IFH 504: Lighting Big Budgets and Indie Films with Shane Hurlbut A.S.C.

My guest today has done it all. He’s gone from cinematography on small-budget indie films to $200 million-plus projects which is literally goals for many in this line of business.

Director and cinematographer, Shane Hurlbut's thirty-plus experience and success as a storyteller is categorically innovative to the craft and inspiring for other filmmakers.

Shane's latest film Love Hard is set for digital release via Netflix this November. This romantic comedy is about a young woman in Los Angeles who falls for a man on a dating app and travels to his East Coast hometown to surprise him for Christmas but discovers that she's been catfished. Her crush actually does live in the same town, and the guy who duped her offers to set them up if she pretends to be his girlfriend for the holidays.

He’s an esteemed member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the American Society of Cinematographers. The ASC recognized Shane’s work very early on in his carrier from his film The Rat Pack and he was one of their youngest cinematographer nominees.

Shane Co-founded the Hurlbut Academy alongside his wife and business partner, Lydia Hurlbut. Their platform offers professional online filmmaking education and mentoring materials, curated by other filmmakers. This interactive library has collaborated with filmmakers to develop about 50 Courses, 400+ Lessons, and 700+ hours of instruction videos.

Some of the top projects he’s worked on include Drumline, We Are Marshall, Terminator Salvation, Act Of Valor, and Game Of Thrones.

The highly acclaimed HBO series, Game of Thrones was hailed for its spectacular cinematography. Outstanding, if you will. In 2012, Shane served as director of photography for their Game of Thrones: You Win or You Die - Inside the HBO Series that was an interview for major cast and crew members. Wherein, characters, families, kingdoms, and plots were explained with an in-depth look at season one. And what viewers could expect from season two.

Some of Shane’s work includes NetFlix’s Rim of The World, Holidate, There Is No Place Like Home, Fathers, and Daughters, the pilot episode for SyFy's Resident Alien, and Disney+ original film Safety.

Safety was inspired by the true story of Ray-Ray McElrathbey, the film follows a freshman football player for Clemson University who secretly raised his younger brother on campus after his home life became too unsteady.

His passion for filmmaking goes back to his childhood. Like the cool kid he still is, Shane did morning announcements at our high school and DJ for a local radio station. As you can imagine, he started doing dances, proms, and homecoming across the local upstate New York area.

He earned part of his education at a small community college where he fell in love with radio, TV production, and so forth. A scholarship to study film at Emerson College in Boston sealed the deal for Shane.

In 2002, Shane’s box office hit film, Drumline became a major splash. Nick Cannon stars as a young drummer who enters the fictional Atlanta A&T University and bumps heads with the leader of his new school's drum section. A fish-out-of-water comedy about a talented street drummer from Harlem who enrolls in a Southern university, expecting to lead its marching band's drumline to victory. He initially flounders in his new world, before realizing that it takes more than talent to reach the top.

Enjoy my entertaining conversation with Shane Hurlbut.

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