote by the 23 Locals in Hollywood where six supported us, four said no, and the rest abstained.

ICG: What about run-away production?

DIBIE: There is no doubt that it has put a lot of our members out of work. Films are not only going to Canada. They are also going to Australia, New Zealand, Prague, Romania, the Czech Republic and other parts of the world. The DGA is fighting very hard, but most politicians have put their heads in the sand and they say there’s no problem or it isn’t the government’s responsibility. I’m not anti-Canadian or anti-anything, but the competition is unfair, and filmmaking is one of our major industries.

The exporting of American jobs in this important industry should be a major political issue.

           

ICG: Has any government agency helped?

DIBIE: None whatsoever. In California, the governor has allotted $45 million per year to be spent for obtaining permits for shooting in state parks. A DGA report indicates that California alone lost more than $2 billion in business last year, so this is just a drop in the bucket. It’s not just a problem in California. It affects everyone in our industry. I have a letter from one of our members, who points out that there is a domino affect. Some cinematographers are going to work in Canada and other countries but their crews are left behind, so there is more competition for the remaining jobs. Camera operators who worked on features are now working on episodic TV and so on.

ICG: What do you do if you are in that situation?

DIBIE: You have to be tenacious. If you don't stay with it, you are going to get left behind. When I’m running a set, I’ll have 50 to 60 crafts people from all of the other guilds call me day and night to ask who to contact. That’s what you have to do. Just don’t give up.

ICG: I want to change the subject again and ask you a totally different ICG. What's a D-B Net and where did that term come from?

DIBIE: It’s a special type of gauze fabric that I use for diffusion behind and in front of the lens. Originally, I used it on video sitcoms. Video has a naturally harsher or harder look that film. There are all kinds of diffusion material available, but I knew exactly what I needed for certain types of lenses and focal lengths, and I finally found that material in France. I was visiting the George Pompadour Museum, which was close to the garment district. I just went from one place to another until I found it and then I bought a big supply. The holes in the fabric are diamond shaped, kind of an oval. When you put it behind or in front of the lens, it gives you a very beautiful halation. That was about 15 years ago. I have given a lot of it away to other cinematographers and only have a very small piece left for myself.

ICG: What are you going to do when that is gone?

DIBIE: I’m looking for something similar. I have a tip on some wedding gown material in Mexico.

ICG: Can you give us another example of a trick like the D-B Net?

DIBIE: How about Saran Wrap? I was shooting a hair spray commercial with Farrah Fawcett years ago. I experimented with putting two sheets of Saran Wrap on the lens. I’m using the brand name because its not the same with other brands or generic material. Something happens photometrically, maybe because it’s perfectly clear with no yellow or lines. I think I did that 20 years ago, and people thought I was crazy. I remember using it on another commercial with Victoria Principal, and she asked what I was putting on the lens. When she saw how kind it treated her face, she loved it.

ICG: Has everybody now pretty much accepted the merging of the three Locals?

DIBIE: Yes, and it’s been beautiful. Some people were skeptical for a while, because it was a change. There is a lot of cooperation between members, and the camaraderie is wonderful. We have a lot of national workshops on lighting, camera operation, postproduction and working with colorists. We are also teaching people how to work better with producers and directors. But, most of all, the producers can’t run away from us anymore by threatening to move a show.

ICG: I had a cinematographer tell me there are too many people in the Guild and not enough work. How do you feel about that?

DIBIE: I know why people feel that way, but that was the argument they used to keep people like Haskell Wexler (ASC), Conrad Hall (ASC), Allen Daviau (ASC) and others out of the Guild years ago. That was almost a disaster for the Guild because it created a strong base of talented people who were a viable alternative for the producers. You are in a much stronger negotiating position when you invite all of the most talented people to become members. Too many members isn’t the problem. Run-away production is the reason why people aren’t working. Imagine what it would be like if all of the American films shooting in Canada were here. You can’t solve that problem by getting weaker.

ICG: You’ve been writing editorials about this issue. What kind of reaction do you get?

DIBIE: I hear from a lot of members, and also from producers, directors, and vendors who read ICG Magazine. I get a lot of encouragement from almost all of them. The reactions are 99.9 percent positive. People back us on run-away production and also on safety issues. I’ve never been afraid to speak my thoughts. I think our government is betraying the working person and the middle class in our industry and other businesses. Companies are shutting down here, and moving factories to Canada, Mexico, China and other countries. Now the same thing is happening in our industry.

           

ICG: A lot of people even in this industry don’t really understand what cinematographers do. I remember being in the audience at an ITS luncheon three or four years ago where you were the keynote speaker. Somebody asked if you weren't looking forward to high definition TV because everything was going to look sharper. Do you remember what you said?

DIBIE: I said ‘I’m not hired to shoot sharp pictures.’ We are expected to make actors and actors look attractive and sometimes younger. We use light and diffusion to soften the look and selective focus to draw the audience’s eye to different people and objects in the scene. Too many people think cinematography is about creating beautiful, sharp pictures. It’s about telling stories. We are trying to make this point with our magazine, our website and with a presence on panels at trade shows. We participated in a two-day event with the TV Academy at Universal Studios to celebrate the opening of a Metro train station there. There were almost 200,000 people. They showed movies shot by our members on big screens.

ICG: That’s interesting, because it seems like the Motion Academy gives cinematographers a lot more respect than the TV Academy.

