I'm Ryan Potts. I'm a DP in Southern China. I'm looking for a director.

I have been thinking about writing this for a while.

My first reaction was:

“I’m a DP. Shouldn’t I be busy shooting?”

There is always another shoot.

Another location.

Another deadline.

Then I thought about it.

At some point, I am going to meet a director I have never worked with before.

They will have questions.

I will have questions.

And before we ever step onto a set together, we will both be trying to understand one thing:

“Will this person help me make the film better?”

So maybe it makes sense to explain how I think about the relationship.

A director brings the vision.

A DP helps translate that vision into reality.

It sounds simple.

But the relationship between a director and DP is one of the most important partnerships on any production.

The DP is not there to simply wait for someone to tell them where to put the camera.

And the DP is not there to compete for creative ownership.

The best director-DP relationships happen when two people bring different strengths to the same goal.

The director protects the story.

The DP helps find the visual language to tell it.

The first thing a director should know about me is that I am not interested in being the person who says yes to everything.

I have worked on enough productions to know that the hardest part of filmmaking is rarely the camera.

The difficult part is when everyone has a different idea of what the film needs to become.

The director is protecting the story.

The client is protecting the brand.

The producer is protecting the schedule and budget.

The crew is trying to make it all happen.

And sometimes, everyone is right.

The DP’s job is to help those things work together.

A director spends months, sometimes years, developing an idea before it reaches set.

My job is not to replace that vision with my own. My job is to understand it deeply enough that I can help protect it when the pressure of production arrives.

I don’t believe a director needs a DP who agrees with every decision.

Sometimes the best contribution I can make is asking a question nobody has asked yet.

Not because I want to change the idea.

Because I want to protect it.

I believe the idea always comes before the execution.

The camera, lenses, lighting, and technology are important.

But they are tools.

The first questions should always be:

What are we trying to communicate?

What should the audience understand?

What should they feel?

Once we understand that, the creative decisions become much clearer.

After 20 years in this industry, I have learned one thing:

The plan will change.

It always does.

The location changes.

The weather changes.

The schedule changes.

The budget changes.

That is simply the reality of making films.

I have worked on productions where everything went exactly according to plan.

Those are wonderful.

But I have probably learned more from the ones where nothing went according to plan.

Those are the moments when collaboration matters most.

The question is not whether problems will happen.

The question is how we respond when they do.

A good collaborator does not spend their energy fighting reality. They find the best version of the idea within it.

I have spent much of my career working across China and internationally.

Different languages.

Different cultures.

Different expectations.

I have been on sets where the director, client, and crew were all approaching the same problem from completely different perspectives.

I have learned that the job is not just translating words. It is translating ideas.

Great productions are not built because everyone thinks the same way.

They are built because everyone understands what matters most.

Clear communication and trust are just as important as creative ability.

I don’t expect a director to have every technical answer.

That is my job.

But I do expect them to know what they want the audience to feel.

That is theirs.

A good DP should make a director’s job easier.

They should solve problems before they become problems.

They should understand the creative ambition while also understanding the realities of production.

They should know when something is worth fighting for.

And they should know when the smartest solution is a different one.

I won’t always have the right answer.

Nobody does.

But I will always bring the experience, curiosity, and honesty needed to find the answer together.

After more than 20 years working in production, I have learned that the strongest collaborations are rarely built around one person having all the answers.

They are built around trust.

A director trusts their DP to help carry the vision.

A DP trusts the director to know where the story needs to go.

And together, they create something neither person could have created alone.

So if you are a director looking for a DP, this is what I think you should know.

I am not looking to simply be the person behind the camera.

I am looking for the person standing beside me when everyone else is asking:

“How do we make this work?”

Someone who wants to understand the idea.

Someone who wants to push it further.

Someone who understands that the best films are rarely created by one person.

They are created when the right people come together.