Great cinematographers
Some of the best cinematographers of the history
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Javier Aguirresarobe was born on 10 October 1948 in Éibar, Guipúzcoa, País Vasco, Spain. He is a cinematographer and director, known for The Road (2009), The Others (2001) and The Sea Inside (2004).- Cinematographer
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Jose Luis Alcaine has a theory that the Frank Borzage movie A Farewell to Arms (1932) after a story by Ernest Hemingway, was the main and total inspiration for Pablo Picasso in the creation of the "Guernica", one of the most important painting of the 20th century. He believes that several images of a sequence of 5 minutes long showing the exodus of countrymen and soldiers on an infernal rainy night was the inspiration of Pablo Picasso. This sequence can be found in the second half of the movie - from minute 51 to minute 56 -. If you search "Jose Luis Alcaine and the Guernica" in the internet you will find the theory very well explained.- Cinematographer
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One of the highest appraised contemporary cinematographers. He was born in Spain but moved to Cuba by age 18 to join his exiled anti-Franco father. In Havana, he founded a cineclub and wrote film reviews. Then, he went on to study in Rome at the Centro Sperimentale. He directed six shorts in Cuba and two in New York. After the 1959 Cuban revolution, he returned and made several documentaries for the Castro-regime. But after two of his shorts (Gente en la playa (1960) and La Tumba Francesca) had been banned, he moved to Paris. There he became the favourite cameraman of Éric Rohmer and François Truffaut. In 1978, he started his impressive Hollywood-career. In his later years, he co-directed two documentaries about the human rights situation in Cuba: Improper Conduct (1984) (about the persecution of gay people) and Nadie escuchaba (1987). He shot several prestigious commercials for Giorgio Armani and Calvin Klein. Nestor Almendros died of cancer.- Cinematographer
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Álex Catalán began his professional career 35 years ago as a press photographer. He attended film schools in Madrid, London, Los Angeles and La Habana and worked for 12 years as camera operator and lighting technician for TVE (Spain National Broadcasting Company).
From 2000 on, he focused on professional cinematography and has shot since then 32 long feature films as director of photography, receiving 8 Goya nominations for After, Unit 7, Marshland, A Perfect Day, 1898, Yuli, While At War and Prison 77.
In 2014 he received the Jury Prize for best cinematography in the 62 edition of the San Sebastian International Film Festival and, in 2015, the Best Cinematography Goya award, both for Marshland.
In 2021 received the RTVA Career Award and, in 2011 and 2015, the CEC Medal, from the Spanish Cinematographic Writers Association for Even the Rain and Marshland, as well as 5 Teo Escamilla Awards for the best technical-artistic contribution, awarded by the Andalusian Cinematographic Writer's Association. In Mexico he won the Best Cinematography Award in the Guadalajara 24th International Film Festival for Camino and, at New York 2013, the Tribeca Film Festival special mention for the cinematography of Unit 7.- Cinematographer
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Gabriel Figueroa was born on 24 April 1907 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was a cinematographer, known for The Pearl (1947), The Young and the Damned (1950) and Maria Candelaria (1944). He died on 27 April 1997 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.- Cinematographer
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Xavi Giménez was born in 1970 in Barcelona, Spain. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for The Machinist (2004), Agora (2009) and Transsiberian (2008).- Cinematographer
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Born in Barcelona in 1981, Edu Grau is one of the youngest members of the American Society of Cinematographers. He is mostly known for his adaptable and beautiful style in very different movies such as A single man, Buried, The gift, Suffragette, Boy Erased, The Way Back and Passing as well as some European art-house like Honor de Cavalleria and Quién te cantará.
Edu (short for Eduard) specialized in Cinematography at ESCAC in Barcelona and the NFTS in London, before making his first feature as a director of photography at 23, Honor de Cavalleria, that was selected in Cannes Film Festival 2006. In 2008 Tom Ford felt in love with his reel and brought him to the US to shoot his big break A Single Man. Edu was 27. The movie, named by Vice one of the ¨30 most beautiful movies of all time¨, changed Edu's career and put him in the Global map of Cinematographers. He has worked since with some of the biggest stars and talents in the planet, with the likes of Nicole Kidman, Ryan Reynolds, Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep, Lady Gaga, Ben Affleck, Emily Blunt, Penelope Cruz, Micheal Fassbender, Tessa Thompson, Rebecca Hall, David Oyelowo, Joel Edgerton, Charlize Theron, Sam Rockwell, Margot Robbie, Ruth Negga and Michelle Williams to name a few.
His range of directors is equally impressive, ranging from art-house cult auteurs like Albert Serra and Carlos Vermut to powerful visual powerhouses like Tom Ford, Gavin O'Connor and Sarah Gavron combined with actors turned directors like Joel Edgerton and Rebecca Hall. Throughout his work, he has shown an impressive capability to adapt to the director's visual language while keeping a strong beautiful style that supports the performance of the actors.
Edu Grau won the Bronze Frog at Camerimage 2011 for his cinematography of Buried, as well as being nominated for the Goya, Gaudí and CECC Awards. He was selected in Competition at Camerimage for his films A single man, Suffragette and A single shot and Animals. He was nominated for a Goya and a Gaudí Award for Quién te cantará, as well as winning the CECC Award in 2019. He combines features films with TV series and commercials.
Passing, his latest film by Rebecca Hall with Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga, Bill Camp and Alexander Skarsgârd premiered in Sundance 2021 and was bought by Netflix, that is planning to release the B&W 4:3 movie in the awards season.- Cinematographer
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Josu Inchaustegui is known for Paradise Hills (2019), Gun City (2018) and The Cold Light of Day (2012).- Cinematographer
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Lubezki began his career in Mexican film and television productions in the late 1980s. His first international production was the 1993 independent film Twenty Bucks (1993), which followed the journey of a single twenty-dollar bill.
Lubezki is a frequent collaborator with fellow Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón. The two have been friends since they were teenagers and attended the same film school at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Together they have worked on six motion pictures: Love in the Time of Hysteria (1991), A Little Princess (1995), Great Expectations (1998), And Your Mother Too (2001), Children of Men (2006), and Gravity (2013). His work with Cuarón on Children of Men (2006), has received universal acclaim. The film utilized a number of new technologies and distinctive techniques. The "roadside ambush" scene was shot in one extended take utilizing a special camera rig invented by Doggicam systems, developed from the company's Power Slide system. For the scene, a vehicle was modified to enable seats to tilt and lower actors out of the way of the camera. The windshield of the car was designed to tilt out of the way to allow camera movement in and out through the front windscreen. A crew of four, including Lubezki, rode on the roof. Children of Men (2006) also features a seven-and-a-half-minute battle sequence composed of roughly five seamless edits.
Lubezki has been nominated for eight Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, winning three, for Gravity (2013), Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), and The Revenant (2015). He is the first cinematographer in history to win three consecutive Academy Awards.- Cinematographer
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Rodrigo Prieto is a Mexican cinematographer. He is best known for Brokeback Mountain (2005), Babel (2006), Argo (2012), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and Silence (2016).
He also worked with Alejandro González Iñárritu on the acclaimed Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), and Biutiful (2010).
Pietro was nominated for two Academy Award for Best Cinematography, first in Brokeback Mountain and later in Silence.- Cinematographer
Kiko de la Rica was born on 6 April 1965 in Bilbao, Vizcaya, País Vasco, Spain. He is a cinematographer, known for Sex and Lucía (2001), Common Wealth (2000) and Blancanieves (2012).- Cinematographer
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Raoul Coutard was born on 16 September 1924 in Paris, France. He was a cinematographer and director, known for Hoa Binh (1970), Alphaville (1965) and Z (1969). He died on 8 November 2016 in Labenne, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France.- Cinematographer
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Although Henri Decaë gained fame as a cinematographer, he actually entered the film industry as an editor and soundman. Serving as a cameraman in the French army during WW II, upon his release he began making documentaries and directing and photographing industrial and commercial films, then in 1947 made his first feature. His documentary background showed in the look of the films he photographed, and he worked often with directors Louis Malle and Claude Chabrol. From those early, gritty films, Decae evolved into one of the premier cinematographers of plush, big-budget extravaganzas.- Cinematographer
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Bruno Delbonnel was born in 1957 in Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France. He is a cinematographer and director, known for The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021), A Very Long Engagement (2004) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013).- Cinematographer
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Tonino Delli Colli was born on 20 November 1922 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was a cinematographer and actor, known for The Name of the Rose (1986), Life Is Beautiful (1997) and Bitter Moon (1992). He was married to Alexandra Delli Colli. He died on 16 August 2005 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Cinematographer
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Gunnar Fischer was born on 18 November 1910 in Ljungby, Sweden. He was a cinematographer and director, known for Wild Strawberries (1957), The Seventh Seal (1957) and Smiles of a Summer Night (1955). He was married to Gull Söderblom. He died on 11 June 2011 in Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden.- Cinematographer
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Karl Freund, an innovative director of photography responsible for development of the three-camera system used to shoot television situation comedies, was born on January 16, 1890, in the Bohemian city of Koeniginhof, then part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire (now known as Dvur Kralove in the Czech Republic). Freund went to work at the age of 15 as a movie projectionist, and by the age of 17, he was a camera operator shooting shot subjects and newsreels. Subsequently, he was employed at Germany's famous UFA Studios during the 1920s, when the German cinema was the most innovative in the world.
