Randy Valdes was born in Cuba and immigrated to Miami with his family when he was eight. His love for filmmaking flourished in high school when a video assignment on the Vietnam War became a comically ambitious short film. Since then he has been driven professionally to develop and evolve his skill-set as a director of photography, focusing his approach to cinematography on bringing an aesthetic to projects that support, and expand on, the vision.

Randy studied photography, cinematography and film technology at Full Sail University in Winter Park in 2005 but, like all creative fields, the education for a director of photography is always ongoing. His professional philosophy is to always stay versed on the latest filmmaking advances available to cinematographers in order to better build on techniques and creative approaches that have effectively moved audiences since the birth of cinematography. Perhaps the latest example of this is the emergence of virtual production which has converged breakthroughs in LED display technology, video gaming computing and digital cinematography—a development Randy has relished as a virtual production director of photography because of the new possibilities for groundbreaking visuals both for narrative content and for commercial productions, and the increased opportunities to develop divergent skills and new collaborations that has come with the new virtual production workflow.

His commercial director of photography credits cover a long list of high-profile clients and brands. On the narrative and feature documentary side, his cinematography credits cover a wide array of genres and platforms. And Randy has also been the director of photography on music videos for all major labels like Sony Music and Universal Music Group. The diversity of content in his director of photography reel is representative of a willingness to adapt to different styles and circumstances to best serve the director’s and clients’ specific goals, as well as an insatiable curiosity for branching out and experimenting with the medium.