Interview with cinematographer Eunsoo Cho, winner of the 2025 Angénieux Special Encouragement Award

What led you to cinema?

Eunsoo Cho : Ever since I was a teenager, I liked so much Tim Burton and his very special world. I dreamt of working with him, and I became interested in the profession of director of photography, which seemed to me to be one of the closest collaborators of a talented director like him.
At first I didn’t really know what the job was in terms of exact skills... Like almost everyone I thought that it was mainly operating the camera and framing the film. Little by little I found out more about it, and I learnt what the job really was... I was so fascinated by it !

Did you then have any masters in film photography?

EC : Among the cinematographers I admire most, I have to mention Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC and in particular the work he did with Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, 2005, and Lust, Caution, 2007). His lighting style seems so natural, even though it’s often very elaborate.
And I find that he really puts himself at the service of the story, whether it’s a very colourful, very dark or, on the contrary, very light atmosphere. I feel a lot of intention in his work and I like the way he serves the stories. In terms of films, I’m particularly drawn to naturalistic films. Films that take their time to tell a story... maybe a bit contemplative! I’m sure some people will find them boring, or think there’s not much going on... but I like them. And among the filmmakers I’m thinking of, Yasujiro Ozu, the great Japanese master, or Edward Yang. Terrence Mallick too... as you can see, my tastes really lie in slow narrative!

What does Angénieux mean to you?

EC : It means a lot to me! First of all, it’s a reference in the film industry... Everyone knows about Optimo zooms. In fact, I was extremely surprised to have been chosen for this award! It’s really a great honour for me to receive this distinction, and I still can’t believe it until I’m actually there. But to be quite honest, when I started out I was often afraid of a zoom as a tool on a set. Quite simply because I realised that when I operate with a zoom, I naturally tend to get closer and closer to the faces... even if I’m not asked to! That’s something that doesn’t happen with fixed focal lengths, unless of course you move the camera, which is much less trivial!
Of course, with experience, I’m now beginning to know how to use zooms better, a bit like a set of fixed focal lengths that you change instantly, but with which you lock onto a single value. Especially now as zooms quality is almost comparable to fixed focal lenses.

Another application is documentaries, like the one I’ve just shot on the Jeju divers, where the zoom becomes absolutely necessary because of the lack of space, and to be able to react very quickly and capture what’s happening in front of you. For me, filming with a zoom lens is above all associated with spontaneity. And I can also mention my work on TV series in Korea, where multi-camera shooting has become the norm, which goes without saying that you can’t do without zoom lenses, at least to avoid framing the other camera that is in front of you...

How do you approach lighting on a scene?

EC : It’s the location that primarily determines the way I light. With the possible exception of certain projects shot in the studio, which inevitably have to start from scratch, I always try to use the natural light of a location, either to amplify it or to reduce it. My obsession is not to over-light a shot. You don’t want the light to show itself... And the big advantage of shooting digitally is that you can see exactly what you’re doing. What you see is what you get! So for me, there’s no point in changing anything if the natural light serves the shot! I’m not looking for perfection or application at any price.

Can you give us an example from a film you’ve made?

EC : I remember this night scene in Christopher Makoto Yogi’s film I Was a Simple Man. A dialogue between two characters facing the ocean, shot in Hawaii. In this kind of situation, on a small film like this, you have no way of lighting the sea. no platforms boats, no balloons... you have to make do with what you have. I remember that for this scene, I was a bit worried with only a 5kW HMI and a small LED tube. It was a very dark night, with a very intimate conversation surrounded by darkness . So I opted for side lighting, with this small tube to open up the shadows. Our two characters are facing the darkness, even though you can feel the sea, particularly in the sound recording. That’s the way it is, and that’s also the sense of the scene.

Did you find it difficult as a woman to get this job?

EC : When I was younger, at the start of my career, I admit that I didn’t ask myself that question at all... it’s true, though, that there was a barrier, and that several times I felt that I was missing out on a film simply because I was a woman... but over the last few years I’ve really felt that things have changed. I think it’s even become an advantage, because a lot of productions call me because I’m a woman! For example, on that documentary , ’the last of the sea women’, where giving the camera to a woman was a clear choice from the producers. I’ve also noticed in Korea that in the image crew, and even in the sparks, there are a huge number of young girls... who are going to become tomorrow’s dop in a nearby future. It’s very encouraging! In any case, I’ve always been lucky in that the directors who hired me never made me feel anything on the subject. I made the film because of my references, my sensitivity and my ability to handle the project. Not because I was simply a woman.

What about your return from the United States?

EC : Coming back from the States didn’t really have any influence on the aspect of being a woman in this position. On the other hand, I was definitely seen as more of a foreigner than a native. But that was normal, given my behaviour and certain habits that I had acquired in the United States... And it’s true that when I came back to Korea, there were a lot of things that seemed a bit strange, even odd to me! Certainly, I’d really had very little experience on Korean sets on my return, having spent most of my professional time in the USA. I had to get used to the local customs, which I’ve now done!

A word about artificial intelligence. Asia and the United States are at the forefront of it. How do you see the future of your job?

EC : I remember that when Robert Zemeckis’s film Beowulf (2007) came out, entirely generated in computer-generated images using Motion Capture, people started to say that cinema as we’d known it since its creation was going to disappear, that sooner or later we’d all start shooting against green backgrounds with virtual characters or clones of actors... of course for the moment cinema continues to exist, and we continue to shoot films in a traditional way. Personally, I find it hard to imagine leaving a film set and doing my job in front of a computer, typing in commands to create shots... It would definitely be much more boring and depressing. On the other hand, if I were asked to redo this night scene on the beach with the help of AI, I imagine that we might shoot the actors separately in a simple office, then try to generate this beach set afterwards. And maybe it would actually be up to me to supervise this creation from scratch. But in the end, even if it’s up to me to create this beach shot, it’s still painting with light... I imagine a scene with light, a frame composition... in the end it’s not that far from what I’m doing at the moment. It would just be different tools...

(Interview by François Reumont for the AFC)