At UFA, Freund worked as a cameraman for such illustrious directors as F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang. For Murnau's The Last Laugh (1924) (aka The Last Laugh), screenwriter Carl Mayer worked closely with Freund to develop a scenario that would employ the moving camera that became a hallmark of Weimar German cinema. One of the most beautiful and critically acclaimed silent films, The Last Laugh (1924) is considered the perfect silent by some critics as the images do most of the storytelling, allowing for a minimal amount of inter-titles. The collaborative genius of Murnau, Mayer, and Freund meant that the images communicated the integral part of the narrative, visualizing and elucidating the protagonist's psyche. Freund filmed a drunk scene with the camera secured on his chest, with a battery pack on his back for balance, enabling him to stumble about and produce vertiginous shots suggesting intoxication.
Director Ewald André Dupont gave credit for the innovative camera work on his masterpiece Variety (1925) (aka Variety) to Freund, praising his ingenuity in an article published in The New York Times. Freund was one of the cameramen and the co-writer (with Carl Mayer and director Walter Ruttmann) on Berlin: Symphony of Metropolis (1927) (Berlin: Symphony of a Great City), an artistic documentary that used a hidden camera to capture the people of the city going about their daily lives. Always technically innovative, Freund developed a high-speed film stock to aid his shooting in low-light situations. This film also is hailed as a classic. Other classic German films that Freund shot were The Golem (1920) (aka The Golem) and Lang's Metropolis (1927).
Now possessing an international reputation, Freund emigrated to the U.S. in 1929, where he was employed by the Technicolor Co. to help perfect its color process. Subsequently, he was hired as a cinematographer and director by Universal Studios, where he cut his teeth, uncredited, as a cinematographer on the great anti-war classic All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Universal's first Oscar winner as Best Picture.
Universal's bread and butter in the early 1930s were its horror films, and Freund was involved in the production of several classics. Among his Universal assignments, Freund shot Dracula (1931) and Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), and directed The Mummy (1932). The Mummy (1932) was Freund's first directorial effort, and co-star Zita Johann, who disliked Freund, claimed he was incompetent, which is unfair, seeing as how the film is now considered a classic of its genre. The film uses the undead sorcerer Imhotep's pool with which he can impose his will over the living by spreading some tana leaves on the water, as a visual metaphor for the subconscious. The film is arresting visually due to Freund's cinematic eye that created a sense of "otherness." The film is infused with a dream-like state that seems rooted in the subconscious mind. Freund's other directorial efforts at Universal proved less satisfying.
Moving to MGM, Freund directed just one more motion picture, Mad Love (1935) (aka The Hands of Orlac) a horror classic that utilized the expressionism of his UFA apprenticeship. With the great lighting cameraman Gregg Toland as his director of photography, the collaboration of Freund and Toland created a European sensibility unique for a Hollywood horror film. The compositions of the shots featured arch shapes and utilized the expressive shadows of the best of the European avant-garde films of the 1920s.
But MGM wanted Freund for his genius at camera work. He shot the rooftop numbers for The Great Ziegfeld (1936), another Best Picture Oscar winner, and worked with William H. Daniels, Garbo's favorite cameraman, on "Camille" (1936). He shot Greta Garbo's Conquest (1937) solo, though he never worked with Garbo again. That same year, he was the director of photography on The Good Earth (1937), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography.
Other major MGM pictures he shot were Pride and Prejudice (1940), for which he received an Academy Award nomination, Tortilla Flat (1942), and A Guy Named Joe (1943). He also worked for other studios, shooting Golden Boy (1939) for Columbia. In 1942, he pulled off a rare double: he was nominated for Best Cinematography in both the black and white and color categories, for The Chocolate Soldier (1941) and Blossoms in the Dust (1941), respectively.
One of the last films he shot for MGM was Two Smart People (1946), starring Lucille Ball. In 1947, he moved on to Warner Bros, where he shot the classic Key Largo (1948) for John Huston. His last film as a director of photography was Michael Curtiz' Montana (1950), which starred Gary Cooper.
Always the technical innovator, Freund founded the Photo Research Corp. in 1944, a laboratory for the development of new cinematographic techniques and equipment. His technical work culminated in his receipt of a Class II Technical Award in 1955 from the Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences for the design of a direct-reading light meter. That same year, he had the honor of representing his adopted country at the International Conference on Illumination in Zurich, Switzerland.
It was perhaps inevitable that the technical and innovation-minded Freund would get to work for a brand new visual medium, television. Lucille Ball, whom he had photographed when she was a contract player at MGM, became his boss when he was hired as the director of photography at Desilu Productions, owned by Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz. Desilu hired the great Freund as its owners were determined to shoot the show I Love Lucy (1951) on film rather than produce the show live, as was standard in the early 1950s. Most shows were shot live, while a film of the program was simultaneously shot from a monitor, a process that created a "kinescope." The kinescope would be shown in other time zones on the network's affiliates. Desilu's owners disliked the quality of kinescopes, and needed Freund to come up with a solution to their problem of how to maintain the intimacy of a live show on film.
Freund agreed that the show should be shot on film rather than live, as film enabled thorough planning and allowed for cutting, which was impossible with live TV. Freud knew that film would allow Desilu to eliminate the fluffs which were a staple of early television, and would allow the producers to re-shoot scenes to improve the show, if needed.
I Love Lucy (1951) had to be filmed before an audience to retain the immediacy of a live TV show, which meant that the traditional, time-consuming methods of studio production with one camera would not work. Freund decided to shoot I Love Lucy (1951) with three 35mm Mitchell BNC cameras, one of each to simultaneously shoot long shots, medium shots and close-ups. Thus, the editor would have adequate coverage to create the 22 minutes of footage needed for a half-hour commercial network show.
The then-innovative, now-standard technique of simultaneously shooting a situation comedy with three 35mm cameras cut the production time needed to produce a 22-minute program to one-hour. The cameras were mounted on dollies, with the center camera outfitted with a 40mm wide-angle lens, and the side cameras outfitted with 3- and 4-inch lenses. The resulting shots were edited on a Movieola. A script girl in a booth overlooking the stage cued the camera operators. Due to extensive rehearsal time before the show was shot live, the camera operators had floor marks to guide them, but Freund's system was enabled by the script girl overseeing their actions via a 2-way intercom. The system made the shooting, breaking-down, and setting-up process for the next scenes on the three sets of the I Love Lucy (1951) stage very economical in terms of time, averaging one and one-half minutes between shots.
Freund worked out the lighting during the rehearsal period. Almost all of the lighting was overhead, except for portable fill lights mounted above the matte box on each camera. In Freund's system, there were no lighting changes during shooting, other than the use of a dimming board. Since the lighting was mounted overhead on catwalks, power cables were kept off the floor, which facilitated the dollying that was essential for making the system work fluidly.
Freund's solution to the problem of shooting a show on film economically was to make lighting as uniform as possible, taking advantage of adding highlights whenever possible, since a comedy show required high-key illumination. Due to the high contrast of the tubes in the image pickup systems at the television stations, contrast was a potential problem, as any contrast in the film would be exaggerated upon transmission of the film. To keep the film contrast to what Freund called a "fine medium," the sets were painted in various shades of gray. Props and costumes also were gray to promote a uniformity of color and tone that would not defeat Freund's carefully devised illumination scheme.
In a typical workweek, the I Love Lucy (1951) company engaged in pre-production planning and rehearsals on Monday through Thursday. I Love Lucy (1951) was filmed before a live audience at 8:00 o'clock PM on Friday evenings, and Freund's camera crew worked only on that Friday and the preceding Thursday. Freund, however, attended the Wednesday afternoon rehearsal of the cast to study the movements of the players around the sets, noting the blocking and their entrances and exits, in order to plan his lighting and camera work. Thursday morning at 8:00 o'clock AM, Freund and the gaffers would begin lighting the sets, which typically would be done by noon, the time the camera crew was required to report on set to be briefed on camera movements. Then, Freund would rehearse the camera action in order to make necessary changes in the lighting and the dollying of the cameras.
It was during the Thursday full-crew rehearsal that the cues for the dimmer operator were set, and the floor was marked to indicate the cameras' positions for various shots. For each shot, the focus was pre-measured and noted for each camera position with chalk marks on the stage floor. Another rehearsal was held at 4:30 PM with the full production crew. Though a full-dress rehearsal was held at 7:30 PM, with the attendance of the full crew, the cameras were not brought onto the set. The director would take the opportunity to discuss the plan of the show and solicit input from the cast and crew on how to tighten the show and improve its pacing.
