- Around Town
- Around Town - New Hope Receives FIDELIS Charitable Foundation Gift
- Our Pick - theWforum
- Around Town - September-October 2011
- Ask The Experts
- Ask The Expert: Iris Lurie
- Ask The Expert - Rockwell Dentistry
- Cynthia Salter-Lewis, MD, ReNew Med-Spa and Cosmetic Laser Center
- Bay Wellness
- Bay Wellness - Physician Focus: Steven R. Berkman
- Bay Wellness - Genital Warts
- Bay Wellness - Making Weight Loss a Family Affair
- Buyers Guide 2011-2012
- Buyers Guide 2011-12 - Falco’s Catering
- Buyers Guide 2011-12 - Central Jersey Security Cameras
- Buyers Guide 2011-12 - Caring Heart Coronary Imaging
- Cover Story
- Kim Guadagno - New Jersey's First Lieutenant Governor
- George Joynson: History Detective
- Model Citizen
- Daytripper
- Day Tripper - Delaware Water Gap
- DayTripper: NJ Vietnam Veteran's Memorial
- Daytripper: Museum of Modern Art
- Fall Guide
- Fall Guide - Pumpkins, Hayrides, & Orchards
- Fall Guide - Art of Wine
- Fall Guide - Performing Theatre
- Featured Artist
- Featured Artist - Franco Minervini
- Featured Artist - José Serrano
- Featured Artist - Tim Dorland: A Glass Act
- Gift Guide
- Gift Guide - Shelter Home
- Gift Guide - Baymar Farms
- Holiday Gift Guide - Eagle Oaks Golf & Country Club
- Health, Wellness & Beauty
- Health - The Lombardi Plastic Surgery Center
- Health - Studio 455 Hair Salon
- Health - Bonavita Laser Centers
- Homes
- Following the Natural Progression - The Edelman Family
- A Seductive Re-Imaging - The Keeleys
- Contemporary Style - Living Outside The Box
- Our Picks
- Our Pick - Decorating Den Interiors
- Our Pick - Harbor Lights Financial Group®
- Our Pick: Jaeger Lumber Kitchens
- People On The Move
- People On The Move - Dennis Dayan
- People On The Move: Tony Abbatiello
- People On The Move - Seth Tropper
- The Bay
- The Bay - Could I Have Diabetes and Not Even Know it?
- The Bay - National Stroke Awareness Month
- The Bay - One Stop Women’s Health
Hunter Baker
08/23/2010 - By Teja Anderson
Photo: McKay Imaging (mckayimaging.com)
The Jersey Shore’s Reel Deal
Hunter Baker has just returned from a grueling month of filming at an orphanage just outside of Haridwar, India for the documentary film “Lifting Dreams." It has been a profound and life changing experience for this 20 year old NewYork University film student. You can see it in his eyes as he talks about the children he met there and the things that he experienced. His parents Patty and David are glad to have him safely home but they realize how important this trip has been for him and they gladly encourage and support all three of their sons; Taylor (17) a photographer and Harrison (15) an actor to travel and gain life experiences.
Last year’s blockbuster academy award-winning movie “Slumdog Millionaire” brought the deplorableliving conditions and the brutal reality of the poverty-ridden lower caste system in India to light for Western audiences. But where “Slumdog Millionaire” is an imaginary story about a teenaged boy who uses his life experiences in the streets and slums of India to gain fame, success and the girl he loves, Hunter’s film “Lifting Dreams” is a documentary. Directed by Barbara Malmet, “Lifting Dreams” follows 68 children living as a family in the Sri Ram Orphanage in Northern India and reveals how these children are able to help one another overcome their circumstances through education, activities and hard work while honoring their culture and becoming contributing members of Indian society. It was Hunter’s job as Cinematographer to visually capture their uplifting story of hope and show how the oldest generation of children now in college and the work place are able to pass on the knowledge, inspiration and the encouragement instilled in them back to their brothers and sisters at the orphanage.
Although this is Hunter’s first full-length feature film as Director of Photography and Cinematographerhe is no stranger to the world of film and television having already worked on numerous commercials, music videos, television series and student films. This observant and insightful budding young filmmaker is poised on the brink of recognition and Living-In Media was lucky enough to sit down with this talented young man at his family home in Monmouth Beach to learn more about the film and the creative mind behind the camera lens.
LIJS: Have you always lived in this beautiful Stanford White house?
