David Landau

David Landau

Professor of Cinematography, Cinema Technology Director,
School of the Arts

Contact Information

• Cinematography Concentration Director
• Screenwriting Minor Director
• Resident Lighting Designer, School of the Arts, Florham Campus

Courses

• Cinematography: Lighting
• Cinematography: Camera Work
• Filmmaking II
• Screenwriting
• Cinematic Storytelling
• Film Noir
• Hollywood Looks in the Mirror
• Reality TV production
• Client Video Production

Research

• Dramatic use of lighting in visual storytelling
• History of Cinematography
• LED Lighting as applied to moving image capture

Education

• BS Cinema Studies and Photography, Cum Laude, 1978 Ithaca College
• MFA Creative Wiring: Screenwriting, Goddard College 2005
• Gaffer, IATSE Local 52 Motion Picture Studio Mechanics
• 1990 2nd Assistant Camera and 2nd Electric,
• NABET 15 Associated Film Craftsmen, 1980

Academic Profile

David has worked professionally in the entertainment business since 1978, beginning as a theater master electric and a film camera assistant. He became a film electric and camera assistant and did off-off-Broadway theater lighting design in NYC before joining NABET 15 as a camera assistant and electric, working primarily on TV commercials and made for TV movies. Soon he became the lighting director for Exxon Corporate Video and became a corporate video cameraman and cinematographer. He joined IATSE 52 and worked on TV shows and movies but soon took a ten-year break from the film/video biz to open a theater company and help raise his family. He created the world’s first interactive theater company, “Murder To Go”, and invented the interactive mystery play, gaining international press. During that time, he continued to work in corporate video and even produced his own direct to consumer videos and the world’s first interactive feature film “Murder at Cafe Noir” (based on his widely produced play) as well as writing plays and corporate presentations that have been produced worldwide. He has seven plays published and licensed by Samuel French, has won several playwriting and screenwriting awards, and had several screenplays optioned. He discovered he enjoyed teaching and went back to grad school for an MFA in screenwriting and began teaching in 2002 at Fairleigh Dickenson University (where he is now a full professor and director of their cinematography program) but spent summers and winter breaks back in feature films and TV shows as a lighting crew member and was gaffer on such shows as “Project Runway” and “Project Runway Allstars”. He was Director of Photography on low-budget films “Dark Tarot” and “Stray” and the web series “The Other F Word”. He has also continued to work as a theater lighting designer. David is the author of the books “Lighting for Cinematography”, “Film Noir Production” and co-author of “Next Level Screenwriting”.