The next call for the entire company was at 1:00 PM on Friday to discuss any major changes that were discussed the previous night. After this meeting, the cameras would be brought out onto the stage, and at 4:30 PM, there would be a final dress rehearsal during which Freund would check his lighting and make any required changes.
After a dinner break, the cast and production crew would hold a "talk through" of the show to solicit further suggestions and solve any remaining problems. At 8:00 PM, the cast and production crew were ready to start filming the show before a live audience. Before shooting, one of the cast or a member of the company had briefed the audience on the filming procedure, emphasizing the need for the audience's reactions to be spontaneous and natural.
Shooting was over in about an hour due to the rapid set-ups and break-downs of the crew, which shot the show in chronological order. Due to the thorough planning and rehearsals, retakes were seldom necessary. Camera operators in Freund's system had to make each take the right way the first time, every time, to keep the system working smoothly, and they did. An average of 7,500 feet of film was shot for each show at a cost that was significantly less than a comparable major studio production.
Freund also served as the cinematographer on the TV series Our Miss Brooks (1952), which was shot at Desilu Studios, and Desilu's own December Bride (1954). It was no accident that Desilu productions turned to Karl Freund to realize their dream of creating a high-quality show on film. Freund had the broadest experience of any cameraman of his stature, starting in silent pictures, and then excelling in both B&W and color in the sound era. With his penchant for technical innovation, he was the ideal man to develop solutions for filming a television show. Freund met the challenge of creating high quality filmed images in a young medium still handicapped by its primitive technology.
Freund became the dean of cinematographers in a new medium, with Desilu's I Love Lucy (1951) and its other shows recognized as the gold standard for TV production. His work ensured the fortunes of Desilu Productions, and the personal fortunes of Desilu owners Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, as he provided them with quality films of each show that could be easily syndicated into perpetuity, whereas the live shows filmed secondarily off of flickering TV monitors as kinescopes could not.
After retiring as a cinematographer, Freund continued his research at the Photo Research Corp. He died on May 3, 1969.- Cinematographer
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Agnès Godard was born on 29 May 1951 in Dun-sur-Auron, Cher, France. She is a cinematographer and production manager, known for Beau Travail (1999), Home (2008) and Wings of Desire (1987).- Cinematographer
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Slawomir Idziak was born on 25 January 1945 in Katowice, Slaskie, Poland. He is a cinematographer and writer, known for Three Colors: Blue (1993), Black Hawk Down (2001) and Gattaca (1997). He was previously married to Maria Gladkowska.- Cinematographer
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Janusz Kaminski is a Polish cinematographer and film director. He has established a partnership with Steven Spielberg, working as a cinematographer on his movies since 1993. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998).
His other film's as an cinematographer includes Amistad (1997), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), Bridge of Spies (2015), The BFG (2016), and Ready Player One (2018).- Cinematographer
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Boris Kaufman, the Oscar-winning cinematographer who shot Jean Vigo's oeuvre and helped introduce a neo-realistic style into American films, was born on August 24, 1897, in Bialystok, Poland, then part of the Russian Empire. The youngest son of librarians, the Soviet directors Denis Kaufman (a.k.a. Dziga Vertov, meaning "Spinning Top") and Mikhail Kaufman were his older brothers. Dziga Vertov was one of the great innovators in Soviet cinema, the father of the agit-prop film, who directed Man with a Movie Camera (1929), and his brother Boris imitated his beloved camera tricks when he shot the documentary À Propos de Nice (1930) for Vigo.
The Kaufmans' parents decided to move to Moscow at the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, and Denis went to school in St. Petersburg. In 1917, Russia experienced two revolutions, one which overthrew the Czar and the later, the "October" Revolution, which overthrew the bourgeois democracy and established the Bolshevik Party as the new rulers of what they called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Denis and his brother Mikhail were enamored of the October Revolution and volunteered their services as filmmakersto the new socialist state.
During the revolutionary period, Kaufman's parents moved back to Poland, which after World War I and the Treaty of Versailles, became independent from the Soviet Union. They took along Boris, who was much younger than his brothers. Poland and the Soviet Union eventually fought a border war, and the young Kaufman's parents sent him to Paris to be educated. Their son Denis, now Dziga Vertov, whose new name connoted the speed of the new medium and of his new life as a revolutionary artist, as well as the revolutions of a film reel, become a cinema philosopher as well as director. Dziga Vertov issued manifestos calling for filmmakers to take a formative role in shaping the new socialist order, replacing "dream films" with movies articulating "Soviet actuality."
Boris Kaufman, who eventually emigrated to France in 1927, later credited his brother Mikhail with his education as a cameraman. "Mikhail taught me cinematography by mail," he told Columbia University Professor Erik Barnouw.
After the Kaufman brothers' parents died, Mikhail had taken on a paternal responsibility for Boris, writing him regularly, and informing him about his film work. Though the brothers never met again after 1917, they did stay in touch via the mails throughout their lives. Boris viewed his brother's films in Paris and was drawn to similar work with Jean Vigo.
A photographer himself, Vigo had acquired a movie camera in order to make films, but he couldn't master it. Vigo had the great luck of meeting and collaborating with Kaufman, who was to evolve into one of the masters of black-and-white cinematography. It was Kaufman who is responsible for the wintry style of L'Atalante (1934), Vigo's sole feature film, as well as the imagery of his other filmed worked, such as Zero for Conduct (1933). As a cinematographer, Kaufman was instrumental in helping Vigo realize his vision on film. The films Kaufman shot for Vigo are both romantic and surreal, infused with a dream-like quality.
Vigo, a consumptive, died of tuberculosis in October 1934, ending their great collaboration that had started with À Propos de Nice (1930), and had continued with the documentary about the swimmer Jean Taris, Taris (1931). The latter documentary featured underwater visuals captured by Kaufman that underscored the dreamy quality of swimming, of being underwater. Vigo and Kaufman enhanced this dreaminess by utilizing slow-motion photography, to serve as correlative for the natural slowing of the body in swimming and to elucidate the glow of skin under water.
The collaborators moved on to fiction with Zero for Conduct (1933), a short film drawn from Vigo's memories of an authoritarian boarding school. The movie influenced the directors of the French New Wave, particularly François Truffaut and his The 400 Blows (1959), and was the inspiration for Lindsay Anderson's If.... (1968). The great classic "L'Atalante" (1934) finished up the collaboration, one of the greatest between a director and a cinematographer. The realization of Vigo's genius would have been unthinkable without Kaufman.
Kaufman shot Lucrezia Borgia (1935) for Abel Gance, but with the passing of Vigo, he temporarily lost his direction. He shot two shorts for the avant-garde director Dimitri Kirsanoff and was the director of photography on four films with director Léo Joannon.
After serving in the French Army during the sitzkrieg and the Battle of France, Kaufman emigrated to Canada as a war refugee. He was hired by John Grierson to be a cameraman for the National Film Board of Canada. Kaufman moved to the United States in 1942, where he eventually became a citizen. Locked out of feature work by the guild system, Kaufman supported himself shooting short subjects and documentaries before Elia Kazan chose him to shoot On the Waterfront (1954). The Kazan film, for which Kaufman won an Academy Award for cinematography, was his first American feature.
Kazan had wanted Kaufman, with his roots in the documentary, as a collaborator as he planned to inject realism on the order of the Italian neo-realists into American film. Kazan, in his autobiography "A Life" says it was his collaboration with Kaufman that taught him that cinematographers were artists in their own right. (Interestingly, being a former Russian/Soviet citizen and the brother of two prominent Soviet directors, Kuafman was under suspicion during the Cold War of communist sympathies. It was likely that his correspondence with his brother in the USSR was read by U.S. intelligence agents. His lack of career progression until Kazan picked him to shoot On the Waterfront (1954) may have been a result of anti-red paranoia. Thus, only someone like Kazan -- one of the few directors, and the most prominent filmmaker to testify as a friendly witness before the Houe Un-American Activities Committee -- having established his anti-communist credentials, could have employed Boris Kaufman during the height of the post-World War II Red Scare. And, of course, the film Kaufman shot for Kazan is a not-so-thinly veiled anti-communist apologia for informing.)
Kaufman also photographed Baby Doll (1956) (for which he received a second Oscar nomination) in B+W and Splendor in the Grass (1961) in color for Kazan. He was the director of photography on Sidney Lumet's first film, 12 Angry Men (1957), and he also shot The Fugitive Kind (1960), Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962) and the gritty The Pawnbroker (1964) for Lumet, all in B+W.
Interestingly, Kaufman shot the landmark nudist film Garden of Eden (1954), which led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision (Excelsior Pictures Corp. v. Regents of University of New York State), in which the majority held that the film was not obscene or indecent, and that nudity was not itself obscene. A decade later, he shot Nobel Prize-winning author Samuel Beckett's sole foray into film, Film (1965), which was directed by Alan Schneider from Beckett's screenplay. These two movies are testimonials to his adventuresome and iconoclastic spirit, rooted in the experimental cinema.
