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SALT LAKE CITY — Sundance may welcome filmmakers from across the world, but for Joe Anderson, he's coming back to his roots.
Anderson, who worked as the director of photography on the new Antonio Campos film "Christine," grew up in Sugar House. Interested in film from a young age, Anderson credits Ralph Smart's television production class at Highland High School with piquing his interest in the motion picture industry as a career path.
"From a young age I was fascinated with cameras and how they could reinterpret the world around me," Anderson said. "When I was 9 years old my parents started borrowing my uncle's video camera to record my Junior Jazz basketball games, but I would be up playing with this camera the night before, using it to turn my parents' living room into the streets of New York."
Anderson continued to experiment with cameras from Smart's classroom, seizing opportunities that came his way.
"When I was 15 years old I was lucky to participate in a documentary program created by the Sundance Institute in cooperation with Spy Hop. Eight students were given equipment and, more importantly, mentoring on making a short documentary to be shown in Park City during the festival. Mine was about Kitty Pappas who runs a steak house in Bountiful. That experience made me realize, yep I want to do this forever."
After his graduation in 2001, he went on to study film at the University of Utah for two years with professor William Siska before transferring to New York University. While there, he met many people he works with today.
In the years since then, Anderson has worked on many film projects, from commercials to shorts and feature-length films. Several, like the raw "Simon Killer" or the almost nature documentary-like "Hugh the Hunter" and the short film "DIG," among others, have been shown at Sundance since.
"'Christine' is my biggest achievement so far," Anderson said. "The film was essentially made by a bunch of friends who met at NYU who got to tell this story that is as relevant today as it was in 1974 when the film takes place."
"Christine" is the much-talked-about film telling the true story of journalist Christine Chubbock, who attempted suicide on live television in 1974. She died from her injuries the next day.
"It was the hardest movie I have ever done, particularly because of the subject matter, but also because it was the best script I had ever read," Anderson said. "We wanted to do justice both to the amazing script that Craig Shilowich wrote but also to the woman whom the story is based on. Her place in the world would fluctuate from the glamour of being in front of the camera, to the monotony of everyday life to the darkness she had deep inside. Each of these spaces requires a specific look and feel in the movie that is my job to create. It's also my responsibility to help support the amazing actors like Rebecca Hall and Michael C. Hall and Tracy Letts to bring these characters to life."
When beginning a project, Anderson said he always reads a script alone, paying attention to his first impressions. Then he turns to still imagery, rather than other movies, for original inspiration. Anderson uses film and digital cameras to achieve different effects, like in "Christine" when they tracked down period-accurate Auricon 16mm cameras to record news segments in the otherwise digital movie.
"Funny that we did shoot film, but essentially just as a prop," he said.
Anderson sees his job as more than making beautiful films — rather, he seeks to tell stories through imagery that remain true to its text.
"I love working with a big group of crazy, exciting people to create something that hopefully lasts forever," he said. "Biologically we love to tell stories, that's how we learn, what I do is an extension of what we did around the campfire thousands of years ago."
See more of his work at joeandersondp.com.
Celeste is the former Deputy Managing Editor at KSL.com and now works in marketing. She spends most of her spare time balancing conflicting interests in the outdoors and movies/television.
