John C. Flinn III, ASC was born and raised in Los Angeles. He is a third generation filmmaker. His grandfather, John C. Flinn Sr., was a pioneer in the film industry, who began his career with Pathe Studios. He was a vice president of Cecile B. DeMille Productions, in Hollywood, which was the forerunner of Paramount Pictures. His father, John C. Flinn Jr., was West Coast director of advertising and publicity for Columbia Pictures.

Flinn began his career at the age of 19 filling in as a second assistant cameraman. During the early days of his career, Flinn had a SAG card and performed bit roles as an actor. He was also a stuntman. Flinn was an assistant cameraman for seven years and a camera operator for eight years, working with and being mentored by such legendary cinematographers as Bob Surtees, ASC, Harry Stradling, ASC, Bill Fraker, ASC, BSC, Richard Rawlings Sr., ASC, Monroe Askins, ASC, Chuck Wheeler, ASC, and Richard Kline, ASC.

Flinn earned his first cinematography credit in 1979 for a television film called The Flame is Love. He filmed such milestone TV series as the last season of Hawaii Five-O, three years of Hill Street Blues, long runs on Magnum, P.I., Jake and the Fatman and the recent hit, Babylon 5, in addition to various other episodic series and movies made for television. Flinn has earned seven Emmy and three American Society of Cinematographers Outstanding Award nominations. He claimed top honors in the 1993 ASC episodic series competition for Jake and the Fatman, an episode he also directed. His current project is the episodic series Gilmore Girls.   

QUESTION:   We understand that you have long family ties to the industry?

FLINN: My grandfather John C. Flinn Sr. was at Pathe Studios in New York for a short while very early in the history of the industry. He was vice president of Cecile B. DeMille Productions in Hollywood. My father got into the business at Warner Bros. as a publicist. From there he went on to Allied Artists and Columbia Pictures, where he was West Coast director of advertising and publicity.

QUESTION:  Where did you live when you were growing up in Los Angeles?

FLINN: We lived in Sherman Oaks in the San Fernando Valley. A lot of kids who I grew up with ended up in the business in editing, sound, grip and camera departments, including Richard Rawlings Jr. (ASC) and Tom Del Ruth (ASC).

QUESTION: Did you plan or at least think about working in the industry?

FLINN: I thought I wanted to be actor and I studied that a bit. But, once I got onto sets, I knew I wanted to be part of the camera department. I’d watch the actors rehearsing, and all of a sudden I became aware that somebody was bringing it all to life with light and with movement, and putting it on film. I went to Bill Widmayer’s office. He was head of the camera department at Columbia Pictures. I told him I wanted to get into camera and told him I thought I could learn like everybody else. A few weeks afterwards, I was only around 19; I got a phone call from Carolyn, who used to work for Mr. Widmayer at Columbia. She told me to go to Columbia Ranch and report to Fred Jackman (ASC), who was the cameraman shooting The Wackiest Ship in the Army. It was a TV series. I got to the stage and asked for Fred Jackman. A guy looked up to a crane and said, “Hey Fred, there’s a kid here to see you.” Fred looked down and said, “Lower the arm.” The crane came down. I told him, my name is John Flinn, and that the camera department had sent me, but I didn’t know a thing. He got off the crane, looked and said, “Leroy, this is the first son of a bitch whose told me the truth. Show this kid what to do.” That was my first day on a camera crew.

QUESTION: What did you do?

FLINN: They had an automatic slate but there were a couple cameras, so I marked feet on one of the slates, made sure film was close to the camera and kept the paperwork in order. I remember that Emil Oster (ASC) was the operator. I worked for one day on that show. It was tough, because all the cameramen had their regular crews that worked with them for life. I did a little bit here and a little bit there. I worked for Conrad Hall (ASC) for a few days on a show called Divorce American Style. I could see he was a visionary, who was far ahead of his time. I got days here and there with Bob Surtees (ASC), Harry Stradling (ASC), Bill Fraker (ASC, BSC), Richard Rawlings Sr. (ASC), Monroe Askins (ASC), Chuck Wheeler (ASC), and Richard Kline (ASC). I learned a lot by watching and listening to all of them.

QUESTION: Let’s go back a bit in time. When you were growing up in Sherman Oaks, were you interested in photography or movies?

