Rob Knevels was holding a camera when I met him, and has been holding a camera for the last ten years, or so. A cheap Sony camera, another cheap Sony camera, a cheap video camera. There was one 35mm in there, a few loaned cameras, and a few thousand phone-pictures. There was an 8mm video camera on loan from the local university; it didn’t make it back in good shape.
His eye goes where yours doesn’t. His eye is like an ear, or a fingertip. Put him behind a lens and what you get is what your imagination has begged for.
Knevels doesn’t have an MFA in photography, or any collegiate background in fine arts, but if you added up the hours he spent behind a lens, you could give him a handful of honorary degrees. He has thousands of hours of footage.
I get it, most filmers have a lot of footage, but most filmers don’t have the kind of footage Rob Knevels has. Most people take time to set up their shots, to observe their surroundings, to understand the light, to expound upon given aesthetics. Rob Knevels does not. He points and shoots.
His strength? He points and shoots all the time. He points and shoots more than most. He is the constant apprentice. And, through this perseverance, he accumulated more usable footage than he knows what to do with.
In the last three years, he’s travleled with Kelley Stoltz, Echo and the Bunnymen, and been behind the scenes at a handful of noted performances. Here is a list of his must-see footage: