Today we’d like to introduce you to Thomas Hubbel
Hi Thomas, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Thomas and I’m a Director of Photography.
I was born and raised in Rochester, a small city in upstate New York. Sprawling suburbia with incredible orange falls and cold dark winters, Rochester was once a booming city built by Kodak, with the 80s and 90s being the golden years for the “Flower City”.
In 2012, when I was finishing high school, Kodak filed for bankruptcy and eventually shrank down to the version we see of them today. My father has worked there 30+ years, survived the bankruptcy and is currently still there nearing a well earned retirement.
“A Kodak Moment” was their brand ethos and essentially Rochesters claim to fame the first decade of my life, so photography and cameras were around me from as far back as I can remember. Endless 35mm and 4×5 prints. It was my dad eventually bringing home miniDV cameras for myself and my siblings to play with that I believe sparked the lifelong journey that has become my career as a cinematographer.
More importantly than the seemingly obvious privileges a cinematographer may have growing up with Kodak as their backdrop, I think the larger component sparking my interest in storytelling was growing up in a large family. I have 6 sisters and 2 brothers, and quite honestly had an eclectic upbringing, to describe it simply.
Interacting with so many personalities from the moment I was born offered many advantages. I think my observational skills, interpersonal skills and empathetic nature now in adulthood all stem from having many siblings. It also humbles you quick! You are never number one, and always have to work together.
I was a middle child and quite introverted, so I often found myself living in my head and observing those around me to an incredulous degree. Do they feel the same feelings I do? What makes them tick? What is their motivation? How did they conclude their beliefs? A professional daydreamer, I’d endlessly romanticize other peoples’ experiences that were basically anything outside of my own. My imagination was my home.
Like many folks my age, I was mainly introduced to film via blockbusters as a kid in my toddler years. The original Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings – fantasy films and sci fi certainly were present from my earliest memories. Spielberg and James Cameron films such as Jaws, E.T., and Titanic were hugely inspirational for me as a kid, where my eyes were opened to the idea that “filmmaking” was an actual art and process, and that there was something more going on than what we could just see on screen…
I obsessed over any and all behind-the-scenes featurettes and materials I could find at the time, renting local box sets and collectors editions from my local library over and over to just see tiny peaks of what the filmmaking process was like. As I entered high school, my film viewing habits exploded into obsessive, as I garnered access to the internet (much to my parents’ dismay) and began watching Scorsese movies, Tarantino, Malik, Fincher, the Coens, Lynch, Nolan -anything that was largely popular or respected in the 80s-2000s eras of film. It wasn’t until my college years that I discovered Tarkovsky and Godard, two of the most inspirational filmmakers of my young adult years.
Mid high school, upon finding Richard Linklater’s work, and then Derek Cianfrance and Kaufman/Gondry, my heart was set on fire in awe and inspiration. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind was an instant favorite, and may still be #1. It’s such a timeless story with timeless themes. Cinematography wise, it was photographed in such raw indie flavor. Beyond watching movies endlessly, I began utilizing YouTube to make and share “films” I’d make utilizing my family, friends, or stop-motion. Needless to say, I knew my path was filmmaking from a very young age.
I went to film school at the Rochester Institute of Technology, which is where my skills as a craftsman finally began to develop. The school encouraged learning and shooting on 16mm over digital, providing Bolexes to freshman, and Arri SR3s to upperclassmen. I’ll always appreciate that, considering I went to school during the explosive RED era of 2010s. We had 16mm, some sonys, and an early prototype Arri Alexa.
After shooting maybe a dozen short films in college and a handful of documentaries, one of my thesis projects gained some traction at festivals in the LGBTQ+ community, where I often found myself at home and safe in creative collaboration. Rochester has quite drastic, stark contrasts of characters and a peculiar culture. It has a thriving albeit super small art scene, especially for music and comedy. It has a growing gay community, many progressives, many alternative artistic types, but is simultaneously swallowed up and surrounded by conservative leaning folks and rhetoric. Growing up there all I wanted to do was leave and live in Los Angeles or New York; Rochester always felt too small. During summer breaks in college, I’d live in NYC, getting my foot in the door on set camera assisting on indie features and working rental houses in lower manhattan.
