Joel E. Schaeffer

Joel E. Schaeffer has spent more than twenty years behind the camera: AFI, the camera department, 16mm and 35mm, and the color workflows he built when the off-the-shelf path was not enough. The technique was never the point. The point is the image: light held a certain way, a frame that keeps you in it.

At LightWave Media he designs the pipeline before day one, photographs the picture as Director of Photography, and carries the look through the grade and the finish. What he learns on set becomes the software the company builds.

He works from Los Angeles with productions across the United States and internationally.