Cinematographer Andrea Damuding and the Cathartic Benefits of Written Words

Andrea Damuding
Andrea Damuding

Writers imagine the worlds we experience in film. Directors are in charge of manifesting this shared vision with writers. A Director of Photography is the proxy for the eyes of the audience and the soul of the storyteller, using a variety of skills and tools to establish the visual perception of the emotional state of the characters in the films that make us laugh, cry, and cower in fear. Filmmakers can take us into worlds that we’d never want to experience in the real world and possess the mindset of characters who deal with devastating circumstances.

As the DP for Written Words (award-winning film which garnered top honors at the Festigious International Film Festival and Top Shorts Film Festival) Andrea Damuding enabled audiences to see the confusing world of a young woman named Scarlett. Written Words is a film about what we will allow our mind to perceive and retain when reality becomes too much to bear. The communication of this experience through Scarlett’s life was only possible through the work of a master cinematographer such as Damuding.

The film’s writer/director Chelsea Nwasike, known for her work on Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan’s war film which yielded three Oscar Awards and a BAFTA, including nominations from both for Best Picture), the Independent Shorts Awards multiple winning Sci-Fi Reaction, and the Netflix series iBoy, retained Andrea as DP for Written Words with this understanding. 

The protagonist of Written Words is a woman who quite literally uses her greatest strength to rewrite her childhood trauma of being sexually attacked. When Scarlett finds commercial and critical success through the novel she’s written to exorcize her demons, the respite is temporary as her mind and memory refuse to release her from this haunting experience of her youth.

Her father’s suicide was the impetus for this journey of self-rediscovery but only Scarlett can decide how to confront her darkest fears. The situation communicated in Written Words is similar to that which many have actually experienced in society; this reinforced Andrea’s resolve to be sensitive and responsible in her role as the DP.

He communicates, “This type of story is something that I watch and I can relate to the frightening feeling she is experiencing through storytelling. It’s very likely that someone seeing our film may have gone through a very similar situation and this fact reminds me to be attentive to every minute detail. That’s not just me, I think the entire crew felt that way but I have to be aware that even a change of a few inches in the height of the camera or a different colored gel can alter the lighting and mood of a scene.”

Scenes such as when the power goes out one night at Scarlett’s house, transforming the warm Tungsten lighting into a space of stark darkness with a single menacing silhouette are jarring and deliver some of the most intense frights of the film. The lighting is both exceptional and drives much of the tension of this film.

When Scarlett is in the book reading room, Damuding’s lighting design integrated with a 180-degree dolly shot manifests an indiscriminate space which later disintegrates into reality with photographers and a full audience materializing. This is the kind of high level production that one would expect in a multimillion dollar film or TV series. 

Fans of the visual style seen in Written Words can look back to Andrea’s work as DP on the film The Rosy Summer Days. The story centers on a young girl who also experiences mental obstacles in her psyche. Confined to a hospital for most of her life, Aki fantasizes about doing the kinds of things most of us do on a daily basis. As her conditions worsens, so does her delineation of reality and her fantasy. Throughout the story, Damuding takes a realistic approach which causes the viewer to question what is the true reality and thereby inhabit the mindset of the main character.

The DP informs, “It really depends on what’s the genre of the project and whether me and the director are on the same page. Flexible is the word I would choose for my work-style.” The Rosy Summer Days received a number of awards including wins at the Festigious International Film Festival, Independent Shorts Awards, Indie Short Fest, Los Angeles Film Awards, and Top Shorts Film Festival.

Simultaneously seeing the obvious and the unobvious is a quality the world’s greatest cinematographers possess. Born in Italy and raised in China, Andrea Damuding is predisposed to this visual omniscience. Bringing the best aspects of Italian and Chinese cinema to Hollywood creates an intoxicating formula for the visual sense of her work.

He confirms, “There are cinematographers who stick to one style based on their culture or their taste for certain movies but I never stick to one style. I constantly change my style for different projects and I treat every project uniquely, otherwise I will become bored by my work and that’s when I stop to progress. I enjoy translating a script into a motion picture. It’s my greatest happiness when I read a script, visualize the scenes, and translate the words into a moving image. Every film and every project is completely different. That’s what I love about it because it allows me to keep growing.”

Writer: Arlen Gann