HB: No, originally I lived in a different part of the town but then in the flood of '92 my house was destroyed and I moved here, which was great because I really love this house.
LIJS: You went to the public schools here?
HB: Yes, I went to Monmouth Beach Elementary and then to Shore Regional High School. From there I went to Hunter College in Manhattan and then I transferred to Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.
LIJS: At Shore you were on the wrestling team; any other sports?
HB: Yes, sports have always been a big part of my life and Idi d other sports. Cross country, soccer,jujitsu...my wrestling coach at Shore, Zach Miers, had a big impact on me. He taught me that whatever you want to accomplish in life - what you are passionate about - you can do but you have
to work hard at it; set your goals and commit to them by putting in the effort.
LIJS: When did you decide that you wanted to be a filmmaker?
HB: I never officially decided that I wanted to be a filmmaker; I still don’t think of myself that way. I started out going into the city with a bunch of friends to skateboard. I would film them skateboarding there because visually it was more interesting than anywhere around here. There was just a much different feel emotionally to the backgrounds of what I would shoot. Hopefully my stuff is appealing to other people. Directing and cinematography are both passions of mine; I’ve always liked movies that have great cinematography and good direction.
LIJS: Did you always know inherently what great cinematography was or did that come after taking classes and studying film?
HB: No, I always knew. I always had this feeling. I would watch a movie and be able to tell right off the bat if it looked beautiful or not. Some of my favorite cinematographers are Conrad Hall (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, American Beauty), Roger Deakins (The Shawshank Redemption, No Country for Old Men) Gordon Willis (The Godfather series,Annie Hall), Vittorio Storaro (The Last Emperor, Apocalypse Now) and Robert Richardson (JFK, Inglorious Basterds).
LIJS: These names just roll off your tongue but they aren’t as well known as, say, Hitchcock…
HB: Well, Hitchcock is a director not a cinematographer (laughs). Ido like Hitchcock, though. But as faras directors, my real idols are the 80s and 90s music video directors like Mark Romanek (Grammy winner for Michael and Janet Jackson’s Scream) Dean Karr (Out of my Mind by Duran Duran) and Spike Jonze (Feel the Pain by Dinosaur Jr.). All those guys made the coolest stuff and just had such amazing styles.
LIJS: What is it about these cinematographers and directors that appeals to you?
HB: Doing a movie is all about storytelling. So if you are going to tell a great story you need to have great images to go along with it. But, the images and the story have to compliment each other. Without a great story you have nothing. But when you put great images to the story you have a great movie.
LIJS: Have you made a great movie yet?
HB: When I was at Hunter College and I wanted to transfer to NYU I needed an entry piece to go along with my portfolio and it had to be solid. So, I went to something I was comfortable with, something that had to do with sports, something Iw as passionate about. From a young age I always loved sports and athletics. So I went into Shore Regional where I knew all the coaches, I knew all the people. I used their story to make my piece - a 15 minute film. A couple of months later I was in my new school.
LIJS: It was a documentary about the team. Did you show it to them?
HB: Yeah, I showed it to them. It’s a little dramatic but fun and they all wanted copies.
LIJS: So it got you into NYU which is considered to be one of the top film schools in the world…and you just completed your sophomore year there. How did it go?
HB: Hunter College is a great school and they have a great art program and great teachers. But my original goal and dream was to be at Tisch. I did option USC (University of Southern California) and a couple other schools but I am really an East Coast person; I want to stay on the East Coast. There is something unique about New York and the East Coast that a lot of other places don’t have. I am where I want to be now (NYU).
LIJS: Is it pretty intense?
HB: There is a lot of pressure but really it’s what you make of it. Like any school you can slack off…You have to stay on top of your work and keep yourself busy. My last semester was pretty intense. I booked a movie to shoot (as cinematographer) almost every weekend so I was pretty busy running all over shooting different movies for different directors for my school.
LIJS: Is it required that you take on different projects?
HB: Making a movie is all about your team; without your team you don’t have a movie. From the smallest job like the PA (personal assistant) to the Wrangler for the bystanders to theArt Director who is responsible for constructing a beautiful set for you to shoot on to the Gaffer who helps you light the set…there are so many different elements that go into making a movie and it’s all about working together as a team. I could never shoot a good movie if Ididn’ t have a good team.
LIJS: But doesn’t everyone going to NYU want to be the director or cinematographer or the producer? You don’t get in to such a prestigious school and say “Oh, I just want to be a gofer; I’ll get the coffee….”
