Stas Bondarenko is a multidisciplinary filmmaker based in Los Angeles, and a member of the International Cinematographers Guild.

Stas began his career in the video game industry, but was lured away by the bright fluorescents of computer animation, and spent over 7 years at Pixar Animation Studios developing technical solutions ranging from geometry deformers to stereoscopic 3D. At the end of his tenure he created a motion capture software framework that allowed use of such devices as gear heads, follow focus, shoulder-mounted camera rigs, and motion capture volumes within Pixar's proprietary animation suite. This system was first used on the Oscar-winning film Inside Out, and has become a staple of Pixar’s production process since.

Yearning for an adventure beyond Christmas bonuses and partially subsidized on-site massages, Stas accepted a cinematography fellowship at the American Film Institute, graduating in 2016. Since then he has continued to explore his interests that lie at the cross-section of art and technology by working as a cinematographer and camera operator, applying his technical expertise in the role of a VFX supervisor, directing his first narrative films, and entirely neglecting this web site. His directorial debut, Saeada, has played at numerous international film festivals, and he is currently in post-production on his second short, Isle of Devils.

Stas regularly returns to AFI as a guest lecturer to teach a class on the digital imaging pipeline. Betraying a promise to himself to never write another line of software code, he released a mobile app that calculates fractional difference in exposure parameter values mostly to win an argument. He later created a web version of the app in nomogram form because obviously.

You can find his cinematography reel, his moribund Instagram page, and his contact information below.

This, they tell me, what cinematographers are meant to look like on the job.