Hard working, fast, amiable, and smart are just a few of the adjectives Dana’s colleagues use to describe him. Director of photography on films such as Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1987) and Beasts of War (1988), Dana Christiaansen has been working in the business for eighteen years. A visionary cinematographer and director, Christiaansen is well known for doing car commercials for Nissan, Infinity, BMW, and many others.

Dana came to our Canon Boot Camp to talk to our students about what he does, what he’s learned from his extensive experience, and answered some of our students’ cine questions. He began by showing us “XXIT“, a short film he DP’d that demonstrates the quality of the Canon C300′s performance. Fletch Murray, President of The Association and Chief Instructor of our Canon Boot Camp, interviewed Dana and captured it all on film. We divided the interview into 3 sections so we could release it as it was edited, but we are now putting all three sections together in one blog post.

Enjoy!

In Part 1, Dana gives us a taste of what it was like to work with him on the short film directed by Sam Nicholson, ‘XXIT’, shot with the C300. Basically, you have to be ready to run!

The C300 DPs–Dana Christiaansen Pt. 1 from Fletch/The Association on Vimeo.

In Part 2, Dana puts his techie hat on as we explored the C300 “under the hood.”

The C300 DPs–Dana Christiaansen Pt. 2 from Fletch/The Association on Vimeo.

In Part 3, Dana describes the lighting techniques and custom-built light panels he used to shoot ‘XXIT’, directed by Sam Nicholson.

The C300 DPs–Dana Christiaansen Pt. 3 from Fletch/The Association on Vimeo.

Stay tuned for the Eric Schmidt, DP interview, coming up soon! For more information about our Canon Boot Camp, visit www.canonbootcamp.com or click on any of the upcoming class dates listed along the right of this blog. Generally our Canon camera classes are on the last weekend of the month, except in March (the Boot Camp is traveling to Prague) and there will not be any classes in May.