After graduating and spending time in New York City, I felt the need to explore LA, and moved here in the spring of 2017. I had gone through a breakup and wanted to become a different person, and explore the city that constantly rang through my childhood as home to all filmmakers.
I hitched a ride with other friends driving cross country, moving here in a packed 2001 dodge caravan loaded with all my belongings and probably $1000 to my name. The recklessness of a career in entertainment was born!
For the first 3-4 years of living in Los Angeles, I lucked out and got on set substantially, relatively soon upon arrival, after working my first summer here on endless pro bono Craigslist gigs and small shoots. I loved being a camera assistant and pulling focus for other Cinematographers, it was always a challenge and art in and of itself. More importantly, I learned lifetimes of knowledge from the DPs I assisted, hammering into me the craft and technical execution of cinematography; the formulas to lighting and set building; working intimately with directors, actors, and blocking; negotiating with real clients and managing crew personnel.
Camera assisting on indie features and music videos, I fell into working for many AFI cinematographers in similar age/class groups as myself. I worked pulling focus on music videos featuring Logic, Weezer, Ke$ha, Schoolboy Q and many (many!) more artists, especially up and coming musicians. I then moved to larger commercials for brands we all know such as Geico, AT&T, Spotify, Verizon, Adidas, Puma, Volkswagen – as well as Netflix/TV shows and documentaries such as “Love, Antosha”; a Doc Feature that premiered at Sundance in 2019.
While camera assisting, I was “weekend” DPing, i.e. living off an assistants income but funding my own projects with directors and friends, staying creative and practicing my craft. During this time, 2016-2020 pre-pandemic, I was quite literally working nonstop everyday between my work on set pulling focus, and my relentlessness to break into more narrative DP work. I shot short film after short, passion project after passion project, with any resource I could find. Self funding and creating work with my close director friends just to have work under my name. I was quite literally living on set 24/7.
The pandemic allowed me to slow down, and move away from camera assisting and into being a Director of Photography full time, as the industry boomed in 2021-22. After shooting for artists such as Avril Lavigne and Kilo Kish, I joined Netlfix’s “Love, Death and Robots” team to DP the motion capture performances seen animated in the season 3 finale, “Jibaro” ; directed by Alberto Mielgo. The name recognition and success of the episode has led to many more opportunities for me, so I’m endlessly grateful to Alberto and the team that brought me onboard. Jibaro was full of incredibly human performances and choreography, effortlessly woven together under his visionary leadership.
At the end of 2022, I directed photography on my first feature film, drama romantic comedy, “Something Casual”. Starring Piper Curda (May December) and Nico Greetham (American Horror Story), the film has yet to release, but just finished post and I’m incredibly proud of the film and experience of making it. Writer/Director and now one of my best friends Brandon Buczek offered me an incredibly satisfying creative experience, one where I felt free to practice my craft and voice, explore, and in a rare space where I felt deeply connected to the source material. Our minds merged into one and I think we told a beautiful story; one of modern relationships, tragedy, comic realism and love fully spent.
My third feature film, shot in 2024 just released, “Last ExMas” is an indie take on Christmas films that follows the struggle of two lesbians coming to terms with their feelings for each other. I love romance, love comedy, and making this film was a wonderful return to my LGBTQ+ roots in storytelling. We wanted to tell a relatively classic story, albeit with real, grounded gay women navigating the social dynamics of coming out in high school and coming to terms with their chosen paths in adulthood. They discover in the film that perhaps we shouldn’t always search outward for society’s or others’ approval, but rather inward and appreciate/tend to our immediate familial and romantic relationships that are already right in front of us. Choose those who choose us.
Now, since my last feature, I’ve shot a couple of web series, as well as began shooting more commercials, which has come at a much needed time as I close in on 10 years of indie filmmaking and my finances reflect it. Every sacrifice you can make I feel like I’ve made, as well as every mistake and every underestimation of this industry I’m certain I’ve made.
For me, the pay off and rewards have been worth the journey and lows, where I find myself rich and wealthy in memories, friendships and storytelling experiences. I feel privileged and as if I’ve lived a 1000 extra lives, living vicariously through my directors and their ideas, the characters on screen and the stories we explore with them together. I’ve melded minds with so many creatives along my journey that I wouldn’t change anything and am so eternally grateful.
One of my favorite aspects of Los Angeles is it’s melting pot nature, especially for creatives. A true American city. While all of New York as a state will be a home for me, I always felt that the “cool” people went to NY, and the “weird” people went to LA. I’m very weird and not cool at all. LA accepts me in that fashion, and its hard to imagine living in a city that isn’t overflowing with dreamers, creatives, weirdos and talent on every corner. I’m very happy to have built the life I have here, and love my artist friends that are now family!
I hope that in my career I manage to simply move someone, capture a feeling, articulate something otherwise indescribable… ring feelings to viewers that lie in their stomachs far after viewing. Powerful movies have changed me and opened my eyes to others’ worldviews and experiences, tenderly offering solace and camaraderie on matters of the heart and human condition I couldn’t imagine living without.
If any moving image captured by me resonates in this way, for even one viewer in my lifetime, the herculean efforts all become worth it.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I have received my fair share of lucky opportunities here and there, but realistically when analyzing my career brush strokes, I think I’ve objectively always taken the long, laborious route. I was not a wealthy hotshot cinematographer shooting Beyonce or Drake at age 21. I didn’t go to the top #1 film school, and I couldn’t endlessly fund passion projects via generational wealth. I’m from a low income middle class family with absolutely no connections or fall back. This sounds humble but really equates to losing opportunity after opportunity, constant rejection from project spearheads more focused on their own status gains over the creative’s needs. To succeed as an unknown DP, those hiring you need to believe you will bring them something much larger than the images on screen.
Politics aside, the “wealth” gap of opportunity definitely rises to the top here in Los Angeles and in entertainment. Young filmmakers with nothing to say getting fully funded, using hard working blue collar filmmakers to realize their visions, only to dump them and move upward once more funding comes in. I compete with DPs that simply have nothing to lose; their parents are ASC, their uncle owns WME, and they have never paid or funded anything themselves, just riding high on privilege they claim unable to see. Filmmakers with more photos of themselves holding expensive gear than actual work to showcase.
Unfortunately, I see artists with the most thoughtful and deepest of life experiences are often pushed to the bottom, which is why we see it as such a miracle when they succeed. What sounds romantic on paper, is actually years of turmoil, despair, tears and strategic grind.
I crewed for years and climbed the ladder the old fashioned way. Spent every dollar I had on film, projects, and rent. I went completely broke at 27, barely making it to the other side of bankruptcy, before finally returning to work. At no point did I receive an opportunity that came out of the blue; it was always after hard work, practiced loyalty, patience and focused strategy on my end. I never will see any time of financial gains or wealth. My “vacations” are being able to shoot projects I adore.
Those already inside the industry occasionally reach out to use folks like me to as tools for their own means, and while us outsiders have to view those opportunities as moments to shine, as I age I see unfortunately how unbalanced the opportunity trees really are.
Folks with no real life experience shouldn’t be directing others who have lived full lives and are dripping with experiences, thoughtfulness, pain and an actually empathetic eye. For some of us this ground is sacred. I truly believe suffering and desperation open new doors inside our heads mentally as creatives, forging paths for deeper empathy and sensitivity to others. I struggle a lot relating to directors and creatives who haven’t had harsher life experiences coming up, simply because I know how much of a privilege filmmaking can be. If we don’t pull from something real, where is it coming from?