FLINN: I had an old Keystone 8 mm camera, a three lens turret camera, and a 16 mm Kodak magazine load. I’d go out with my buddies and we’d do stunts including fake fights, and we’d make our own little movies. If I heard something was going on, I’d take the camera, and I’d try to find out where that action was, and I’d get it on film.

QUESTION: You mentioned that you thought about acting?

FLINN: By then, I was already a second assistant, working for the camera departments at Columbia and Paramount. I also got jobs as an extra. One day, I was an extra wearing a police uniform on In Cold Blood. I was watching Conrad Hall (ASC) who was shooting it. It was a good opportunity to watch Connie. All of a sudden this guy walks up to me. He was grubby, needed a shave and he had a pipe in his mouth. He started screaming at me, “What’s that in your pocket?” I didn’t know who this guy was. I was the new kid on the block. I told him that I had a pack of cigarettes. He said, “Cigarettes?” The guy just looked at me, turned around and walked away. I asked, “Who is that guy?” He was Richard Brooks, the director. I thought they would be sending me home but Tommy Shaw, who was the assistant director, told me everything was going to be fine. We were on this huge set. Tommy walked into this big trailer and left me standing there. I looked over at Connie, and he had this what’s happening here look on his face. Anyway, Richard Brooks came back. He took the pistol out of my holster, put it back in and walked away. About five minutes later, Tommy Shaw came back and asked, “Hey kid, have you got a SAG card?” I said, “no.” He told me to get one right away. I got my card and went back and signed a deal for $800 a week. That was huge money in those days. I was on the film for about three weeks. I played a jailer. That was my first acting job.

QUESTION: What happened after that?

FLINN: I just got back from working on a film at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, and I got a call about a show called The Hero at Paramount Sunset Studio, where the KTLA TV station was located. The stars were Richard Mulligan and Mariette Hartley. I was working as a second assistant. One day they told me to, “Go next door and see if you can get some film for us.” Next door was the Get Smart set, and Bobby Wyckoff was the cameraman. I had worked with him briefly on Bewitched. He said to me, “Hey, listen, my second assistant is leaving. How about taking his place on Monday?” I was on that show for two-and-a half to three years. I was also doing stunt work when they needed someone to fall down a flight of stairs. They knew I had my SAG card, so I sometimes played a Chaos agent on Get Smart. I did some dialogue and took some falls. I eventually left Get Smart and went onto Gunsmoke for about seven seasons with Monroe Askins (ASC). He was a great guy, and so is his son, Tony. I came back from lunch one day and the director threw a script down in front of me and said, “Read the lines this character says. You’re doing it.” The next thing I knew I was working as a bad guy on Gunsmoke. I still remember doing a bit role with John Payne, a famous actor who had been around for a long time. I did a couple more parts on Gunsmoke, and I started getting calls to do parts at Disney.

QUESTION:  Did you have an agent?

FLINN: No. It was just word of mouth. I was having fun with it. I was also doing some stunt work. I doubled for John Russell, an actor on Gunsmoke. I did some falls and some fights. After I became an operator, I did a lot of stunt photography for Stunts Unlimited.

QUESTION: What kind of stunt photography?

FLINN: I’d shoot crashes from inside cars with a handheld camera on a character. I went on a show for Disney called Treasure of Matecumbe. I was already working as a camera operator, but I got this job as an actor doing my own stunts. It was fun but I still knew I wanted to be a director of photography one day. I wanted to move up the ranks.

QUESTION: Did it seem daunting possibility at that time?

FLINN: I was one of the youngest guys in the union at the time. I was honored when I got my 30 days. It was a huge thing for me. I went up from second to first assistant on the B camera on Gunsmoke. After a while I got to be first assistant. I also got to be A camera operator on that show. I was really fortunate. I was young, but people believed in me.

QUESTION: Was Gunsmoke an interesting show to work on?

FLINN: We had some of the greatest actors in the business. One example, John Voigt came on the show. I had never seen him before. Everybody was saying that he was going to be a big star, and that he had a big film coming out. It just happened to be Midnight Cowboy. There where many great actors and actresses that became big in show business from that show.