Boris Kaufman retired in 1970, after shooting for Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970) for Otto Preminger. He died on June 24, 1980, in New York, New York.- Cinematographer
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Darius Khondji was born on 21 October 1955 in Tehran, Iran. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for Amour (2012), Se7en (1995) and Delicatessen (1991). He is married to Marianne Khondji. They have three children.- Cinematographer
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Otello Martelli was born on 19 May 1902 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was a cinematographer, known for La Dolce Vita (1960), The Road (1954) and Carne de horca (1953). He died on 20 February 2000 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Cinematographer
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Robby Müller was born on 4 April 1940 in Willemstad, Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles. He was a cinematographer and actor, known for Breaking the Waves (1996), Paris, Texas (1984) and Repo Man (1984). He died on 3 July 2018 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands.- Cinematographer
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Sven Nykvist was considered by many in the industry to be one of the world's greatest cinematographers. During his long career that spanned almost half a century, Nyvist perfected the art of cinematography to its most simple attributes, and he helped give the films he had worked on the simplest and most natural look imaginable. Indeed, Mr. Nykvist prided himself on the simplicity and naturalness of his lighting schemes. Nykvist used light to create mood and, more significantly, to bring out the natural flesh tones in the human face so that the emotion of the scene could be played out on the face without the light becoming intrusive.
Nykvist entered the Swedish film industry when he was 19 and worked his way up to becoming a director of photography. He first worked with the legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman on the film Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), but his collaboration with Bergman began in earnest with The Virgin Spring (1960). From that point on, Nykvist replaced the great Gunnar Fischer as Bergman's cameraman, and the two men started a collaboration that would last for a quarter of a century. The switch from Fischer to Nykvist created a marked difference in the look of Bergman's films. In many respects, it was like the difference between Caravaggio and Rembrandt. Fischer's lighting was a study in light and darkness, while Nykvist preferred a more naturalistic, more subtle approach that in many ways relied on the northern light compositions of the many great Scandinavian painters.
Nykvist's work with Bergman is one of the most glorious collaborations in movie history. Nykvist created a markedly different look for each installment of Bergman's Faith Trilogy. Through a Glass Darkly (1961) had an almost suffocating quality to it, and The Silence (1963) hearkened back to the days of German Expressionism. Winter Light (1963), the middle part of the trilogy, may very well be the most perfect work of Nykvist's repertoire. Having studied the light in a real provincial church carefully, he then recreated the subtle changes in the light as the day went on on a Stockholm sound stage. Indeed, it's hard to believe that the film was shot on a stage and not in a real church in Northern Sweden. For Persona (1966), Nykvist relied heavily on Sweden's famous Midnight Sun. In The Passion of Anna (1969), Nykvist was able to capture the chilly, soggy, and melancholy look of Faro, one of Nykvist's first color films. Both Nykvist and Bergman were both very reluctant to film in color. He created a fascinating study of white and red in Cries & Whispers (1972), for which Nykvist won an Oscar. He won an Oscar again for the last feature-length theatrical film that Bergman made, Fanny and Alexander (1982).
During the late 1970s, Nykvist began making films elsewhere in Europe and in the United States, working for directors such as Louis Malle (Pretty Baby (1978)), Philip Kaufman (The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)), Bob Fosse (Star 80 (1983)), Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle (1993)), Woody Allen (Another Woman (1988), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)), Richard Attenborough (Chaplin (1992)), and fellow Swede Lasse Hallström (What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)). The documentary Ljuset håller mig sällskap (2000) paid homage to Nykvist, although it does not grant us any real secrets about his working methods. Nykvist died in 2006.- Cinematographer
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Carlo Di Palma was born on 17 April 1925 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was a cinematographer and director, known for Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Blow-Up (1966) and Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993). He was married to Adriana Chiesa Di Palma. He died on 9 July 2004 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Cinematographer
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- Camera and Electrical Department
Georgi Rerberg was born on 28 September 1937 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He was a cinematographer and writer, known for Stalker (1979), Mirror (1975) and Zvezdopad (1981). He was married to Valentina Titova. He died on 28 July 1999 in Moscow, Russia.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Pasqualino De Santis was born on 24 April 1927 in Fondi, Lazio, Italy. He was a cinematographer, known for Romeo and Juliet (1968), Death in Venice (1971) and Three Brothers (1981). He died on 23 June 1996 in Lviv, Ukraine.- Cinematographer
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Dante Spinotti was born in Tolmezzo, Udine, in the northeastern Italian Region of Friuli. He began his career at RAI (Italian TV), before that he spent lot of time in Kenia as cinematographer for his uncle. In 1985, producer Dino De Laurentiis offered him a chance to work in USA for the first time with Michael Mann for the feature Manhunter (1986). From that experience, Spinotti became one of the most appreciated cinematographer in Hollywood. His particular vision gives a movie a great sense of reality. Among his works are: The Last of the Mohicans (1992) (Academy Nomination), Heat (1995), L.A. Confidential (1997) (Academy Nomination), The Insider (1999) (Academy Nomination), and Wonder Boys (2000). He married his wife Marcella, and they live in Los Angeles, Rome, and Tolmezzo.- Cinematographer
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Vittorio Storaro, the award-winning cinematographer who won Oscars for "Apocalypse Now (1979)", "Reds (1981)" and "The Last Emperor (1987)". He was born on June 24, 1940 in Rome, where his father was a projectionist at the Lux Film Studio. At the age of 11, he began studying photography at a technical school. He enrolled at C.I.A.C (Italian Cinemagraphic Training Centre) and subsequently continued his education at the state cinematography school Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. When he enrolled at the school at the age of 18, he was one of its youngest students ever.
At the age of 20, he was employed as an assistant cameraman and was promoted to camera operator within a year. Storaro spent several years visiting galleries and studying the works of great painters, writers, musicians and other artists. In 1966, he went back to work as an assistant cameraman on Before the Revolution (1964), one of the first films directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Storaro earned his first credit as a cinematographer in 1968 for "Giovinezza, giovinezza". His third film was "The Spider's Stratagem (1970)" which began his long collaboration with Bertolucci. He also shot "The Conformist (1970)", "Last Tango in Paris (1972)", "Luna (1979)", "The Sheltering Sky (1990)_", "Little Buddha (1993)," for Bertolucci.
He won his first Oscar for the cinematography of "Apocalypse Now (1979)", for which director Francis Ford Coppola gave him free rein to design the visual look of the picture. Storaro originally had been reluctant to take the assignment as he considered Gordon Willis to be Coppola's cinematographer, but Coppola wanted him, possibly because of his having shot "Last Tango in Paris (1972), which had starred Marlon Brando. Brando's performance in the film had been semi-improvised, and Coppola has planned on a similar tack for his scenes in the jungle with Brando's character Colonel Kurtz.
The results of their collaboration were masterful, and he later shot the 3-D short "Captain EO (1986)", the feature films "One from the Heart (1981)" and "Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988)," and the "Life without Zoe" segment of "New York Stories (1989)" for Coppola. He won his second Oscar as the director of photography on Warren Beatty's "Reds (1981)" and subsequently shot "Dick Tracy (1990)" and "Bulworth (1998)" for Beatty He won his third Oscar as the director of photography on Bertolucci's Best Picture Academy Award-winner "The Last Emperor (1987)".
"All great films are a resolution of a conflict between darkness and light," Storaro says. "There is no single right way to express yourself. There are infinite possibilities for the use of light with shadows and colors. The decisions you make about composition, movement and the countless combinations of these and other variables is what makes it an art."
According to Storaro, "Some people will tell you that technology will make it easier for one person to make a movie alone but cinema is not an individual art." Storaro disagrees. "It takes many people to make a movie. You can call them collaborators or co-authors. There is a common intelligence. The cinema never has the reality of a painting or a photograph because you make decisions about what the audience should see, hear and how it is presented to them. You make choices which super-impose your own interpretations of reality."
Storaro believes that, "It is our obligation to defend the audiences' rights to see the images and to hear the sounds the way we have expressed ourselves as artists,".
During the 1970s, the metaphor of cinematography as 'painting with light' took hold. Storaro, however, adds motion to the mix. Cinematography, to the great D.P., is writing with light and motion, the literal translation of the word cinematography, which derives from Greek
"It describes the real meaning of what we are attempting to accomplish," Storaro says. "We are writing stories with light and darkness, motion and colors. It is a language with its own vocabulary and unlimited possibilities for expressing our inner thoughts and feelings."
As a cinematographer, he is highly innovative. He had Rosco International fabricate a series of custom color gels for his lighting, which he used to implement his theories about emotional response to color. The "Storaro Selection" of color gels is available for other cinematographers from Rosco.
He created the "Univision" film system, which is a 35mm format based on film stock with three perforation that provides an aspect ratio of 2:1, which Storaro feels is a good compromise between the 2.35:1 and 1.85:1 wide-screen ratios favored by most filmmakers. Storaro developed the new technology with the intention of 2:1 becoming the universal aspect ratio for both movies and television in the digital age. He first shot the television mini-series "Dune" with the Univision system.