The politics of agencies, directors looking for clout, and instagram filmmakers force me to shed a tear daily. What should be a respected, delicate art and craft is in danger of ill-intentioned industry folks with fists fulls of cash turning it into an AI algorithm chasing nightmare full of empty stories and thumb stopping visuals.
On top of the upside down incentives and truly American, capitalist direction films are always taking here, I would say maintaining personal health – both physical and mental – has been the biggest struggle for my career and path as a Cinematographer.
I have a chronic auto immune disease that can physically bring me to bed ridden if not managed well. I take strong medication that shuts off my immune system, so even when I’m doing well, I’m likely getting sick easy or falling ill to the smallest of diseases. I was diagnosed in college and it truly was a devastating blow, where I became deeply afraid I’d never set a foot on set in this industry, much less move across country to pursue it. As much of a physical toll I paid, the mental tolls and fear of being unwell are 10x worse that the actual illness. I have to be strict with diet, sleep, emotional well being and on top of my medication to manage my chronic health issues. This comes with many sacrifices.
On top of physical issues and managing that on set, I’ve always struggled with a deep depression and OCD coping mechanisms, leading to many episodes of despair. As a cinematographer you have to been deeply resilient, open and able to handle rejection 24/7, even in prospering times. I handle rejection extremely well, however I do find myself deeply hurt when manipulated or used by others for their own gains. As profound and sensitive and beautiful that we see some filmmakers be, others are the exact opposite; soaking in every dollar and ounce of talent for their own profit, only move on to the next person the second they can. One must be weary (and in therapy) to deal!
The last real struggle, my lifelong challenge, is learning to accept not being able to have a normal life, relationships or family. Many times I’ve tried to make dating work, but the relationships flounder due to my work schedule, low income, constant traveling and the space that film takes up from my emotional state. I think having kids would be an incredible experience for me, but has become a completely unrealistic and unaffordable dream. A couple of times I’ve tried to actually pursue other potential career paths just because of this, nearly begging for an escape, only to find a truly unrecognizable darkness and version of me arise in lieu of not following my passion. This can be tormenting at times.
While the ideas of major success – having a family, stability, recognition, awards, owning a house – used to fuel me at a younger age, the reality of our economy and my chosen career path has certainly set in now after 10 years of DPing. My story arc has and always will be one of accepting my place in the industry: a small corner home to only other indie artists, also struggling to pay rent, pouring our hearts out to one another on screen and through filmmaking.
Letting go of control, autonomy and desires to be seen. We do it because we love it. We feel things deeply and won’t survive without expression or exploration. It is a spiritual endeavor for us. The process is holy, and the stories we tell become who we are. Empathy is our only tool, our only reward.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m a Cinematographer (or Director of Photography).
I specialize in narrative filmmaking, feature films, TV, series, music videos and commercials.
Some notable credits include
>TV: Love, Death and Robots S3 Finale: Jibaro
>Features: Something Casual, Last ExMas
>Music Videos: Avril Lavigne, Kilo Kish, Jozzy
My style morphs with each director’s vision, but I’d say it leans toward an objective POV, naturalism, and introspection. Above all I’d say my life experiences have led me to acknowledging and utilizing empathy as a tool and a coping mechanism, with every decision and turn I take being grounded in others’ feelings and experiences.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
Be open and pursue those who inspire you, and don’t take advice from people that you wouldn’t trade places with.
I have had mostly bad luck finding reliable mentors in this industry, but conversely extremely good luck with general networking and peer-to-peer connection. I profoundly believe in the Law Of Attraction, and even though it can be an almost mockingly ironic path to take sometimes, radiating positivity will absolutely bring you tangible results.
The greatest relationships I’ve made have been creative ones, so I will simply say support your friends when they need it, and don’t be afraid to ask them for help when you need it.
Learn to navigate genuine creatives with integrity and voice. Develop your own taste. Wear your heart on your sleeve.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thomashubbel.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thomas.hubbel/
