At the end of CITIZEN KANE, director Orson Welles shares the final credit frame with his cinematographer,
Gregg Toland. For the always egocentric Welles, this would seem to be a generous gesture, but in reality it is an acknowledgement of the fact that in the act of shooting a film, the process involves an intensely creative collaboration between the director and his cinematographer.

It is the possibility for this creative collaboration that led local cinematographer Ed Slattery to become one in the first place, a notion perhaps only partially understood in his youth when he marveled at the look of the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone. But Slattery did not come to film directly. A graduate of Catholic Memorial High School in West Roxbury, he went to Boston College not for the arts but to study Bio-Chemistry. His degree is in Biology. (In this his life shares some parallels with producer Mark Donadio, who also went to BC to study science and who is about the same age). Slattery went on to do graduate work in neuro-biology at Columbia University, where he spent as much time at the movies as he did in the lab.

Returning to Boston in the mid-80’s, Slattery got disability coverage from his job and spent even more time at the movies, where between the movies that he saw, both classic and contemporary, combined with his extensive readings, he acquired both a scholar’s knowledge and an aesthetic vision. He realized that knowledge wasn’t enough; he really wanted to understand how film works as a physical entity. . That led him to learn the art of cinematography at Maine’s legendary Rockport Seminars, where not only did he take courses, but worked as a course assistant from l989-l993, with such famed cinematographers as Gordon Willis and Oliver Stapleton. Furthermore, with the friends and colleagues he developed at Rockport, particularly Jay Spain from North Carolina, he started going to the Sundance Film Festival in l99l, where he observed the rapid growth in American independent filmmaking and the increase in film production activity from Boston

With this background, Slattery brings to his work a technical knowledge, a sense of history and aesthetic appreciation. After his Rockport experience, Slattery did an extensive stint with Multi-Vision, a local commercial-industrial production house. Since then, however, he has lived the life of a freelancer, dividing his time between the commercial projects and Court TV, which helps pay the bills, helping his friend Jay Spain in North Carolina, working on personal projects such as a children’s video on the Big Dig, and, in varying forms, being “creatively collaborative” with local filmmakers. He has worked on short film projects with Will Lyman, Christy Scott Cashman, David Hudacek, Garth Campbell, and, most recently, Andrew Mudge on the award-winning THE PERFECT GOOSEYS. He has also shot two features for the Burton sisters, TEMPS, which was shot in Boston, and the recently released MANNA FROM HEAVEN, which was shot in Buffalo, NY and recently played in New York and Los Angeles, and is slated to open throughout Canada. GOOSEYS and MANNA, which have been the most widely seen, certainly attest to Slattery’s skills as a cinematographer. As one veteran film festival programmer said after seeing MANNA FROM HEAVEN, “That film sure looked awfully good.”

As a freelancer, Slattery can be as big a procrastinator as any of us. But on the set, if and after he has worked out the visual strategy with the director, is utterly focused, In fact, Slattery, who has narcolepsy, can seem to go into a trance because he is so intent on making sure the shots get done right. He cannot be distracted from the task at hand. Asked what it was like to work with Slattery, filmmaker/actor Will Lyman, for whom Slattery shot LEAVING THE POST, said, “I feel Ed to be very imaginative and explorative behind the camera. His knowledge of the technical aspects of the medium is outstanding and his creative input is of value both to the director and himself.”

Let’s hope the future holds more opportunities for Slattery’s “creative collaborations.”