Congratulations Larkin Seiple ('03) on Oscar Win!

Congratulations are in order for SAAS alum, Larkin Seiple (’03), who took the stage last night at the 95th Annual Academy Awards. Larkin was the Cinematographer for this year’s Best Picture “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and joined the cast, producer Jonathan Wang, and Larkin’s longtime partners and friends, directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, as they accepted the prestigious Oscar.

Late last year, Deadline’s Film Reporter Matt Grobar interviewed Larkin about working on the movie. As Cinematographer and Director of Photography, Larkin explained that he developed looks for nearly 150 different universes in the film. Less than ten of those were featured prominently on screen, 15 featured briefly as “mini universes'' and around 120 appeared in only a single frame or shot. Larkin added, “So much happens in [the film] that you need to have louder imagery for the audience to connect the separation between the variations on Michelles [Michelle Yeoh] in different universes, which is why this one, it’s got a lot of looks. That wasn’t because we wanted it to look cool. It’s because we wanted people to actually appreciate where we were, and why we were there, and understand.” Matt Grobar also noted, “From Daniels’ [directing duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert] perspective, Larkin Seiple is so invaluable to their vision and process that their films might not work at all without his contributions."

Larkin, who has worked in partnership with the Daniels for many years, was also cinematographer for award-winning music videos including the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ "Despair" in 2013 and Childish Gambino’s "This Is America" in 2018.

SAAS Head of School, Rob Phillips, who taught and coached Larkin while at SAAS, added “Larkin always had a lot of interests, but at the same time, I specifically remember him telling me when he was in the Middle School that he was going to work in films. He came on one of the Alaska trips, and every day of sea-kayaking and hiking was also a running Larkin film seminar – it was unreal, even then, what he’d seen and how well he understood it, how insightfully he thought about the medium, and how dedicated he was to achieving something significant with a camera in his hand.”

Former SAAS faculty member and founding Film Program teacher, Cheryll Hidalgo, noted that “Larkin was clearly destined for a career in film from the first day he stepped into the film lab at SAAS.” She adds, “As a student, he was clearly hooked on film as a medium. In those early days he wanted to be a director, but put great effort into all parts of the process, producing, directing, editing, and acting in his short films to hone his ideas and techniques of visual storytelling.” 

“The recognition that the film ‘Everything, Everywhere, All At Once' received at this year's Oscars will spur Larkin to greater heights and I received my own major thrill, proudly seeing him on stage with other key crew members as the Academy Award for Best Picture was awarded,” said Cheryll.

From all of us back here at Seattle Academy, congratulations Larkin on this exceptional achievement – and we hope you celebrated with your EEAO family last night! 

Larkin lives in Los Angeles with his wife and SAAS alum, Emma Libby (‘02), along with their children.