ACADEMIC

“I don’t want to teach, I don’t want to educate, but to offer to everyone the opportunity to be themselves. What’s wrong with an error? All you do is making a mistake. A failure is not a damage to anyone…”

Roberto Rossellini”

My passion for teaching cinematography comes from a love for visual storytelling. It allows me to share knowledge with aspiring filmmakers, enhancing their creativity and technical skills. Cinematography is about conveying emotions and narratives through the lens. Instilling this in students is fulfilling as I witness their growth in visual communication. Teaching in this dynamic environment inspires the next generation of cinematographers and contributes to the film arts.

I covered the role of CHAIR of the CINEMATOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT at the NEW YORK FILM ACADEMY from 2018 to 2024. In this position, I supervised the department and served as the lead instructor for an INTENSIVE ONE YEAR program for emerging cinematographers. During Covid, I designed a 4 WK and 15 WK ONLINE INTRODUCTION TO CINEMATOGRAPHY.

The program offers training in film techniques using 16mm, 35mm, and digital formats, focusing on industry-standard equipment like ARRI, SONY, and RED cameras. Key highlights include hands-on production workshops with professional directors, especially during the second semester. Notably, there is an intensive five-day “Alexa Workshop” focused on the Alexa35 camera, Anamorphic lenses, and advanced accessories such as Preston FIZ, Lightranger 2, Teradek systems, and O’Connor support equipment.

ROBBY MÜLLER

Robby Müller, NSC, BVK is a director of photography of extreme influence over my personal development as a cinematographer and his style, vision and artistic approach to the craft of cinematography represents a great example on how cinematography can build a deeper meaning into the images of a movie.

these video essays are the result of a conversation for the people at www.h8urs.com website and have been edited by their staff.

MINIMALISM

Robby Müller minimalistic approach to lighting where less is more.

COLOR AS CHARACTER

Robby Müller and the expressive use of color in his cinematography

LARS VON TRIER AND VIDEO

Robby Müller’s approach to working with video as an expressive tool. The imperfection of the image as an added value.

SCENE STUDY:
PARIS, TEXAS PEEP SHOW

A brief analysis of one of the most famous scene of Robby’s cinema: the peep show sequence in Paris, Texas.

“The biggest fear in teaching cinematography is to make this subject extremely technical and loosing the feeling for it. While a technical component is obvious and necessary, Cinematography is not math, is not a logical approach coming from the brain. True Cinematography is principally instinct, energy, intuition and empathy, emotional participation to the process of storytelling. There is no magic formula to use to know the proper settings of the camera as well as where the focus should be or what you should do to achieve greatness. We can discuss how much as we want of logic in framing, exposure, processing techniques, but after all, where the camera goes and what is in the frame is most of the time the result of an interior process that it’s truly hard to rationalize. For someone is a very intellectual process, for others is guts. For most is an imperfect combination of both.”