Storaro is the youngest person to receive the American Society of Cinematographer's Lifetime Achievement Award, and only the second recipient after Sven Nykvist not to be a U.S. citizen.- Cinematographer
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Oscar-winning cinematographer Karl Struss was born on November 30, 1886, in New York City. He became a professional photographer after studying photography with Clarence H. White and became part of the group associated with the great photographer Alfred Stieglitz. His photographs, which he characterized as "pictorial" rather than "fashion", were published in leading magazines, including "Harper's Bazaar," "Vanity Fair" and "Vogue."
Struss moved to Los Angeles in 1919 to practice his craft as a still photographer. He subsequently was hired by producer-director Cecil B. DeMille to serve as a cameraman in his second-unit. Along with Charles Rosher, he won the first Oscar ever awarded for cinematography at the first Academy Awards, for photographing Sunrise (1927) for F.W. Murnau. He was nominated for the Academy Award three more times for his cinematography.
In addition to DeMille and Murnau, Struss worked with such greats as Charles Chaplin and D.W. Griffith. After being the director of photography on Mary Pickford's Sparrows (1926), he was the lighting cameraman on her first sound film, Coquette (1929), for which she won a Best Actress Academy Award. He worked with other top stars such as Fredric March, who won an Oscar on the Struss-photographed Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), for which Struss was also Oscar-nominated.
Karl Struss was not only one of the first cinematographers to work in color (he shot in two-strip Technicolor on the original screen version of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)), he also was a pioneer in three-dimensional cinematography in the 1940s and 1950s.
Karl Struss died on December 15, 1981. He was 95 years old.- Cinematographer
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Gökhan Tiryaki was born in Istanbul, Turkey, 1972. He worked for national TV station (TRT) and joined the production of several TV films and documentaries as a cameraman between 1991 and 1996. Since 1996, he has been working as a cinematographer.
Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina), written and directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan and produced by Zeynep Özbatur Atakan, has won three APSAs. Nuri Bilge Ceylan won the Achievement in Directing, Gökhan Tiryaki was presented with the Award for Achievement in Cinematography and producer Zeynep Özbatur Atakan was awarded the Screen International Jury Grand Prize.- Cinematographer
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Hoyte Van Hoytema was born in Horgen, Switzerland. Van Hoytema is a Dutch-Swedish director of photography known for his work on The Fighter (2010), Her (2013), Interstellar (2014), and Dunkirk (2017). Van Hoytema always wanted to be a filmmaker, therefore he wished to attend a film school in The Netherlands, but was rejected twice. After the rejection, Van Hoytema worked in a soap factory, carpentry factory and even played in a band. Hoyte and his brother decided to go to Poland to visit their roots, considering their grandpa was Polish. He eventually went on to attend the Polish film school in Lodz, which has been attended by other notable film makers, with the most notable being Andrzej Wajda, Roman Polanski, and Krzysztof Kieslowski. At the later stages of Hoyte's education at the Lodz film school, Kieslowski was a professor there, who even supervised one of Hoyte's last projects. Hoyte left the Lodz film school early without having received a degree, but with many credentials. He started out with making documentaries. He later met someone who asked him to shoot a very low-budget film in Norway, which he accepted to do. This let Hoyte to film another film in Norway which was led by a a producer who was very active in Sweden. The producer offered Hoyte to work on a television show and another feature film. This started off Hoyte's career. He started to become a notable film maker in Sweden. His film 'Let the right one in' made him more known internationally.- Cinematographer
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Regarded as one of the foremost exponents of cinematic expressionism in the 1920's, Fritz Arno Wagner was trained at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris and began in the film industry working for Pathé Freres in 1910. Within just two years, he was promoted to head Pathé's offices in Vienna, and, subsequently, in Berlin. He briefly worked out of New York in 1913, reporting for Pathé Weekly, then returned to Germany for wartime service in the cavalry. After being invalided out, he progressed from still photographer to 2nd Cameraman. By 1919, he had advanced to full director of photography.
Wagner was noted for his moody, atmospheric lighting. He did outstanding work for the directors F.W. Murnau and Georg Wilhelm Pabst, best exemplified by his chilling, eerily-lit gothic masterpiece Nosferatu (1922), with its shadows and distorted images (the jerky, unsettlingly grotesque movements of Count Orlock -- as played by Max Schreck -- have undoubtedly served to inspire more recent examples of the genre, such as The Ring (2002)). Wagner photographed Arthur Robison's hallucinatory thriller of obsessive jealousy, Warning Shadows (1923), in a similar vein, using mirrors and light effects to convey delusions and subconscious desires. Wagner's career remained prolific during the 1930's. He worked on many more prestige films (to name but a few: Pabst's Westfront 1918 (1930), M (1931), The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), Amphitryon (1935), Two Merry Adventurers (1937)), but the quality of his output began to decline by the mid-1930's under the artistic strictures imposed during the Nazi regime. Post-war, he directed the newsreel "Welt im Bild" and largely confined himself to work as cinematographer on mainstream popular entertainments for DEFA. At age 63, Wagner died as the result of falling from a camera truck.- Cinematographer
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Vadim Yusov was born on 20 April 1929 in Klavdino, Leningrad Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He was a cinematographer and writer, known for Solaris (1972), The Black Monk (1988) and Pasport (1990). He was married to Inna Zelentsova. He died on 23 August 2013 in Moscow, Russia.- Cinematographer
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Along with László Kovács, a fellow student who fled Hungary in 1956, Zsigmond rose to prominence in the 1970s. He is known for his use of natural light and vivid use of color on features such as The Long Goodbye (1973) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).- Camera and Electrical Department
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John Alcott, the Oscar-winning cinematographer best known for his collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick, was born in 1931, in Isleworth, England, the son of movie executive Arthur Alcott, who would become the production controller at Gainsborough Studios during the 1940s.
Alcott began his film career as a clapper boy, the lowest member of a camera crew. By the early 1960s he had worked his way up to focus puller, the #3 position on a camera crew after the lighting cameraman and camera operator. As a focus puller Alcott was responsible for measuring the distances between the camera and the subject being shot, which is critical during traveling shots, and more vitally, he was tasked with adjusting the lens when the camera is following a subject.
By the mid-'60s Alcott was a member of the camera team of master cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth, working on Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). When Unsworth had to leave the project during its two-year-long shoot to meet other commitments, Alcott was elevated to lighting cameraman by Kubrick. Thus began a collaboration that would reach its zenith a decade later with Barry Lyndon (1975). His association with Kubrick propelled him to the top of his craft, in terms of both style and in pushing the technical aspects of the discipline.
Alcott preferred lighting that appeared natural and did not draw attention to itself. His ideas meshed perfectly with those of Kubrick, and the two developed their ideas about "natural" lighting in two landmark films, A Clockwork Orange (1971) and "Barry Lyndon", which incorporated scenes shot entirely by candlelight. The idea of using candlelight solely for illumination was discussed by Alcott and Kubrick after the wrap of "2001" for Kubrick's planned film about the life of Napoleon, but there wasn't a fast-enough lens in existence then.
After a search, Kubrick located three unique 50mm f/0.7 still-camera camera lenses designed by the Zeiss Corporation for use by NASA in its Apollo moon-landing program in order to shoot still pictures in the low light levels of outer space. The lens was 2 f stops faster than the fastest movie camera lens made at the time.
Kubrick tasked Cinema Products Corp. to adapt a standard 35mm non-reflexed Mitchell BNC movie camera so that the camera could accept the lens. The camera was outfitted with a side viewfinder from one of the old Technicolor three-strip cameras that used mirrors rather than prisms (like a modern camera) to show what it "sees", the mirrors providing a much brighter image than did a prism-based single-lens reflex system, which could not obtain enough light to register an image. There was no real problem with parallax, as the viewfinder was mounted close to the lens.
Cinema Products also created two special lenses by mating a 70mm projection lens with the remaining 0.7 Zeiss 50mm lenses. This battery of three lenses allowed Kubrick and Alcott to shoot the indoor scenes using nothing but candlelight. It was a formidable task, as the lenses could not be focused by eye. Metal shields also had to be installed above the sets, which were filmed in actual castles and manor houses in Ireland and England, to keep the heat and smoke from the candles from damaging the ceilings. Fortitously, the shields also reflected the candlelight back into the scene (this approach was later used successfully by lighting cameraman Alwin H. Küchler on the western The Claim (2000), which shot its saloon interiors in very low light). The candles had to be constantly replaced to keep continuity during the scenes, and shooting was hampered by the fact that many of the manor houses were open to the public and the crew had to wait until the intervals between tours to film a scene.
Alcott told "American Cinematographer" in a December 1975 interview that the ultra-fast lens had no depth of field at all. This necessitated the scaling of the lens by doing hand tests. Alcott's focus puller, Douglas Milsome (who would succeed him as Kubrick's cinematographer), used a closed-circuit video camera at a 90-degree angle to the film camera to keep track of the distances to maintain focus. A grid was placed over the TV screen and, by taping the various actors' positions in the set, the distances could be transferred to the TV grid to allow the actors a limited scope of movement during the scene, while keeping in focus.