QUESTION: You were a second and first assistant for seven years and a camera operator for about eight years. You must have a storehouse of memories of those times. How about sharing some quick impressions? How about Conrad Hall?

FLINN: I remember working with him on Divorce American Style. I was impressed by how much younger he was than the other cinematographers. In those days the studios were like football teams at different colleges. They each had their own rosters of cameramen. Most of the guys were lifers at those studios. It was like a family. I figured out that if I could become a director of photography by the time I was 50 or 55, maybe I would have 10 years of work ahead of me.

QUESTION: How about Bob Surtees? Any memories to share?

FLINN: He was incredible. I had seven or eight days around Columbia with The Wackiest Ship in the Army and some other films, when I got a phone call from Carolyn at Screen Gems on a Friday night. She asked, “John, would you be able to go to Hawaii on Monday morning? The flight leaves at 7 a.m. I couldn’t believe it. I was going to go on location with Burnie Guffey (ASC) on the first spin-off of From Here to Eternity. It was a pilot for a TV series. I was sharing a house in Los Angeles with a bunch of guys. I told them to lock me in over the weekend. I didn’t want anything to happen because this was the biggest break of my life. I went to Hawaii for eight days and as soon as I got back, I went onto Divorce American Style with Connie (Hall). For the next couple of days, I was mostly watching what he was doing because he only used me as a second assistant when more than one camera was working. After that, I got a call to go to the Alvarez Kelly set. Joe MacDonald (ASC) had gotten sick and Bob Surtees took over. It was a Western with Richard Widmark, William Holden and Broderick Crawford. I remember walking onto a set with these giants, and I saw Bob Surtees. What an incredible man. He kept me on the show. The first assistant told me, “Mr. Surtees wants to make sure you get your 30 days.

QUESTION: How about Harry Stradling Sr.?

FLINN: I met him on a film called Walk, Don’t Run with Cary Grant. Jerry Finnerman (ASC) was the camera operator and he was really nice to me. It was really a good experience. It was only about a week, but I got to watch Harry Sr. and Cary Grant at work. Cary Grant would come back from lunch and do a song and dance all the way across the stage. That guy was really an icon. Later, I worked with Harry Stradling Jr. (ASC) on Cimarron Strip, a Western at CBS Studios. I’d already worked with his dad. It was kind of fun to watch Harry, who at that time was a new cameraman. In fact, I think that was the show that he moved up to director of photography on. He was one of the youngest guys in that role.

QUESTION: How were cinematographers treated on sets in those days?

FLINN: They demanded respect and they received it. Their knowledge and level of professionalism was extremely high. I’m not saying he was above the director. They always worked together, but the cinematographer was in charge of the set.

QUESTION: Can you also tell us about Charlie Wheeler?

FLINN: He was another great man. I worked with him on a few films. Jack Whitman (ASC), a good friend of mine, was his operator a lot. I really enjoyed working with Chuck. He was real critical about composition and what he wanted in the frame. I also loved the way he ran a set Chuck was also on the cutting edge of a new approach to lighting at that time.

QUESTION: You can’t just let it hang there. What was the new approach?

FLINN: Less is more, meaning less light. Chuck understood that the film had more latitude than everybody thought it did in those days. Matt Leonetti (ASC) was also instrumental in defining that new look. He was one of the younger cameramen too. He was far ahead of his time. I was working for him on a show, and I remember asking Matt if he was sure we had enough light? He looked at me and told me “not to worry.” My concern lasted for about 15 minutes.

QUESTION: How about Richard Kline?

FLINN: The first time I worked with Richard Kline was on The Planet of the Apes. He’s another guy who knew what he wanted and he was going to get it no matter what. I remember shooting a scene with him around Redondo Beach (in Los Angeles). He had cameras all around the scene, and he was coming in sideways using little bits of fill light for close-ups. He was always doing little special to enhance the picture, and he always had a smile on his face. I learned something new everyday.

QUESTION: How about Bill Fraker?

