John Guleserian (;) is an American cinematographer.
Early life Guleserian aspired to be a filmmaker from a young age. He worked as an ice cream truck driver before studying cinematography at college, first as an undergraduate at Columbia College Chicago and then graduate school at the AFI Conservatory. While studying, he spent his spare time "shooting short films for any director that would let me" to gain experience.
Career Guleserian began a longstanding collaboration with writer–director Drake Doremus at AFI, which both men attended at the same time. In 2006, he photographed Doremus's thesis project, and they paired up again to shoot numerous commercials and music videos in addition to the 2009 feature film Spooner. They later collaborated on Like Crazy, a romantic drama film that premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and won the festival's Grand Jury Prize, an achievement that Guleserian later said "opened up a lot of opportunities" for him. One such opportunity was the 2013 romantic comedy About Time, which was the first big-budget studio film Guleserian worked on; previously, he had only shot independent films with smaller budgets. The same year, he returned to work with Doremus as cinematographer on Breathe In, starring Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce. Since Doremus's films are largely improvised, Guleserian filmed these projects unconventionally, with mostly handheld camerawork in takes that usually last over ten minutes.
Guleserian's television credits include I Heart Vampires and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, and he was the director of photography on the 2014 films Parts per Billion, Song One and Before We Go. He shot the 2015 film Equals, a science fiction romance directed by Doremus and starring Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult. He also filmed the 2015 sex comedy The Overnight, a project he became involved in because of his wife, a production designer hired to work on the film, who introduced Guleserian to the director, Patrick Brice.
In December 2014 he was named one of Complex magazine's "Underrated Cinematographers Poised to Make It Big in 2015". He has expressed an interest in working as a visual consultant on animated films.
Filmography
Feature film Year Title Director Notes2009 Spooner Drake Doremus ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction Kevin Hamedani 2011 Like CrazyDrake Doremus2013 Breathe In About Time Richard Curtis2014 Song One Kate Barker-Froyland Kiss Me Jeff Probst Parts per Billion Brian Horiuchi Before We Go Chris Evans2015 The Overnight Patrick Brice Equals Drake Doremus2018 Love, Simon Greg Berlanti Zoe Drake Doremus Trial by Fire Edward Zwick2020 An American Pickle Brandon Trost Happiest Season Clea DuVall2021 He's All That Mark Waters Candyman Nia DaCosta2023 Cocaine Bear Elizabeth Banks Genie Sam Boyd 2025 You're Cordially InvitedNicholas Stoller TBA Judgment Day The 99'ers Nicole Kassell
Television Year Title Director Notes 2006 Orastories Annie MebaneLindsay Stidham TV short 2007–2009 Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Tim HeideckerEric WareheimJonathan Krisel 29 episodes 2015 Transparent Silas HowardJim Frohna Episodes "Bulnerable" and "The Book of Life" 2015–2016 Casual 23 episodes 2017 Friends from College Nicholas StollerAndrew GurlandFrancesca Delbanco All 16 episodes 2020 Homemade Kristen Stewart Episode "Crickets" 2023-2025 Platonic Nicholas StollerFrancesca Delbanco 20 episodes
References
External links