Meet David Auner, aac | Cinematographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with David Auner, aac and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi David, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?

When I was growing up I was very interested in many, many different topics. My grandfather was a photographer, who taught me much and piqued my interest in many topics, from arts to sciences. Same for my parents. To this day, that still hasn’t changed. There’s not much I’m not interested in in one form or another.

So, I was very torn what to do with my life after graduating from high school. Many majors in college would’ve been interesting to me. When I was deemed ineligible for the mandatory military or civil service after I finished school in Austria I basically had a “free” year to do with what I wanted. I enrolled in a program for “digital film” that taught mostly the post side of making movies. While doing that I also started working for TV news and film work. I quickly saw that it was an interesting field and over the years gravitated towards cinematography as an ideal nexus of sciences, arts and crafts, combining many of the interests I have. So instead of going to school for something else I just stuck with it. Fast foward to 2016 I finally got the chance to go back to school and in 2018 I graduated with an MFA in Cinematography at the AFI Conservatory. That was my starting point for my life here in LA.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?

Cinematography, the writing with motion and light is my favorite form of storytelling, it is a nexus where technology, creativity, craftsmanship and teamwork come together. Cinematography is a discipline that requires constant learning, adaptation, experimentation, improvisation and, above all, a very conscious, deliberate form of seeing, seeing and seeking light, color, depth, form and mood.

This leads to my work being based on the observation of nature and the world around us. How does light behave, how do people behave, how does setting, time of day and the culture around us influence what we see and how we act. This doesn’t mean to just capture what is there but it mean you can create the best version of nature for a specific scene or story. Once you have created the scene you can capture it with a lot of flexibility for the director and actors you work with.

Cinema is a medium, subtle and yet powerful, that has no equal in its ability to evoke emotion, carry expression and move an audience. In doing so, it penetrates deep into our subconscious and may thus have the ability to change the world.

Certainly, cinematography is the craft and the art of translating a director’s vision of a story onto the screen. However, that task is impossible to do alone. Therefore, it is a task shared with the director, the production designer, the colorist and the other departments. It is a complex and demanding undertaking that must, above all, remain in the service of the story to be told and within the scope of the production’s budget.

Physics, chemistry, psychology, art history, history, they all have an impact on storytelling. And on top of that you get to work with a large number of interesting people. It just never gets old.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
LA is a pretty awesome place because you can find so much and at such high quality. But to be honest, so that I can continue to enjoy my favorite spots I’m not going to talk about them. Let me just put it that way: they don’t show up in The Lonely Planet 😉

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I have many people that I owe a debt to in my life. My mom Angelika, my dad Wolf, my uncle Michael and many others had an influence. But if I had to chose one individual it would be Eckart Schuster, my grandfather. Being born in a tiny Tyrolean village in 1919 he made his way through a pretty poor childhood and 6 wasted years in a crazy war to becoming one of the most influential photographers in Austria of the 1950s and 1960s. His guidance and tutelage laid the groundwork for what I do today. Being shown the various processes of film photography and darkroom work still is very important to me. “The Art of Seeing”, a very active mode of observation, not just passively looking into the world is probably the very foundation of how I see the world and deeply influences my way of telling stories and how I work. Imitation or recreation of what nature “could” do is the guiding principle of my cinematography, my storytelling. And that definitely came from him. He moved on from this world in 2006 but there’s scarcely day that I don’t think of him, still. And in the present, my Shoutout goes to my wife Erin Garey who’s incredibly supportive of my career and a wonderful visual artist herself.

Website: www.davidauner.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidauner/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidauner/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/davidauner

Facebook: facebook.com/davidaunercine

Other: www.davidaunerphotography.com

Image Credits
Norbert Wabnig Simon Ayriss Todd Bailey Maike Venzl-Terbrüggen Michelle Figueroa