Like many players on the New York independent-film scene, he started off working at Kim’s Video and Music, on St. Mark’s Place, before taking up cinematography for everything from features (the Safdie brothers’ Good Time) to documentaries (on Chinese taxi drivers), to experimental movies (on Kathy Acker) and music videos (for A$AP Rocky and Nas). The old guard has given their approval—Sean Price Williams has collaborated with Albert Maysles and Martin Scorsese. He is now working on his feature-film directorial debut, The Sweet East, starring Jacob Elordi.
This year, The New York Times anointed this music producer as the Weeknd’s “consigliere”—he was the music director for Abel’s Super Bowl halftime performance—but Daniel Lopatin’s reputation in New York circles was cemented long ago as a musician’s musician, performing under the moniker Oneohtrix Point Never. A longtime collaborator of the Safdie brothers’, Lopatin won best original soundtrack at Cannes for Good Time. Lesser known is his work across the art world, with commissions at Greene Naftali, Sadie Coles HQ, and MoMA.
