Talented Brazilian Cinematographer Ernesto Pletsch
Where would we be in today’s world without cameras? Perhaps a more interesting and precise question in the context of who we are writing about should be: where would movies be without cameras and directors of cinematography? Since we are briefly exploring the award winning cinematographer Ernesto Pletsch, this seems to be a very appropriate question. The answer, of course, is we wouldn’t have movies to go to or to watch on our TVs, computer screens of smart phones. And, incidentally, Ernesto would not be the great cinematographer that he is simply because there would be no cameras
to be an expert on and certainly no movies to shoot from behind those non-existent cameras. He would, no doubt, however, be doing something highly creative — only in a different medium.
Ernesto is from Porto Alegre, Brazil and he has been a director of photography for over eight years. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Cinematography from the famed New York Film Academy and was also invited to attend the prestigious American Society of Cinematographers’ Masterclass. He won the Cinematographer Award at the HBO International Film Festival in Vermont and currently lives in Los Angeles. Ernesto is a freelance cinematographer who works on long and short format narratives as well as TV series in the Hollywood area and also has vast experience shooting worldwide in different languages and cultures. He is highly proficient in shooting 35mm, 16mm, 70 mm, digital capture and DaVinci Resolve, among other filmmaking tools and skills. The cameras he uses are Red, Arri, Sony, Zeiss and Cooke.
His resumé is long but here is an example of the projects that Ernesto has beautifully photographed. Sergey’s Fortune, directed by Peter Mackie and written by Nick Vitale and stars Yorgos Karamihos and Ravil Isyanov. It is the story of a Russian mobster in Little Odessa (in Brooklyn, NY) who must redeem himself with the boss after an unsuccessful mission. Somehow, things don’t go very well for him and the only people who can help him are a small group of YouTubers known as the D.G.A.F. Bros. (D.G.A.F. = Don’t give a F&$k). This film won Short of the Year at the 2019 Short Film Slam in Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Directors and producers strongly rely on the expertise and wide range of camera and lighting knowledge that their cinematographer must have in order to manifest the vision of a film or TV show. Ernesto brings all that and more to the table when he takes on a job.
