Nick Tierce has his sights set on a very particular visual language for his own films, with a clear affinity for the visual visionaries of film.
Tierce is working on his first short format film, Grief Splatterd Canvas (http://kck.st/hQu5KE), a film noir thriller that owes a great deal to the Directors of Photography who left their marks on our collective imaginations.
5 (Cinematographers to aspire to)
1. Roland Totheroh -- The Kid (1921)
Rollie's work on Chaplin's best films were my first exposure to the idea that visual storytelling could attain some measure of timelessness, as his images live on just as potently almost a hundred years after they were shot.
2. John Seitz -- Double Indemnity (1944)
Seitz's work with Billy Wilder defined Noir for me, a stylized genre universe I've found tremoundously appealing and evocative of some of the best stories ever told on screen.
3. Robert Burks -- North by Northwest (1959)
It's becoming obvious that my favorite cinematographers are those with a prolonged and fruitful relationship with a visionary filmmaker, as Burks and Hitchcock so colorfully illustrate.
Not wanting to ignore working cinematographers, Bill Pope personifies a modern grasp of composition while preserving a classic cinematic sensibility, achieving mythic status in my eyes through his extraordinary work with the Wachowski Brothers.
5. Wally Pfister -- The Dark Knight (2008)
Another modern great, recent Academy award winner Wally Pfister's relationship with Writer/Director Christopher Nolan is perhaps the perfect respresentation of form following function, his arresting visual sense complimenting perfectly Nolan's textual content.
To support Grief Splatterd Canvas, visit the film's Kickstarter project: http://kck.st/hQu5KE . For more from Nick, follow him on twitter: http://twitter.com/nickytea
Photo of Nick by Gabriel Hernandez