DIBIE: I hate to say this because when it was founded, the TV Academy was very friendly to cinematographers. Many original members were cinematographers, and they played a role in shaping the agenda. Today, the TV Academy is mainly focussed above-the-line. There are only around 60 cinematographers in the peer group. We are taking a more active role today. We participate in the Academy’s Outreach/Diversity Committee and I’ve been on the Awards Committee. We made some progress this year with the new Emmy category for film sitcoms. It took us years because some people felt there were too many cinematography awards. Actually, they give more awards for make-up, sound, animation and other craft categories. One of the problems is that they consider cinematography a craft rather than an art like acting or directing. We need to change that perception.

ICG: You were just elected governor of the Academy’s cinematography peer group. Tell us why you did that? It has to be another expenditure of precious time.

DIBIE: I believe there is a lot we can do through the Academy to lift the statue of cinematographers. I also believe there are programs we can do with the Academy that will help our current and future members. But, we have to take responsibility for creating new initiatives, and for getting more of our members involved. I believe we can help make those things happen, and I believe the Academy will listen to me because I represent 6000 members of the national Guild.

ICG: I’m going to change the topic again. During recent years, the Guild has made a lot of progress with TV commercial producers. Can you talk about that?

DIBIE: We have made big progress. As recently as three years ago we had agreements with two TV commercial producers. We have more than 400 contracts today, thanks to Bruce Doering and the IA. It didn’t happen by accident. We had a campaign and designed a contract that works for the producers and for our members. We talked to producers and their trade association. We spoke with Tom Short at the IA. We developed a strategy and went out and started signing agreements with producers. Pretty soon, they started coming to us.

ICG: What's the advantage for the camera crews?

DIBIE: They get benefits, including a health plan. If you work 300 hours in six months, you are covered by one of the best health plans in the country. That's just one issue. There are also credits towards your pension and other benefits, including over-time and meal penalties. We are also very diligent on safety issues. The producers know they are getting the most talented and professional cinematographers and crews, so is generally a win-win situation.

ICG: Where are the weak spots in recruiting new members?

DIBIE: We have our biggest problem in the right-to-work states, where people have been working non-union for decades. We have a huge campaign to educate those people and also our members who work in those states. Little by little we are winning them over.       

ICG: You recently did a unique workshop in Chicago. Tell us about it.

DIBIE: Joan Cusack is going to do a series of 13 shows, multi-camera. It’s a sitcom. She wants to shoot it in Chicago with film cameras on video pedestals. We put together a program to train crewmembers who didn’t have a lot of experience with this technique. We got a lot of cooperation from Panavision, they went out of their way to help us. They supplied the camera equipment. Chapman supplied the pedestals. Kim Mattes, who is in charge of the production at KWWT-TV, got us a facility. It was a hands-on workshop. The producers were there during the last two days, and they were very impressed and happy. It’s eight or nine local jobs for 13 weeks, but maybe it will lead to other shows shooting in Chicago instead of Canada. This is a good example of the benefits of the merger of the Locals into a national Guild.

ICG: Can you talk about the Heritage series and what its about?

DIBIE: When I became active in the Guild I was surprised to find that other than old copies of ICG Magazine there were no records of our 60 years of history. There wasn’t even a library. We started building a reference library consisting of books and literature for our members. I was disappointed because I remembered hearing about the great cinematographers like Joe Biroc (ASC) and George Folsey (ASC). We decided to tape a series of Heritage interviews with members talking about their careers and the issues they faced. It’s not just cinematographers. There are operators and assistants and still photographers. The interviews are no less than two hours and many are longer. So far, we have almost 250 Heritage interviews, and we are adding more all of the time. We recently made an arrangement with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences through our good friend Michael Friend. They are going to archive and maintain these interviews, and make copies accessible to our members, scholars and journalists. We’ll also have copies here that our members can borrow.

ICG: How many different classifications are there within the Guild?

DIBIE: We have 18 classifications, cinematographers, operators, first and second assistants, loaders, animators, still photographers, video controllers photojournalists, from 30 to 40 TV stations, and even the scientific photography people at Cape Kennedy. We have members who just do film, some just do video, and large numbers who work in film and video formats. We encourage our members to do both, because that gives them more options. There is nothing mystical about the technology. It’s all about the talent and experience of the director of photography and crew.

ICG: Are there different contracts for low-budget films and bigger budget films?

DIBIE: Definitely. We want to cooperate with legitimate independent producers who are making low budget films. We want to help them make their films in this country rather than running overseas. We can’t match the incentives that foreign governments give to American filmmakers, and we can’t match labor costs that are 40 to 50 percent lower in some countries. But, there are independent producers who are decent people who want to make their films in this country. The pay scales are lower, but it does help our members to qualify for the health plan and other benefits, and they are gaining experience with directors and producers who may be doing bigger films someday.

ICG: George, what keeps you going and working this hard?

DIBIE: I love the work. Imagine, you read a script and start to dream. You imagine what it will look like as you tell a story. You work with the actors, producers, directors and a lot of other people, and within a few months, the words on that printed page are being watched by millions of people on a TV or movie screen. You are helping to create a fantasy world. To me, it's like painting, and I love to paint. You are painting or writing with light, color, composition and contrast to tell a story. That was my boyhood dream, when I was only seven or eight years old, and it has all come true. That’s why I fight so hard for our Guild and our members. This is my way of thanking the people who helped me.

ICG: We have gone through a couple of hours and I never asked about lighting sitcoms and similar issues that people are interested in hearing you talking about.

DIBIE: I have no secrets. I am willing to answer any questions. We can do that during the chat.

E-mail the author with questions/comments

                                                            #