FLINN: What a man! I worked for him as an extra operator on Heaven Can Wait. There were times when he had 10 cameras going. I got to work with him again on 1941. He asked me to come in and do the Louma Crane shot. I knew it was probably going to be my last operating job, because I was going to Ireland to shoot my first movie-of-the-week. I remember, it was like four in the morning, and I was up on this crane. All of a sudden Spielberg said he wanted this 1934 Chevy to hit a ramp and go over a street and through a window in a bar. Nothing had been planned, and no one had talked about that shot. The stunt coordinator, Terry Leonard, said, “Flinn, do you want ride with me? You’re going with me. Let’s go.” Billy said, “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Take the kid.” I mean this was a real plate glass window. Billy figured out how to light the place in about a half hour. They found a motorcycle ramp. We rode this old car onto the ramp, over the street and through the window. We got out of the car and fought with the guys in the bar. That was the cut Spielberg wanted. It was my last big stunt. It was fun.

QUESTION: How about sharing a few memories about Richard Rawlings Sr.?

FLINN: I did a lot of shows with Mr. Rawlings. I did some helicopter shots for him in Hawaii for Charlie’s Angels. When I wasn’t on the helicopter I was working second or third camera. I did the cop show, The Blue Knight with Mr. Rawlings on second camera. I also worked with him as an assistant. When I was working on Gunsmoke, Mr. Rawlings was next door shooting The Doris Day Show. It was fun to watch what he did with the diffusion and light, especially with Doris Day who was up in years. She looked beautiful. I would watch how he used sliding diffusion. It was a piece of 3x3 glass. In those days they were still using the old Mitchell cameras and matte boxes. On a long shot, say of her coming down some stairs, he didn’t use any diffusion, because you wouldn’t have seen her face. As she approached the camera, he went from A to B to C diffusion. Everything had to be timed perfectly, the glass diffusion and the lighting was perfect. He did a beautiful job and taught his son well because Richard Jr. is a hell of a cinematographer. I really learned a lot from all these gentlemen.

QUESTION: You were still in your very early 30s when you got your first movie, The Flame Is Love, as a cinematographer in Ireland. How did that happen?

FLINN: I had worked with Ed Friendly, the executive producer, and Michael O’Herlihy, the director, as a camera operator on movies-of-the-week, and on a show called Cry of the Innocent. The cinematographer was Bobby Morrison. We went to Ireland to do that film in 1978. They asked me to go back the next year to shoot The Flame Is Love with Timothy Dalton and Linda Purl. I thought it was a great opportunity. It was a period picture with horses and carriages in Ireland. We had the greatest natural light in the world. It is such a beautiful place to shoot, and I was very fortunate. I took my camera operator Phil Caplan and a gaffer and key grip with me, and we made a good little movie. It was a lot of fun. When I got back I got a phone call from Jack Lord who asked if I was interested in shooting Hawaii Five-O. That was my first cinematography credit in our country.

QUESTION: Do you know why he called you?

FLINN: I had done some second unit for them. Bobby Morrison was the cameraman on that show, and he went on to directing. It was the last season.

QUESTION: It sounds like your career was beginning to shift into high gear?

FLINN: After Hawaii Five-O, I got a phone call from Rattlesnake Productions asking if I was available to shoot a four-hour, Western miniseries called Wild Times. I left the next day to scout locations in New Mexico. I’ve always loved Westerns. I had an opportunity to shoot in the desert and mountains in the snow with horses and sunsets. It was a totally different world.

QUESTION: You also shot a couple of TV movies, Rough Necks and Desperate Voyage the following year, in 1980. After that, you began a string of hit TV series, beginning with Hill Street Blues in 1981. How did that happen?

FLINN: Billy Cronjager (ASC) was the director of photography. I had worked with him in 1965 or ‘66 on a pilot when he was a young operator. He established an original look on the Hill Street Blues pilot and around the first 12 episodes with a lot of low light scenes and aggressive camera movement. When I came onto the show, I think it was still the first season; I cut back on the camera movement a bit, because it was taking me out of the story. I also worked on my own way of lighting. Don’t get me wrong. There was nothing wrong with what Billy was doing. I just had some different ideas. We had great actors, including Veronica Hamel, who could talk with her eyes. All the actors were easy for me to communicate with.

QUESTION: Where do those ideas about how to light a show or actress come from?

FLINN: I can’t speak for anyone else but I try to put myself into the story. I read the script and imagine myself acting and reading the lines, directing and doing all of the jobs. When I’m on the camera, it kind of flows right through the eyepiece, into the lens and onto the film.