Alcott won an Academy Award for his work on "Barry Lyndon", which is considered one of the most visually beautiful movies ever made. (Three of Alcott's movies were ranked in the top 20 of "Best Shot" movies in the period after 1950-97 by the American Society of Cinematographers: "2001" at #3, "Barry Lyndon" at #16, and "A Clockwork Orange", for which he won the British Academy Award, at #19.) Alcott realized Kubrick's vision by evoking the paintings of Corot, Gainsborough, and Watteau, creating gorgeous tableaux. It was the aesthetic opposite of the cubism evoked by "A Clockwork Orange",
While shooting what would turn out to be his last film for Kubrick, The Shining (1980), Alcott lit the hotel sets with "practicals" (sources of lighting that are visible on screen as part of the set, such as lighting fixtures). As on "Barry Lyndon", Alcott supplemented the lighting with illumination coming into the set from outside the windows, though the "windows" on "The Shining" were part of a set. The high temperatures (110 degrees Fahrenheit) caused by the 700,000 watts of illumination outside the set's "windows" Alcott used to create the high white effect favored by Kubrick caused the set to burn down.
Alcott, who shot films and TV commercials for other directors in the UK, moved to the US in 1981 in order to obtain more steady work than was possible in the ailing British film industry. His non-Kubrick projects as a cinematographer included three films with director Stuart Cooper and two with Roger Spottiswoode. Alcott could not shoot Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987), which commenced shooting in 1985 and -- like any Kubrick shoot -- would involved a substantial commitment of time, as Alcott was committed to other projects (Kubrick hired Douglas Milsome, who had been Alcott's focus puller on "Barry Lyndon" and "The Shining", to shoot "Jacket"). His non-Kubrick oeuvre was eccentric, and included the Canadian slasher film My Bloody Valentine (1981), but he was able to bring his outstanding visual quality to such movies as Fort Apache the Bronx (1981), The Beastmaster (1982), Under Fire (1983) and Hugh Hudson's Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984).
Alcott suffered a massive heart attack and died on July 28, 1986, in Cannes, France. At the time of his death he was considered one of the film industry's great artist-technicians, someone who through his ability to push back the boundaries of what was technically possible, linked technology to aesthetic needs and contributed to the development of cinema as an art form. His last film, No Way Out (1987), was dedicated to his memory. The British Society of Cinematographers named one of its awards the "BSC John Alcott ARRI Award" in his honor to commemorate his role as a lighting cameraman in the development of film as an art form.- Cinematographer
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Almost universally considered one of the greatest cinematographers of all time, Jack Cardiff was also a notable director. He described his childhood as very happy and his parents as quite loving. They performed in music hall as comedians, so he grew up with the fun that came with their theatrical life in pantomime and vaudeville. His father once worked with Charles Chaplin. His parents did occasional film appearances, and young Jack appeared in some of their films, such as My Son, My Son (1918), at the age of four. He had the lead in Billy's Rose (1922) with his parents playing his character's parents in the film. Jack was a production runner, or what he would call a "general gopher", for The Informer (1929) in which his father appeared. For one scene he was asked by the first assistant cameraman to "follow focus", which he said was his first real brush with photography of any kind, but he claimed that it was the lure of travel that led to him joining a camera department making films in a studio. He had, however, become impressed with the use of light and color in paintings by the age of seven or eight, and described how he watched art directors in theaters painting backdrops setting lights. His friend Ted Moore was also a camera assistant in this period when both worked in a camera department run by Freddie Young, who would also become a legendary cinematographer. He worked for Alfred Hitchcock during the filming of The Skin Game (1931).
By 1936 Cardiff had risen to being a camera operator at Denham Studios when the Technicolor Company hired him on the basis of what he told them in interview about the use of light by master painters. This led to his operating camera for the first Technicolor film shot in Britain, Wings of the Morning (1937). He finally was offered the full position of director of photography by Michael Powell for A Matter of Life and Death (1946), ironically working in B&W for the first time in some sequences. His next assignment was on Black Narcissus (1947), where he acknowledged the influence of painters Vermeer and Caravaggio and their use of shadow. He won the Academy Award for best color cinematography for this film. Jack certainly got to travel when it was decided to shoot The African Queen (1951) on location in the Congo. Errol Flynn offered Jack the chance to direct The Story of William Tell (1953) that would star Flynn. It would have been the second film made in CinemaScope had it been completed, but the production ran out of money part way through filming in Switzerland.
It has been said that Marilyn Monroe requested that Jack photograph The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). Although he had already directed some small productions, he had a critical breakthrough with Sons and Lovers (1960). He continued directing other films through the 1960s, including the commercial hit Dark of the Sun (1968), but for the most part returned to working for other directors as a very sought-after cinematographer in the 1970s and beyond. He continued to work into the new century, almost until his death. He was made an OBE in 2000 and received a lifetime achievement award at the 73rd Academy Awards.- Cinematographer
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Roger Deakins is an English cinematographer best known for his work on the films of the Coen brothers, Sam Mendes, and Denis Villeneuve.
He is a member of both the American and British Society of Cinematographers.
Deakins' first feature film in America as cinematographer was Mountains of the Moon (1990). He began his collaboration with the Coen brothers in 1991 on the film Barton Fink. He received his first major award from the American Society of Cinematographers for his outstanding achievement in cinematography for the internationally praised major motion picture The Shawshank Redemption (1994).
He is also known for his work in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), No Country for Old Men (2007), True Grit (2010), Skyfall (2012), Sicario (2015), and Blade Runner 2049 (2017).
Deakins also worked as one of the visual consultants for Pixar's animated feature WALL-E.
In 2018 he won an Oscar for best cinematographer for his work in Blade Runner 2049.- Cinematographer
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Anthony Dod Mantle was born on 14 April 1955 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK. He is a cinematographer, known for Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Antichrist (2009) and The Last King of Scotland (2006).- Director
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During his last years at school he spent most of his time writing a thesis on 'the future of film' On leaving school he joined Gaumont British Studios at Lime Grove as an apprentice to a stills photographer for a year. He claimed this taught him more about the art of photography than any other form of training could. He then became a clapper boy at B.I.P. Studios at Elstree then moved to British Dominion where he became a a camera assistant. Next was a move to Pinewood and his call up for war duty much of which was spent as a one man film unit based at Aldershot where he learnt more about his craft than about soldering.. After the war he returned to Shepperton Studios to work for Alexander Korda and Powell and Pressburger. He also worked for John Huston on 'Moby Dick' for which he was responsible for all the second unit photography and special effects.- Cinematographer
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Goeffrey Unsworth was one of the great cinematographers of the 20th Century, the winner of two Oscars, five BAFTA awards, and three awards from the British Society of Cinematographers for his work as a director of photography. Born in 1914 in Lancashire, England, Unsworth started in the industry in 1932 at Gaumont-British before joining Technicolor in 1937. He worked as a camera assistant and operator on a many of the most important color movies made in England.
In contrast to the Technicolor aesthetic, when Unsworth became a director of photography (starting in 1946 with the musical The Laughing Lady (1946), he used a somber palette. Moving to Rank at Pinewood Studios, he shot adventure films, comedies, and thrillers in black and white.
His breakthrough into the top ranks of cinematographers was Becket (1964) in 1964, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. He did not get Oscar-nominated for his spectacular work on 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) because Stanley Kubrick generally was given credit for the visual style of the film, but his ability to integrate cinematography and special effects was put to great effect with Superman (1978) (1978). He was in demand for period pieces, winning his first Oscar for Bob Fosse's Cabaret (1972) and his second Oscar posthumously for shooting Roman Polanski's Tess (1979).
Geoffrey Unsworth died in Brittany on the set of "Tess" after suffering a heart attack. He was 64 years old.- Cinematographer
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Freddie Young was a British cinematographer. He is best known for his work on David Lean's films Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965) and Ryan's Daughter (1970), all three of which won him Academy Awards for Best Cinematography.
Young was an cinematographer on 130 films, including Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939), 49th Parallel (1941), Ivanhoe (1952), Lust for Life (1956), The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958), Lord Jim (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967) and Nicholas and Alexandra (1971).
He was also the first British cinematographer to film in CinemaScope.
Young died from natural causes in 1998 at the age of 96.
