Jack Green, ASC, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Surtees and Joe Dieves Few professionals have had the extraordinary opportunity to work under two mentors who guided and shaped their future. Director of photography Jack Green has had good fortune in that regard.
The son of a barber, Green was schooled and employed in the family business long before dreams of a profession behind the lens entered his mind. His father dabbled in photography, however, and maintained his own darkroom. He introduced young Jack to the enticement of images at a fairly early age. "Once I was old enough," recalls Green, "my father would allow me into his darkroom to watch. He built a little contact printer for me out of wood, a lightbulb and opalized glass, and I'd make my own contact prints and do my own developing. I did this many times over the years, and as a result I have this wonderful affinity for the smell of chemicals and darkroom equipment."
Green's fascination with photography wasn't strong enough to keep him from taking a job cutting hair, until a repeat customer spurred his interest in moving images. "This was in the days when people came in for haircut every two weeks or so," explains Green. "Through repeat business, I got to know a cameraman named Joe Dieves. He stopped in regularly and we would just talk images the whole time — he was just wonderful to me. At first I was just interested in what he did for a living because it involved photography, but the more we talked the more intrigued I became. After about six or eight months of cutting his hair I worked up the nerve to ask him if I could go watch him work.
"He went one better — he got a job and asked me to come along as his assistant. The job had all of the elements that were inspiring to me — taking pictures, and the excitement of working in the movie business. After spending time standing around cutting hair, getting out to do something like that was pretty darn thrilling. I got some more jobs with Joe after that, and it was only a matter of time before I stopped being a barber.
"Joe was such a generous person. He would bring home equipment the night before a shoot, and I would go over to his family's house with my wife. They would feed us and we'd have a laughing time. After dinner he'd have the equipment spread all over his living room floor and we would put it together. I had such a good time, I really got hooked on film. And he continued to cover my act — watching over me and seeing to it that I was always finding work, and that I was put with people who weren't afraid to instruct."
Green pursued work as an assistant on industrials, documentaries and commercials before landing a job with Wescam in Los Angeles working on the aerial unit for Tora! Tora! Tora!. Spending more time in the air, Green toiled for a while with Tyler Systems before accepting more assisting jobs with such ASC cameramen as Donald Morgan, Michael Watkins and Rexford Metz. The latter invited Green to work as B-camera operator on The Gauntlet, a film directed by Clint Eastwood. Further work with Metz led Green to the A-camera operating slot on Every Which Way But Loose, also starring Eastwood. Green's next foray with Eastwood, on Bronco Billy, would serve to form the foundation of an almost symbiotic relationship between the two filmmakers. Green continued working as an operator on most of Eastwood's films, and eventually teamed up with director of photography Bruce Surtees on Firefox. A Los Angeles native and son of the late cinematographer Robert Surtees, ASC (Ben Hur, Mutiny on the Bounty), the younger Surtees earned his own place in history with an Academy Award nomination for Bob Fosse's Lenny in 1974. Surtees also worked with directors Gordon Parks (Lead-belly) and Arthur Parks (Night Moves) before teaming up again with Eastwood on Firefox. Previously, the duo had collaborated on eight films, including Dirty Harry, Play Misty for Me (Eastwood's directorial debut) and The Outlaw Josey Wales. Surtees's extremely low-key style earned him the nickname "Prince of Darkness."
"To be perfectly honest," Green confides, "at the time we did Firefox, Bruce just didn't like me. Clint and I had established a relationship that sort of infringed upon the traditional hierarchy of the set. But Bruce and I did four pictures with Clint, and by the end of the last one we were really good friends. Clint, Bruce and I would discuss each setup and then distill all of our ideas into the scene. When Bruce was hired to shoot Beverly Hills Cop, he invited me to be his operator and we commuted to work together every day.
"Bruce and I spent quite a bit of time together after that, and I went with him once to his mother's house in Carmel. In one room of their home there was a display case with his father's three Oscars, and plaques for more than a dozen nominations. I stared at them in awe. I was face to face with Bob Surtees's Oscar for Ben Hur. Mrs. Surtees said, "Go ahead, pick it up! It's wonderful, isn't it? Maybe you'll win one for yourself someday.' My feet didn't touch the ground for days."
Two years before Green worked with Surtees on Beverly Hills Cop, Eastwood had approached him with the prospect of stepping into the role of cinematographer on his film Honkytonk Man. Green politely declined, worrying that the promotion might damage his relationship with Surtees. But after their collaboration on Beverly Hills Cop, Green approached Surtees with the notion. "I told Bruce, 'You know, one of these days Clint is going to ask me to move up again, and I don't want it to affect our friendship.' He replied, 'Jack, don't let it bother you. I moved up over somebody, you're going to move up over me someday, and someday somebody else will move up over you. That's life in this business. It would be a wonderful thing if it could happen for you.' That's what good friendship is all about, and that's how things get passed on in this industry.
"Now, Bruce is part of me every time I light a set," Green continues. "I loved the minimal amount of lighting he used. One thing I learned from Bruce was to leave a small footprint on the work. I like to keep my work as natural as possible while still making it dramatic. Some of Bruce's films, like Beverly Hills Cop, have full, rich lighting, but on other projects he's gone completely the other way, to the point where he's actually extracting light. He often uses more of a Rembrandt style, whereby a scene might have a single source and very little else. He usually works at a very low key and I think his photography is just brilliant.
"After Bruce did that for me, I felt I should do something to pay back Joe Dieves. I said to Joe, 'I owe you so much. What can I do to pay you back?' And he answered, 'The best thing you can do for me is to pass along what I taught you. You'll pay me back.'
"Since then, I've almost felt like it was an indictment to pass on [that knowledge] whenever I can. Bruce and Joe were instrumental in forming my attitude about giving something back to the industry, and never holding back or coveting my information. Teaching has its own rewards: not only am I able to pay my teachers back, but I am also able to get so much out of it myself."
— Jay Holben
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