Caleb Childers
Cinematographer
Artist, educator, and Malachi Films founder Caleb Childers is a dedicated director, with a penchant for producing horror.
We found out what it’s like being an ambitious filmmaker and spooky storyteller.
How would you describe what you do?
A cinematographer is in charge of the lighting, camera position and composition on a film set. That’s the simple answer. For me, a cinematographer is a craftsman, not an artist. They are trained in the science of light and effectively using a unique spin to lead the audience into feeling or reacting a certain way - it’s what makes a cinematographer a good craftsman. The art of cinematography is also more of a group effort that comes from the project crew as a whole.
What sort of creepy content are you creating?
I just wrapped a shoot for an online Halloween experience called Macabre at Blandwood. That was an interesting shoot which you can experience online, if you so choose.
Recently, I finished up a reality-style paranormal investigative film called Balsam: A Paranormal Investigation. That was a wild ride and I’m sure some viewers will enjoy it.
Unfortunately personal projects are few and far between these days, but I will occasionally shoot stuff for friends. I shot a short doc called As In Death with my friend Mark Kammel. I also shot a short called Sit Down Comedian. If you like dark comedy, that’s premiering at Cucalorus this year.
Aside from that I have a feature doc I’ve been shooting for years now called American Neighbor and another chronicling the life of a small town band, A Brackish Brotherly Tale.
I won’t even tell you about all the reality tv I shoot.
How can we tell a cinematographer from another hipster with a digital camera?
Truth is you can’t tell one from the other until you see their work and or watch them work. It’s all up to interpretation I guess, but at the end of the day, can a hipster with a camera light a scene? That’s how you tell knowledge and intuition from luck. Some of the best cinematographers I know don’t tend to care too much about looking trendy or even standing out.
How did you get into cinematography?
I have been into storytelling ever since I was a little kid. When I was probably around six, my parents got a VHS camera as a gift from my grandparents and over the years I wore that thing out.
I would film everything from ants on the ground to full fledged music videos. I so loved being behind the camera. I moved to California for college in 2007 and pretty rapidly found myself in the industry on the camera side of things.
At that point, I still didn’t understand what I would want to be until the past 7 or 8 years hustling through underground hip hop videos in Brazil, corporate videos in California, and commercial work around the US. It was then that I found myself being hired as a cinematographer. I never really sought to be one I just kept getting hired and recommended as one...so I guess that makes me one? [Laughter].
You know, I think I stuck to it out of sheer luck. I love doing it, so it’s always been a passion of mine, but was a side passion to music when I was younger. It wasn’t until I found myself living in Southern California that I thought it might be worth a shot as a career, so I became one of those kids who took out a loan to buy a camera and I just started going to work for myself.
I continue to do it not only because it’s my family’s income, but because it’s a constant creative challenge for me. The majority of sets I work on are limited either by budget or available gear, so it’s a constant bending of the rules to try to accomplish images I want to capture.
What’s the most iconic film of the last century?
Psycho has got to be it for me. Really any thriller film borrows from Hitchcock at some point. It was such a reach at the time it came out and it is just fantastically shot.
Which is your favorite thriller? Why?
This is extremely hard. The easy answer is Hereditary because it just simply may be the greatest thriller made. I lean more into psychological thrillers like Tarkovsky’s The Mirror or Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder. Though they may not be classified as thrillers, per say, these films still take you on that journey that turns your brain inside out. More classically I’d say Memento, Se7en, Prisoners, and I would literally watch Hitchcock’s Rear Window or Psycho on repeat.
All of these have a common thread and it’s finding a basic human fear and exploiting it. I think a lot of us are constantly in our minds imagining different outcomes of situations and I sincerely enjoy seeing images that can come close to my imagination. We all picture things differently but when an image can make us all understand character feelings then it’s doing what it was created to do.
What makes a shot perfect?
Kind of what I mentioned before: a perfect shot is more than composition and lighting, it’s about how it makes the audience feel. There are plenty of tricks with lighting and composition to help push the audience in certain directions, but in the end, the perfect shot moves well beyond what’s on the screen into what emotion it can illicit in the viewer.
Best film festival on the East Coast?
This is tough. It ultimately comes down to the experience- the types of films you like and the parties [laughter]. Tribeca is definitely up there. Indie Grits is dope and right here in North Carolina. Cucalorus and Riverrun are a lot of fun to go to.
What was the spookiest thing that happened to you while making a scary movie?
Honestly it was on this last paranormal shoot I did. I was alone with the talent in the basement walking around after listening to an EVP for god knows how long. As we walked out, something pulled my camera back and smacked the mounted camera light, spinning it to the left. It was the first time I was genuinely scared on set. We then proceeded to hear what sounded as if someone was opening and closing a door above us, which we assumed was the rest of our crew. As you probably suspect, there was no one in the room above us…Thankfully, I’ve never had to work with Weinstein.