HB: Most kids want to be directors but of course that isn’t realistic. There are so many jobs on a film; you can have 500 people, 1,000 people working on a set. You don’t realize it but there are so many people that are in school that just want to work in sound production, some kids love lighting and want to be a gaffer, some people love production design and they want to make sets; they want to bring a director’s vision to life…some kids just want to be writers. There are very few people out there that can be writers and directors and be good at it. Clint Eastwood is one. Quentin Tarantino has a quirky style but he’s one of them. But there really aren’t that many so it’s important when you are making a movie that you have all the different jobs separated and that you recognize each one of them as important to the film as a whole.
LIJS: You mentioned earlier that this house is a great place to shoot; did you work on many projects here and in the area?
HB: Sure, yeah. What’s cool about going to school in New York City is that you are so close to NewJersey. This is where I have a lot of my connections, a lot of my friends and family are from here and it’s also a great backdrop. You don’t realize how many industry people live in New Jersey; tons of people in the film industry live here because of it’s proximity to the metropolitan area. For a couple of the movies I worked on I suggested to the directors that we location scout the Jersey Shore and that we take advantage of the resources that Ihad down there. When we got down here and they saw my house they realized that it was perfect for shooting in.
LIJS: Why is that?
HB: The beauty of this home is that its over a hundred years old with great big, beautiful windows, lots of great light (because originally it was lit by gas lanterns). It’s a pretty big undertaking to shoot a movie in your house though, I don’t think my parents realized at first. You have to move furniture around, cover windows; put up scaffolding… it’s a lot. But they were very supportive and nothing got broken. I had a great team; about 30 kids from my school for a ten minute film.
LIJS: People often don’t realize how much time goes into making a film from start to finish. How much actual time goes into making a ten minute student film like that?
HB: Well, that film is still in post-production. It’s being cut (edited) out in California by the director. But I can give you a more recent example. The film that Iam working on now, “Lifting Dreams” is a full-length feature film and for the month that I was shooting in India I shot 80-100 hours of footage.
LIJS: Yes, let’s talk about this film. How did it come about?
HB: India…India. India has pretty much been the highlight of the last couple months of my life. The movie is called “Lifting Dreams” and I spend approximately a month in India shooting and I just got back from more shooting for it in California. Barbara Malmet was one of my first teachers at NYU - a documentary film teacher. Separate from the school, she was planning to go to India to make this documentary film. She liked my work and I told her I was interested in doing the movie and I thought that I could do a good job and that the sports aspect of the film appealed to me. It was by far the biggest movie I had worked on but I was confident that I could do it.
LIJS: The film is about the Sri Ram Orphanage in northern state of Uttaranchal?
HB: It is the Sri Ram Ashram; in Hindi the word “ashram” means “home”. It is a great place where these children grow up as a family and unlike a traditional orphanage you can’t adopt them. They grow up as brothers and sisters and help each other overcome whatever problems they might have. It’s not a sad story; the story that we tell in the film is actually one of triumph.We follow the lives of six of the older kids from the orphanage that are out in the world now; going to college, going to work. What is really unique is that because of the caste system in India it is very difficult to overcome being an orphan; once you are an orphan you are always labeled as an orphan. But in the case of these six it’s not true. They have been given an opportunity to go to college and follow their dreams. We arrived in Delhi, the major city in India, and filmed some establishing shots there. Then we traveled to Jaipur where three of the girls; Renu, Prema and Mala are working in Human Resources and Travel & Leisure. Then we went to the deserts of Rajasthan to film Vijay Pal, who is studying and working in a transport company, but he wants to be a professional cricket player. From there we went on to Chandigarh where we met and filmed Vijay Raj who also wants to be a professional cricket player and an Olympic weightlifter. Then we went to Rishikesh on the Ganges River to film Meena a girl studying to be a dental hygienist. We were on the road filming for about 10 days and then we stayed at the ashram and filmed the kids there for 15 days. There was a little boy there Deepu (8) that we followed and told his story as a reflection of the old siblings he looked up to and admired.
LIJS: What were the conditions like filming in India?
