“I just don’t think if you’re working with young people that you can be in an active state of despair,” says Amy Vincent, ASC, the trailblazing, award-winning cinematographer and self-described “hope spreader.” “We have to adjust, adapt, and keep moving forward.”
From Eve’s Bayou to her Sundance-winning work Hustle & Flow and beyond, Vincent’s cinematography has shaped decades of film. Now, amid Hollywood’s upheavals, she’s equally committed to mentorship, whether it’s leading by example through her upcoming films— A Nice Indian Boy in theaters April 4, 2025, and the Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson-starring Song Sung Blue—teaching students at the LMU School of Film and Television (SFTV), or co-leading San Quentin’s first film workshop. Her leadership earned her last year’s ASC Presidents Award, and as SFTV’s inaugural Distinguished Artist in Residence, she’s preparing the next generation.
The first step? Flatten the hierarchies.
“I treat everybody the same,” says the Massachusetts-born Vincent, who came to California to jumpstart her film career and later became only the sixth woman to be invited to join the ASC. “It makes for a collaborative space.” That’s true whether it’s SFTV Dean Joanne Moore, who worked with Vincent to establish LMU’s Artist in Residence program (“It’s all facilitated by Joanne’s awareness and future-forward approach,” says Vincent), her undergraduate and graduate senior students, and the celebrity DPs she invites to speak to her classes. Vincent also makes a point to get her students off the bluff and into the real world to work directly with today’s working cinematographers. “Westchester isn’t far from Hollywood,” she says, “but the mindset shift is huge.”
That foundation extends beyond LMU to the rest of the film community, including San Quentin’s prison walls. When Sing Sing director Greg Kwedar recently called her to help organize a film workshop at the prison’s Rehabilitation Center, she didn’t hesitate.
“He said, ‘We’re going next Monday.’ No time to overthink!” she laughs. The experience—teaching 25 incarcerated men to shoot on 16 mm film and guiding them to set up complex shots on their own—left her in awe. “I learned more about teaching there than I ever expected,” she reflects. Returning to Hollywood, she felt renewed: “I was a better collaborator, a better artist. That’s what teaching does … I can’t wait to do it again.”
Her most recent film A Nice Indian Boy, shot in 19 days with director Roshan Sethi, further epitomizes her collaborative ethos with the next generation of filmmakers. “He’s a 32-year-old gay Indian doctor; I’m double his age,” she says. “But it was the best partnership.” The rom-com—a queer South Asian love story starring Karan Soni and Jonathan Groff—pushed Vincent creatively. “It’s unlike anything I’d done before,” she says of the April release.
Amid Hollywood’s changes and contractions, she remains steadfast. “I believe in Los Angeles, and I believe that we will rise,” she says. “There’s never been anything like what we’ve faced, but we’re navigating this with the students.” For Vincent, that means preparing her students to adapt. “If I can’t impart hope and inspire hard work,” she smiles, “I’ve lost them at the get-go.” That’s why Vincent’s teaching philosophy rejects top-down instruction, which includes altogether avoiding the word “teaching.” For her, it’s all about sharing knowledge—even a bad collaboration is a good lesson. And there’s nowhere else she’d rather be.
“I love my job,” she says enthusiastically. “I love being on set, I love people. I love sharing my experience. It’s hard—but it is rewarding beyond measure.”