QUESTION: Weren’t there great characters on that show?

FLINN: They were all so good. They were great dealing with locations like skid row in L.A. and others week after week. When not on location, we shot at CBS Studio Center. Steven Bochco was terrific. He liked what we were doing and didn’t want to change anything about the look.

QUESTION: I remember Hill Street Blues was a really dark show at a time when that was not commonplace. How did you do that in those days? Weren’t the films available a lot slower?

FLINN: You have to shoot tests and understand what the film can do. Kodak had just come out with a 200 or 250 speed film. I tried rating and shooting it at 800. Kodak thought I was doing something to their film. They sent some guys to the Hill Street Blues set, who asked if they could have the unexposed negative in my camera. I told the second assistant to unload the unexposed film and give it to them. Then, I explained that this is what you can do with their film.

You have got to take chances. I would test lighting a scene and also lighting an area of that same scene differently to see how the film would react. I was learning something new in my dailies from those little tests every day. I had directors say, “You know, I really want it pitch black.” Sometimes, I’d tell them, “You know it’s not a radio show. We have got to see some people. Let me introduce something that might give us a source… a streak here and there, and a little rim light on an actor’s face.” We were lighting for the words and the mood. That show demanded that look. It was all there in the writing. It was one of the best-written shows I’ve worked on.

QUESTION: Then you did another Western movie, I Married Wyatt Earp, and went on to do a couple of consecutive classic series, beginning with Magnum P.I. in Hawaii.  

FLINN: Magnum, P.I. was a real treat. Everything just clicked. The show had been around for a couple of years so they were okay with me trying different diffusions that I used to enhance the show and the look of Hawaii. Tom Selleck was great. He and I grew up in the same neighborhood and played little league and Babe Ruth baseball together. His brothers and my sisters were all good buddies. Tom Selleck was the last guy in the world you would have thought was going to be an actor. The guy was as shy as could be. He was just a quiet guy, but he had every woman in the neighborhood after him. I hadn’t seen him for years, and then I ran into him one day when he was taking acting classes. He did a lot of pilots. He really worked hard at it. I had just finished Paper Dolls. My agent told me they were looking for somebody on Magnum, P.I. I asked her to mention my name. She did and about an hour later, I was told I was leaving the next day. That began about a four-and-a half year run in Hawaii on Magnum, P.I. Tom was great to work with as an actor, and he took over as executive producer during the last couple years. I remember one Friday when everybody had been working hard all week. We had a lunch break and came back. All of a sudden, here comes Tom and his buddies. They were blasting out music, and a couple of his guys had their hands behind their backs. All of a sudden, the music stopped, and they had these water guns. We had a water fight for two-and-a-half hours. People were pouring pails of water of water on each other.

QUESTION: Did you go right from Magnum, P.I. to Jake and the Fatman?

FLINN: I had shipped everything home by boat. About two weeks later, I was on a golf course with my dad in Los Angeles. I ran into Mike Motor, vice president at Viacom, who asked how I liked working in Hawaii. I told him it was the best place in the world. He said “Good, be in my office on Tuesday. You’re leaving Wednesday.” I asked where I was going, and he answered, “Back to Hawaii to do Jake and the Fatman.” I went home and told my wife that we were going back to Hawaii.

QUESTION: It was interesting because it was another P.I. show in Hawaii revolving around a private detective, but you couldn’t have had more opposite characters, could you?

FLINN: It was a very different type of show. Bill Conrad and Joe Penny were both great in their roles. Bill played the Fatman and Joe was Jake. Bill’s face showed his moods. It went with his voice. Their relationship was the key to the story. You saw it in their eyes and their subtle facial expressions that went with the dialogue. The show eventually came back to Los Angeles, where it was mainly filmed at practical locations, including restaurants, bars, offices, homes, alleys and streets.

QUESTION: When did you start directing?

FLINN: Tom Selleck made me a director on Magnum, P.I. I directed two episodes, and four on Jake and the Fatman. I directed about 10 episodes of Babylon 5 and I acted in two.

QUESTION: Did that experience teach you anything about dealing with directors?

FLINN: One thing I learned is that if you’re directing you don’t have to sell your ideas to anybody else. I was selling myself on how I wanted to shoot, and I got what I wanted. I already understood the responsibilities that directors are up against, including budgets and schedules.

QUESTION: Do you think people are born with a talent for being a cinematographer, or is it something that anybody can learn through experience?

FLINN: I don’t know the answer, but I do know that when I was a kid I had to have an 8 mm camera and my 16. Why did I want that little Kodak Brownie? By the way, I still have it. What was it that made me grab that camera when something went down and try to get it on film? When the Watts riots happened in Los Angeles, I got in my car and drove there with a few friends with a loaded 8 mm Keystone camera and my Kodak 16 mm magazine camera. The cops stopped us with drawn guns. They made us get out of the car. The place was literally on fire. They took the magazine out of both cameras, and wouldn’t give them back to me. They also tore my car apart searching for guns before they finally let us go. It’s an instinct. It’s something that I love doing. I love what I do.

QUESTION: We are going to skip over some of the films and TV shows you did after Jake and the Fatman and ask you about Babylon 5. Was that a totally different experience?

FLINN: Babylon 5 was pure science fiction based on a five-year novel that J. Michael Straczynski had worked on for about eight years. It was his show and his story. It is unbelievable what this man created. It was incredible how he saw things purely in his imagination. Where does that come from? We were given 12 hours a day to shoot, and it was “you better get it done.” I could count on both hands the times that we went into overtime, because they couldn’t afford to pay it. Everybody had to be in sync.

QUESTION: This has to be both mentally and physically draining work. What keeps you going?

FLINN: I try to surround myself with positive people who understand that if we let down, we’re going to let other people down. I’m still fighting for that good shot on the last minute that we shoot every day. I’m still looking through the camera for the perfect framing and lighting.

QUESTION: You seem to have really had a good time with Babylon 5, did you?

FLINN: Part of the fun part was that there are no rules in space. Nobody knows what it looks like, so I had an opportunity to experiment and play with colors, reflections and other things.

QUESTION: Did you do anything in Babylon 5 to make it outer worldly, or did you let the audience discover that for themselves?

FLINN: I used diffusion, hot lights and camera movement that felt right. Over the five years, that show took us to many different places. We would talk about what the colors and characters from a new planet would look. Is there a sun and what does it look like? Is it different than our sun?

QUESTION: Then, you came back down to earth with the remake of Hunter.

FLINN: Fred Dryer is a great guy. We had fun. Unfortunately, the show didn’t get picked up.

QUESTION: What have you been working on?

FLINN: I have been working    on Gilmore Girls. It’s really well written and it expresses day-to-day life and a family we can all relate to. The people are great to work with. That’s important to me. It is bright, cheery and a different type of show for me.

QUESTION: Isn’t that a Super 16 film show?

FLINN: Yes, it is. We’re shooting on three stages at Warner Bros. The sets are incredible. They didn’t pull any punches when they built these sets, and they are work friendly. The walls of houses built on the sets are on pulleys. You press a button and all of sudden that wall is 30 feet in the air. It’s very efficient. We don’t spend a lot of time waiting around. We also have exterior sets on the back lot at Warner Bros.

QUESTION: What camera or cameras are you using?

FLINN: We are using ARRI SLRs and lenses from Denny Clairmont. It’s amazing how good it looks. Somebody came into the bay where we were timing a program, and they were just blown away. They didn’t believe it wasn’t 35 mm because of the depth and richness of the colors and look. The sets are rich looking with pictures on walls and huge, beautiful arrangements of flowers. We are lighting to bring out details and colors, and to capture the feelings on the sets. It is all part of the story.

QUESTION: How about film?

FLINN: I’m using (Kodak Vision2 500T) 7218 film and (Kodak Vision2 200T) 7217.

QUESTION: Are there any problems with grain using a 500-speed, Super 16 film?

FLINN: I’m not having any problems with grain. We have a full frame with the Super 16 format. You have to understand to expose the film and when you are pushing it too far. I get DVD dailies from LaserPacific. Jaynee Thorne is the nighttime colorist. I’ll call and tell here exactly what I did and what I want. I’ll tell her I changed stops going from an exterior to an interior scene, and tell her what’s happening and what I’m looking for. I also tell her what I don’t want. She was with me on Hunter, so she also knows how I shoot, including what I like and what I don’t like. There are no question marks. Final timing is done by John Potter. He also knows about my intentions and the situations.