HB: It was very hot. 110 degrees during the day so we couldn’t film at all between the hours of 11 and 4. But India is a beautiful place filled with great images. Everywhere you turn there is a shot; you can’t turn the camera in any direction and not find a beautiful shot or something to point it at. The people are amazing, the children, from a cinematographer’s stand point, have these beautiful faces, these dark black eyes and the way the light hits their face when they smile; they just light up with color! The whole country is just full of color - from the women who wear these bright, colorful saris to the markets with the spices and the flowers and the landscapes. But the kids are just so amazing…(he drifts off),
LIJS: It sounds like you really became attached to some of these children…
HB: I miss the kids a lot. When you go there to the ashram you can’t help but become bonded to the kids. You are living there and telling their story. Telling their dreams; it’s impossible not to become attached to them.
LIJS: How did they feel about you and the whole idea of being filmed?
HB: The reaction to Americans and cameras in India is great; they have “Bollywood” and the culture is so full of cinema and music that when they see cameras they think “Bollywood!” because it has such a major influence in their country; when they see cameras they gravitate to you.
LIJS: Do they start dancing?
HB: Yes. If you know anything about a Bollywood movie, there are plenty of dance numbers. At the end of our trip at the orphanage we had the honor to have them perform a huge dance number for us. It was an hour long and they had been working on it for months.
LIJS: Will it be in the film?
HB: Yes, how could it not be? It’s such a big part of their culture. It’s such a playful culture. Playing and dancing is a big part of who they are. The kids love to dance.
LIJS: Where there any locations outside of India that you filmed?
HB: Yes, I just came back from filming in California. The orphanage was founded in 1987 by a silent Hindu monk and yogi called Baba Harri Dass (87). H e now lives and teaches at the Mount Madonna Center, a yoga and spiritual retreat in Monterey Bay, California.
LIJS: How does one go about interviewing a “silent” monk?
HB: Interviewing a silent monk is kind of interesting. Babaji, as he is called, communicates by writing on a slate and then passes it along to one of his daughters and she reads it to the camera. It was pretty cool.
LIJS: Where will this film be shown once it is finished?
HB: The movie will come out in December and then it will tour through all the festivals and then make its way back to India for a premiere in March. The hope is that it will get picked up for distribution and eventually play in smaller theaters.
LIJS: Your first credit as a Cinematographer on a feature film while still a student; that’s quite impressive!
HB: I want to clarify that this wasn’t an NYU film; the movie has no affiliation with NYU; it’s an independent project that the director Barbara took on. She just happens to be a professor at NYU and she used some of the students from there, but the crew was not all students. The movie is a sequel actually to a film she directed before; “Jewel in the Jungle”.
LIJS: You’ve had the opportunity to work on some other major projects as well…
HB: Yes, for the past two years I’ve worked with Director of Photography Thom Stukas on the HBO series 24/7. It’s been a great honor; Thom has been a mentor to me and he is a seven time Emmyaward winner for cinematography and works with HBO, ESPN, NBC and SPIKE TV. 24/7 follows the lives of boxers as they are getting ready for their fight. It tells great sports stories which are something I am always drawn to. I’ve gotten to spend time with Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Roy Jones Jr. and Joe Calzaghe those are just some of them. I met Thom a few years ago and he saw that I was pretty serious about wanting to learn and so he took me on for some smaller projects. Once I had proven myself I got the opportunity to travel with him all around the United States.
LIJS: In what position?
HB: I am the First Assistant Camera Operator which means I am responsible for all of the camera equipment; transporting it, setting it up, making sure everything is accounted for and working. I do get paid which is great. It’s been primarily in sports and sports cinematography a field that I enjoy. As a lifelong athlete I really like telling sports stories. Thom’s style of shooting has really rubbed off on me.
LIJS: You are quite focused and I have to say, you are my first interviewee that has brought notes and lists with them...
HB: Yes, I make lists. The most productive people make list of what they want to do and what they want to accomplish, that week, that month, that year. I am always thinking down the line of what I am going to do next. Every day is different but every day I wake up with a goal of getting the most accomplished that I can. Somewhere on that long term list must be; “and the Academy Award for Best Cinematography goes to…..”
www. sriramfoundation.org
LiftingDreams.com
Vimeo.com/HunterRBaker
Favorite Restaurant:
Yumi Sea Bright
Favorite Music:
KiD CuDi
Favorite Movie:
“2001: A Space Odyssey”
Pet Peeve:
“People who leave at the end of a movie without staying to watching the credits”
Three People You’d Like to Have Dinner With:
Harvey Keitel, JayZ and Cinematographer Conrad Hall
Advertisers
Powered by eDirectory™