Rising Stars: Meet Tarin Anderson of Silver Lake, Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tarin Anderson.

Tarin, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I fell in love with still photography in high school. Any free time I had, I would be drawn to the photography classroom to process and print. In college, I couldn’t quite shake the bug and declared a film major. I knew at that point that I wanted to be a cinematographer. I didn’t know anyone in the film industry but I knew that there were at least a few women who had blazed the trail and that it was possible. After graduation, I immediately moved to Los Angeles after having responded to an ad in the back of the Backstage magazine looking for a camera assistant to work for free on a project. I drove down from my hometown Seattle and stayed in the Santa Monica Youth Hostel for $20 a night (this was the late 90’s) while working on my first feature film. My plan had been to go to LA to see what it was like and after the feature I’d head back to Seattle, but I loved LA and the people I worked with. I decided to stay and have now been here for 26 years. I worked as a camera assistant and then as an electrician. I attended the American Film Institute to earn my MFA in Cinematography and have been shooting features, commercials, music videos and TV ever since. In the last few years, I have been primarily working as a cinematographer in TV.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Certainly, in the last few years, the film industry as a whole has seen a lot of struggle. So many of us worked for over 20 years (or more) with little interruption in our freelance work. First, the covid shutdown brought our work to a halt for a few months. Then it was the 2023 writer’s strike and now we are seeing a scarcity of work most of us have not experienced before. Myself and my family have learned to live lean. When we do work, we save for when we might not be working. When I first moved to LA, I kept a journal and would record every penny I spent because I was on such a tight budget and those habits have come in handy once again.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am currently working as a cinematographer in TV. My last two shows were NCIS: TONY & ZIVA and THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY. I’ve worked in a wide variety of TV series including ½ hour and 1 shows, comedy, sci-fi and young adult. I’m really proud of so many of the shows I have worked on but there is nothing better than when you get feedback from someone who watched the show and resonated with it. I really enjoy visual storytelling and collaborating with other artists, like the director and the production designer, during the filmmaking process.

What are your plans for the future?
I am starting a new project for Peacock that I am very excited about. We are shooting most of the project in LA but we will also be shooting in Italy, where we have already gone briefly to look at locations. I am lucky to travel to many places in my line of work. In the last few years, I have worked in Hungary, North Carolina, Georgia and New Mexico and I am definitely looking forward to many more locations. I am always looking for an opportunity to try out new things on every shoot that I do, whether it’s using new gear or a new visual approach. I enjoy the new challenges and project solving that each project brings.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tarinanderson.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tarinanderson/

Image Credits
Images are from the TV show The Summer I Turned Pretty, Side Quest & NCIS: Tony & Ziva