In 2003, a survey conducted by the International Cinematographers Guild placed Young among the ten most influential cinematographers in history.- Cinematographer
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Christopher Doyle was born on 2 May 1952 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for Paranoid Park (2007), Hero (2002) and 2046 (2004).- Cinematographer
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Ping Bin Lee was born in 1954 in Taiwan. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for In the Mood for Love (2000), The Assassin (2015) and Crosscurrent (2016).- Cinematographer
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Kazuo Miyagawa was born on 25 February 1908 in Kyoto, Japan. He was a cinematographer, known for Yojimbo (1961), Rashomon (1950) and Brother (1960). He was married to Kazuko ?. He died on 7 August 1999 in Tokyo, Japan.- Cinematographer
Yoshio Miyajima was born on 3 February 1910 in Nagono, Japan. He was a cinematographer, known for Harakiri (1962), Kwaidan (1964) and Kanikôsen (1953). He died on 21 February 1998.- Cinematographer
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Asakazu Nakai was born on 29 August 1901 in Kobe, Japan. He was a cinematographer, known for Ran (1985), Stray Dog (1949) and Seven Samurai (1954). He died on 28 February 1988.- Cinematographer
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Xiaoding Zhao is known for House of Flying Daggers (2004), Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) and Shadow (2018).- Cinematographer
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Greig Fraser was born on 3 October 1975 in Melbourne, Australia. He is a cinematographer and producer, known for Dune (2021), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) and Zero Dark Thirty (2012). He is married to Jodie Fried. They have three children.- Cinematographer
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Andrew Lesnie was an Australian cinematographer who frequently worked with Peter Jackson. He did the photography for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies. He also did the photography for Babe, King Kong, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I Am Legend and The Lovely Bones. He passed away in April 2015 due to a heart attack.- Camera and Electrical Department
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John Seale was born on 5 October 1942 in Warwick, Queensland, Australia. He is a cinematographer and director, known for Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), The English Patient (1996) and Witness (1985). He has been married to Louise Seale since 23 September 1967. They have two children.- Cinematographer
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- Producer
Mandy Walker was born in Bundoora, Victoria, Australia. Mandy is a cinematographer and producer, known for Elvis (2022), Mulan (2020) and Australia (2008).- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actress
Ari Wegner was born on 3 May 1984 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She is a cinematographer and actress, known for The Power of the Dog (2021), The Wonder (2022) and Lady Macbeth (2016).- Camera and Electrical Department
- Cinematographer
- Visual Effects
Alex Thomson entered the film industry in 1946. He worked as regular camera operator to Nicolas Roeg in the 1960s before becoming a director of photography in 1968. His career suffered a hiatus in the mid 1970s when he was injured after falling off a camera rostrum on the set of Jesus Christ Superstar (1973). He was nominated for an Oscar in 1982 for his cinematography on Excalibur- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actress
Maryse Alberti is a French cinematographer. She is best known for her work in Velvet Goldmine (1998), The Wrestler (2008), Stone (2010), Creed (2015) and the HBO film My Dinner with Hervé (2018).
She also work as a cinematographer in The Visit (2015).
Alberti work as a cinematographer includes more than 90 titles like feature films, TV movies, and documentaries.- Cinematographer
- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
John A. Alonzo was born on 12 June 1934 in Dallas, Texas, USA. He was a cinematographer and actor, known for Chinatown (1974), The Magnificent Seven (1960) and Star Trek: Generations (1994). He was married to Suzanne L. Heltzel and Jan Murray. He died on 13 March 2001 in Beverly Hills, California, USA.- Cinematographer
- Special Effects
- Editorial Department
The favorite cinematographer of legendary director Alfred Hitchcock began working at Warner Bros. when he was 19 years old. He climbed his way up from camera operator to assistant camera man and eventually took over the Special Photographic Effects unit at Warners on Stage 5 in 1944. He became an expert in forced perspective techniques which were widely in use at the time as cost-saving measures, or on B-pictures. Burks did special effects work on major productions like Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), The Unsuspected (1947) and Key Largo (1948).
In 1949, Burks graduated to becoming a fully-fledged director of photography. His striking black & white work on The Fountainhead (1949) was particularly evocative in showcasing the stark, austere architectural lines of the film's chief protagonist, Howard Roark (Gary Cooper). On the strength of this, and his next film, The Glass Menagerie (1950), Hitchcock hired him to shoot his thriller Strangers on a Train (1951). From this developed one of Hollywood's most inspired collaborations, as well as a close personal friendship.
When his contract at Warner Brothers expired in 1953, Burks followed Hitchcock to Paramount and went on to play an integral part in creating the brooding, tension-laden atmosphere of the director's best work between 1954 and 1964. His range varied from the neo-realist, almost semi-documentary black & white look of The Wrong Man (1956) to the intensely warm and beautiful deep focus VistaVision colour photography of Vertigo (1958). His muted tones matching the claustrophobic setting of Rear Window (1954) stood in sharp contrast to the vibrant, full-hued colours used in the expansive outdoor footage of To Catch a Thief (1955) and North by Northwest (1959).
The experience Burks had gained in forced perspective miniatures in his early days at Warner Brothers, also stood him in good stead on 'Vertigo' (the mission tower), 'North by Northwest' (the Mount Rushmore scenes) and, later, 'The Birds'. Because of his expertise, Burks was often able to contribute ideas to shooting scenes more effectively. He was also an innovator in the application of both telephoto and wide angle lenses as a means to creating a specific mood. The Hitchcock-Burks partnership ended after Marnie (1964), and, under less-inspired directors (except for A Patch of Blue (1965)), his later work inevitably declined in quality. Robert Burks and his wife, Elysabeth, were tragically killed in a fire at their house in May 1968.
Robert Burks won the 1955 Academy Award for Best Colour Photography for 'To Catch a Thief'. He was also nominated for 'Strangers on a Train', 'Rear Window' and 'A Patch of Blue'.- Visual Effects
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- Cinematographer
- Cinematographer
- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
Michael Chapman is an American cinematographer. He is best known for Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The Fugitive (1993), and Primal Fear (1996).
Chapman began his film career as a camera operator before making the leap to cinematographer. As a cinematographer, he became famous for his two collaborations with Martin Scorsese.
He was also cinematographer for the hit remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978).
In 1987, Chapman collaborated again with Martin Scorsese on the 18-minute short film that served as the music video for Michael Jackson: Bad (1987).- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Visual Effects
Stanley Cortez was born Samuel Krantz in New York City, New York, the son of Sarah (Lefkowitz) and Moses/Morris Krantz, Austrian Jewish immigrants. His famous actor brother, born Jacob Krantz, changed his name to Ricardo Cortez in order to acquire a more suitably romantic Hollywood image. Stanley changed his name accordingly. After studies at New York University he embarked on a photographic career, first as assistant to noted portrait photographers Streichan and Bachrach (he designed many of their lavish background sets), then as camera assistant for Pathé Revue and for various Manhattan-based film companies. Grabbing the chance to join Gloria Swanson Productions, Stanley then spent a lengthy apprenticeship in the 1920s and early 1930s learning the intricacies of his craft from such established Hollywood cinematographers as Lee Garmes and Hal Mohr. After moving from studio to studio, either as a camera assistant or shooting screen tests, he was signed to a seven-year contract by Universal in 1936, albeit consigned to its "B" unit. His first film as full director of photography was Four Days Wonder (1936). During World War II, he was assigned to the Army Pictorial Service of the Signals Corps.
Much of his subsequent career was spent on fairly routine and undistinguished second features and it was not until he started working for charismatic filmmakers like Orson Welles and David O. Selznick that he was able to fully develop some of his experimental techniques. One of his low-budget outings, a gothic old-dark-house horror/comedy entitled The Black Cat (1941), rather impressed the genial Mr. Welles who promptly hired him for The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). This was the first of two Cortez films generally regarded as visual masterpieces, with beautiful lighting effects, clever angles and lingering close-ups. Of particular note are the staircase scene and the famous long shot -- via hand-held camera -- of the abandoned mansion. Despite critical plaudits, "Ambersons" was a financial disaster for RKO (it cost $1,1 million and lost $624,000 at the box office) and Cortez was partly blamed for costly delays and extravagant scenes, some 40-50 minutes of which were cut by direct orders from studio boss George Schaefer without consulting either Welles or Cortez. The latter ended up being indirectly censured by receiving lesser assignments. What remained of "Ambersons" has become more appreciated as a sublime visual experience with the passing of time.
The second outstanding Cortez contribution was the chillingly dark, haunting thriller The Night of the Hunter (1955)--a brilliant allegory of good versus evil masterminded by Charles Laughton in his sole directorial effort. Cortez's lighting and use of irises are reminiscent of German expressionist cinema, or, at least, the work of Karl Struss and Charles Rosher on Sunrise (1927). Among many indelible images are the flowing hair of drowned Shelley Winters in the underwater current and the lights flickering across the water in what is an almost surreal nightly landscape.
A third Cortez effort deserving of mention is the superior psychological drama The Three Faces of Eve (1957), his differential lighting for the face of schizophrenic Eve White (Joanne Woodward) effectively contrasting the multiple personalities within her psyche. Sadly, by the end of the decade Cortez's career went into a decline. It continued that way through the 1960s, the quality of his assignments fluctuating wildly between the occasional "A" picture (The Bridge at Remagen (1969)) and Z-grade turkeys like The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966) and The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966).- Cinematographer
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- Actor
Jordan Cronenweth was born on 20 February 1935 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was a cinematographer and actor, known for Blade Runner (1982), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and Altered States (1980). He was married to Carolyn June Ervin. He died on 29 November 1996 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Cinematographer
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
Caleb Deschanel is an American film cinematographer and film/television director. He has been nominated for six Academy Awards, each time in the field of cinematography. The first nomination came in 1983 for the film The Right Stuff (1983). His second was in 1984 for The Natural (1984), the third in 1996 for Fly Away Home (1996), the fourth in 2000 for The Patriot (2000), the fifth for The Passion of the Christ (2004), and the sixth for Never Look Away (2018).
