Meet Oren Soffer | Cinematographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Oren Soffer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Oren, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
I have a complicated relationship with risk. I am generally risk-averse in my day to day life, avoid confrontation, don’t like spontaneity or surprises, and am generally someone who likes to overly plan. However, I also think that a successful career, especially one in film, requires embracing a certain amount of risk and spontaneity – from accepting jobs last minute that may disrupt major plans but could be career-changing projects or working with an all-new team of people you have never met or worked with before, to the micro level of trying out an untested lighting technique or camera move on set while knowing that it might not necessarily work and may end up taking up precious time, which is the most scarce commodity we have when filming. All of these things require taking certain risks, and finding that balance between my generally risk-averse nature, careful planning and accepting that advancement and creative, artistic and career success requires a certain amount of risk-taking is something I grapple with every day!

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Making movies and working in the film industry was a desire of mine from a young age, but growing up in Israel in a family of computer scientists and academics, it couldn’t have felt farther away. I was fortunate to have a supportive immediate family who supported my goals, my hobbyist filmmaking efforts through grade school, and my decision to go to film school and pursue this dream — but proving to them, and to myself, that this was a viable career path that I could make a good living off of took many years. In the end, I am overjoyed to be able to say that it all paid off and that I was successful in my efforts to establish a thriving career in the film industry despite zero connections to the film industry growing up beyond simply a love of film and early artistic proclivities (starting out drawing and painting and also picking up photography along the way).

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
The thing I love most about LA is that it has a little bit of everything, all within reasonable driving distance and easy access to the city. You could dedicate a few days just to theme parks – a day at Disney, a day at Knott’s Berry Farm, half a day at Universal paired with a Warner Bros studio tour; follow it up with an architecture and graffiti tour of downtown (complete with tacos at Grand Central Market), head West for a bike ride up and down the coast and a relaxing beach day, and then spend a few more days just driving up the PCH into the beautiful hiking trails in the Santa Monica mountains (with dinner at Duke’s in Malibu), up to Angeles National Forest or Big Bear, or out towards Joshua Tree, all within just a few hours’ drive. And all the while, getting a taste of amazing sushi in Sawtelle, Korean BBQ in Koreatown, middle eastern food in Glendale (after a short hike in Griffith Park or up in the hills above Burbank), and everything in between.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I wouldn’t be where I am today without early teachers and mentors who encouraged me along the way, from Na’ama Coen-Ashkenazi and Freddy Lubin, my high school film class teachers who taught us the fundamentals and introduced our class to the classics of cinema, to Nick Tanis, Rob Morton and my other amazing teachers at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and all the way through to my various mentors and fellow cinematographers working in the film industry who I am honored and humbled to have been able to work with and learn from over the years.

Website: www.orensoffer.com

Instagram: instagram.com/orensofferdp