QUESTION: Can we go back to Hill Street Blues for a minute? You mentioned Steven Bochco, who has been incredibly successful. What did you learn from working with him?

FLINN: The biggest problem with television happens when someone in engineering decides a dark scene should be brighter, or they simply push the wrong button. When that happened on Hill Street Blues, Steven Bochco went right to NBC. He saw our dailies and could tell the shots didn’t look half as good on TV. He was right on top of them until they got it right. They finally said, “Please don’t come back, and we’ll make sure everything is perfect from now on.” And it was. He taught me that there are times when you have to be willing to go to the wall.

QUESTION: What’s the outlook for younger crewmembers and students who are hoping to become cinematographers in the near to distant future? With all the hype about new technology doing the work for cinematographers will they be respected as they are today?

FLINN: I think it is important for us to help producers understand that it takes talent and experience to create the right looks and feelings with light, shadows, composition and everything else that cinematographers decide every minute of every day. That part is an art. No one has invented technology that can substitute for talent or experience.

QUESTION: What advice do you have for people at the beginnings of their careers?

FLINN: My advice is that there is no substitute for experience. Learn how to use light and darkness and how to get the right balance. I think there is a value in working your way up as an assistant and operator, and learning how to focus and compose images properly.

QUESTION: You have played the role of both cinematographer and director. From that unique perspective, how do you describe that relationship?

FLINN: As a cinematographer, I want an opportunity to sit down with the director. I listen to what they want to do, and tell them my ideas for the look and why. I encourage them to shoot tests, so I can show them what I want to do. In order to do that, you really need to know the script, the action and the words. We have to be a team for both of us to succeed. Everyone working on a film is like a spoke in a wheel. The writer is hired to tell a story with words. I’m hired to visually put it down on film, working with the director and my crew. There’s no better feeling in the world for me than when the writer, executive producer, director and everyone else is saying, “Oh yeah, we got it. This is what we wanted to do.” That’s when you walk away saying what a great experience. There’s going to be times when everything doesn’t come together. But, you have to do the best you can every time. You can’t give up. You have to ask yourself, how can we make this better.

QUESTION: How has video assist affected the collaborative process?

FLINN: I’ve never been a fan of video assist. Before we had video assist, I could tell by the movement of the camera that the operator was getting what I wanted. That’s why he was chosen for that job. I knew what we were going to see in dailies the next day. There were no doubts. Today, it seems like you have 20 people sitting around in the video village making decisions by committee. That isn’t the same as the director being with the cinematographer behind the camera. Video assist is good for a lot of things. Playback is useful. I don’t deny that. But, the good directors whom I worked with before video assist knew what they wanted, and they got it standing right by the camera because they knew what was happening. The greatest films ever made were created without video assist. But in today’s world, with blue and green screens, and visual effects, I think this is where this tool is the most effective. There are subtleties that you miss when you rely on video assist.

QUESTION: This sounds inane, because you have already accomplished so much. Is there anything you haven’t done? Are there any dreams that you care to share?

FLINN: I’ve had opportunities to do television dramas, comedies, science fiction and Westerns. I love period films, especially the 1920s. I love that era. I have gotten to work with talented directors in television, but it is usually a different person every week. On a series, you are making 22 little movies a year. Before my time is up, I would love an opportunity to do a big movie with the right people who share my passion for that project.

QUESTION: When you are feeling down what keeps you going?

FLINN: Knowing that my peers respect and appreciate my work. I have had seven Emmy nominations, and I appreciated every one of them. I was also nominated in the American Society of Cinematographers competition three times for television shows and movies. That was also a tremendous honor. There is no way in the world for me to describe what it felt like when I won the ASC (Outstanding Achievement) Award (for an episode of Jake and the Fatman in 1993). I couldn’t believe it. It was the biggest thrill of my career, because it came from my peers. In addition, I have had the privilege of breaking in my son John (C. Flinn IV) into camera 12 years ago on Babylon 5. He has gone on to work as the key first assistant on Diagnosis Murder, Six Feet Under, and now Big Love and Deadwood.