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

Hi Boaz, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I really only started my company once I got my first camera, it was a way to invoice for my gear.. Before that I was full on freelancer and as one you are the business.. Providing services as a cameraman has been a lifelong passion and so there was no thought process, but rather a blind faith that if I persist and do good work the opportunities will come. And they did!


Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I am a cinematographer, it often feels like a lifelong mission. It is an extremely competitive space as in any creative market. I think what sets me apart other than my personality is my attention and approach to story and storytelling.

I am always on that search to elevate the story and support the director’s vision, and my choices can be very bold at times..
To me it’s all about a feeling, and I try to make sure that any given moment on screen feels right to the moment in the narrative we are advancing.
I try to be subjective with my camera work as much as possible, so I always want to give the camera a point of view, I don’t want to just be an observer, and given that I mostly work in the Documentary and the Commercial fields I think Directors appreciate that.
It is more of a narrative (Scripted Films) type of style or train of thought that I’ve been able to bring into the Doc world.
Traditionally Documentaries were more Observational in their camera work, and the camera person would have a zoom lens, and they would use that to get closer optically so that you could see a close up, they could be a “fly on the wall” I decided long ago that I want to do it differently, I mostly shoot with fixed lenses (so there is no zooming ability) and if I want to show a close up I need to get closer physically to a person.. and so I have developed over the years a way to (slowly) get close to people and in general move around the set but in a way that people forget that I am there..

The results are different looking, and sometimes way more intimate from a photographic stand point, that has been one thing that has set me apart.
I think one more thing is my perspective on life.. Being an immigrant that came to New York 20 years ago with nothing but a dream, (I also didn’t intend to stay in NY for so long but life is what happens to you when you’re too busy making plans as one great John Lennon once said) naturally gave me a different perspective and a different tone. I got to where I am today by doing good work.

It certainly hasn’t been easy, but the challenges were not so much professional as much as they were life bound.

I have been blessed to get some opportunities and be able to deliver on them and grow the scope of the type of work I do etc.. However, It is very hard to be a cinematographer and have children at the same time because the job is extremely demanding and brings with it extensive travel, and given that my wife is from Argentina and we had kids pretty early on, it was an enormous challenge which I am totally grateful and in awe of admiration of her succeeding in!

For her, to stay back and take care as I was traveling and getting bigger opportunities, I couldn’t have done it without her.

Traditionally when you make feature films you can be gone for 2-3 months easily per movie, but on short form projects as well as documentaries the travel is much shorter normally.. for the most part I am usually gone for just a few days, with “long shoots” being 10-12 days max so we have made it work like that, and I’ve gotten to be present and active with my kids. I am still waiting for them to grow a bit older until I start focusing more on Feature films which is an ultimate goal of mine.
Working in the Film industry you learn lessons daily.. I’d say for me a really important one was to always make things better, usually I get a couple of hours to set up the lights and camera in the morning of a shoot and then by the time we need to start rolling I am happy with a given setup, but as we start rolling I always find something I can change to make the shot better, or maybe move the camera a bit, or have someone move their body a certain way to make the composition more interesting.. so I try to always challenge myself to improve the shot between the takes, and sometimes it means a lighting adjustment that can take up some time, and the assistant director (or producer) is breathing down my neck that we are loosing time, but I learned over the years that it is important to address these things on set and get everything to be right then, because if you don’t all people will remember is what they see in the edit, and if the image is not right, well, you wont get that call back for the next job. so, of course you need to be reasonable with your time allocation but the gist is that people don’t remember the stress of the minuets you lost to make a shot great.. they will remember if the project looked great or not..

Another advice I have is Get Inspired! Making art for a living is a unique thing and we are surrounded by amazing artists and storytellers, so I try to be exposed to all facets of the arts, Music is as important to me as the Visual Arts as well as the Written Word. And lately, I’ve been spending way too much time playing with MidJourney the AI painter.

It is such a privilege to do something you love for a living if I wanted the world to know something about me, is that there is not one day that I take my career and my success thus far for granted! I am grateful every day that I’m on set.. even when it’s 4:30am and I’m next to a camera waiting for the sun to rise and thinking “wtf… It’s too early for anyone to be up right now.”
I just love telling stories and making films so much, I hope to continue doing good work and shoot great films for many years to come.


Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
NYC is endless like that.. I live in Williamsburg Brooklyn so we would be going around the neighborhood, we would eat at Win Son, and Oxomocco, and have drinks on the roof of ” Berry Park” We would take long strolls in the West Village, Soho and the East Village in Manhattan, and go for a burger in the Minneta Tavern, and maybe dancing at Noblu in the Lower East Side.. it is endless!


Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
The first shoutout would have to go to my mom! She always believed in me and also instilled the value of honesty and hard work in me, those have paid off big time, thanks mom!!

My origins in the industry here in the states were made possible by my ex-wife Sandy Kaye Wooten who supported me for the first few months as I was starting out and was just getting little work here and there.

My first Mentor in the United States was one great Cinematographer by the name of Anthony Jannelli, who I worked for in a first AC capacity for a long time and learned so much from. We are still good friends and he is a bottomless well of knowledge and love.

The next shutout would be to my wife Andrea, as I mentioned, who allows me to go out day in and day out to do my work while she keeps our household running and takes care of our children. I’m grateful to you above all.


Website: boazfreund.com

Instagram: bofreund

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