ERIC WEST grew up in the small seacoast town of Marshfield, Massachusetts, which led him to an active imagination and helped fuel his passion for telling stories and making movies. He attended Ithaca College and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1996. While attending Ithaca he spent his summers in Los Angeles, where he was selected to be an intern at Panavision. Eric moved to Los Angeles in 1997, where he had a short stint as a camera assistant and later a set lighting technician. Eric chose to come up through the ranks as a set lighting technician because he knew how important a roll lighting plays in the artistic and technical fundamentals of cinematography. He is a member of the local #728 Set Lighting Technicians Union. Eric worked as a gaffer for six feature films, which was great training ground to pursue his goal in becoming a cinematographer. He attended the American Film Institute and graduated in 2005 with a Masters degree in Cinematography. Since then, Eric has shot several short films, music videos, and commercials. He is currently shooting union commercials for Harvest Films, which have included spots for the J. Paul Getty Center, MTV, HBO, and Comcast Sportsnet. He aspires to shoot narrative films, specifically features.