He is the father of actresses Emily Deschanel and Zooey Deschanel.- Cinematographer
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- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Arthur Edeson is an American cinematographer who was a pioneer of his craft. His career spanned four decades and encompassed many films now regarded as classics.
Born in New York in 1891, Edeson first worked as a still photographer. In 1911 he entered the movie business at Eclair Studios, a production unit based in Fort Lee, NJ. There he was employed as an extra and still photographer. He became a cinematographer in 1914 and worked on films starring Clara Kimball Young, a very popular actress of that era whose films are, for the most part, lost. In 1917 Young left New Jersey for California, and so did Edeson.
In 1919 he was one of the 15 cameramen who founded the American Society of Cinematographers. During the 1920s he was hired by actor-producer Douglas Fairbanks for The Three Musketeers (1921) ('Fred Niblo'). Robin Hood (1922) (Allan Dwan) and The Thief of Bagdad (1924) (Raoul Walsh). That last film launched a long relationship between Edeson and Walsh. In 1925 Edeson worked on The Lost World (1925)) (Harry O. Hoyt), the first full-length feature film using the stop-motion animation technique. In 1929 he was cinematographer on In Old Arizona (1928) (Irving Cummings), the first talking picture shot entirely outdoors. Edeson was also one of the first to experiment with the widescreen format on Walsh's The Big Trail (1930). During that period he also worked with Lewis Milestone on the anti-war epic All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Soon afterward he collaborated with James Whale on two technically groundbreaking films: Frankenstein (1931) and The Invisible Man (1933).
In 1936 Edeson was hired at Warner Bros. There he worked notably on the first film directed by John Huston, the classic noir The Maltese Falcon (1941), and re-teamed with Huston on the lesser known Across the Pacific (1942). He was also lenser on the perennial favorite Casablanca (1942) (Michael Curtiz) and later worked with Jean Negulesco, notably on The Mask of Dimitrios (1944) and Three Strangers (1946).
Edeson retired in 1949, putting an end to a distinguished career. He died in California in 1970.- Cinematographer
- Visual Effects
- Camera and Electrical Department
Robert Elswit is an American cinematographer. He is best known for Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), There Will Be Blood (2007), Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), Inherent Vice (2014), and Nightcrawler (2014).
Elswit frequently works with director Paul Thomas Anderson and has worked with George Clooney several times. He shot Clooney's black and white, multiple-Oscar nominated film Good Night, and Good Luck. Notably, Elswit shot the film in color, then converted the film into black and white in post production.
He received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography in 2006 for his work on the movie Good Night, and Good Luck. Two years later, he would again be nominated and this time win the Oscar for Best Cinematography, for his work on There Will Be Blood.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Mauro Fiore was born on 15 November 1964 in Marzi, Calabria, Italy. He is a cinematographer, known for Avatar (2009), Training Day (2001) and The Island (2005). He has been married to Christine Vollmer since 2000. They have three children.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Writer
Ron Fricke is known for Samsara (2011), Baraka (1992) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005).- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Tak Fujimoto was born on 12 July 1939 in San Diego, California, USA. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), The Sixth Sense (1999) and Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977).- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Writer
Born in Tahiti, the son of writer James Norman Hall, author of "Mutiny on the Bounty," Conrad Hall studied filmmaking at USC. He and two classmates formed a production company and sold a project to a local television station. Hall's company branched out into making industrial films and TV commercials. They were hired to shoot location footage for several feature films, including's Disney's The Living Desert (1953). In the early 1960s, Hall was hired as a camera assistant on several features and worked his way up to camera operator. He received his first cinematographer credit in 1965. Hall won acclaim for his rich and complex compositions, especially for In Cold Blood (1967) and won an Academy Award for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). He won two more Oscars, for American Beauty (1999), in 2000, and Road to Perdition (2002).- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Distinguished American cinematographer Ernest Haller started in the industry in 1914 as an actor with Biograph after leaving his first job as a bank clerk. Within one year he discovered his true calling: being on the other side of the camera. By 1920, he had become a full director of photography and would go on to handle prestigious pictures , such as the Samuel Goldwyn-produced Stella Dallas (1925). In 1926, Haller signed with First National and was still there when the studio was absorbed by Warner Brothers in 1930. Despite prolific output, it took him several years to create a reputation, however his breakthrough eventually came with the lavishly produced period drama Jezebel (1938), starring Bette Davis.For this, he received the first of five Academy Award nominations.
It was his work on 'Jezebel' which ultimately prompted David O. Selznick to replace Lee Garmes (with whom he had creative disagreements) with Haller as principal cinematographer for his Technicolour masterpiece, Gone with the Wind (1939). Haller also shot Vivien Leigh's famous first screen test for the role of Scarlett O'Hara. Though his previous work had been almost exclusively in black-and-white, the gamble paid off handsomely, with Haller winning an Academy Award (alongside Ray Rennahan) for Best Colour Cinematography.
Following 'GWTW' , Haller shot some of the best films made at Warner Brothers during the 1940's, his work perfectly suited to the gritty studio look of its product. He was particularly effective with the strong female stars of the company, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis (shooting 14 of her pictures), meticulously balancing make-up and lighting to bringing out their best features. He created an almost expressionistic mood for films like Mildred Pierce (1945) (for which he received another Oscar nomination) and Humoresque (1946). For the remainder of his career, Haller remained at Warners. Even after his contract expired in 1951, he was recalled for special assignments such as Rebel Without a Cause (1955), shot in CinemaScope, and the psychological drama What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), reuniting him once more with Davis and Crawford, albeit this time concerned with photographing them in a decidedly unglamorous fashion. He freelanced during the remainder of the 1960's and was semi-retired when asked by James Goldstone to step in as director of photography for the second pilot of Star Trek (1966), "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Ernest Haller was killed in a car crash in October 1970, aged 74.- Cinematographer
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Winton C. Hoch was born on 31 July 1905 in Storm Lake, Iowa, USA. He was a cinematographer, known for The Quiet Man (1952), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964) and The Searchers (1956). He died on 20 March 1979 in Santa Monica, California, USA.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
A somewhat underrated figure in cinematographic history, Australian-born Robert Krasker handled some of the most memorable films made in Britain after the Second World War. In his youth he attended art classes in Paris and studied photography at the Photohaendler Schule in Dresden. He briefly worked for Paramount in Paris before joining Alexander Korda's London Films at Denham Studios in 1932. As a camera operator, Krasker cut his teeth on Technicolor spectacles like The Four Feathers (1939) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940). From 1942, he worked as director of photography, showing his flair in all photographic media, from the softly lit, subtle black & white of Brief Encounter (1945) to the gaudy 'cartoon colour' pageantry of Henry V (1944).
He adopted a suitably harsher, almost semi-documentary look working with director Carol Reed on Odd Man Out (1947) and The Third Man (1949). Both films are characterised by expressionistic camera angles, chiaroscuro lighting and conspicuous close-ups. Krasker deservedly won an Oscar for his work on 'The Third Man' and went on to shoot the visually glorious Senso (1954) for Luchino Visconti in Italy, in turn followed by one of the best-looking epics of the 50s: El Cid (1961) -- with its famous long shot of the dead hero, riding away tied upright to his horse. Krasker's style of photography went out of fashion with the increasing popularity of the New Wave in the 1960s. Disenchantment, combining with failing health led to his retirement in 1965. One of the great cameramen of cinema's "Golden Age", he deserves to be remembered.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Ellen Kuras was born on 10 July 1959 in New Jersey, USA. She is a cinematographer and director, known for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), The Betrayal (2008) and P.O.V. (1988).- Cinematographer
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- Director
Edward Lachman was born on 31 March 1948 in Morristown, New Jersey, USA. He is a cinematographer and director, known for Far from Heaven (2002), Carol (2015) and Ken Park (2002).- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Cinematographer Andrew Laszlo was born on January 12, 1926 in Papa, Hungary. Laszlo started out as a camera apprentice at the Motion Picture Studios of Budapest when World War II began. Andrew and his family were sent to a Nazi concentration camp; he was the sole member of his family to survive this. Laszlo immigrated to America in 1947 and worked as a freelance still photographer. He was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in the Signal Corps as a combat photographer during the Korean War. After working for a producer of industrial films in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Andrew began to work in television in the mid 50s; he was initially a camera operator for "The Phil Silvers Show" and later a director of photography for the TV series "Naked City" and "Coronet Blue." He shot his first theatrical feature "One Potatoe, Two Potatoe" in 1964. Among the other notable movies Laszlo worked as a cinematographer on are "You're a Big Boy Now," "The Night They Raided Minsky's," "The Out of Towners," "The Warriors" (this was the first of three motion pictures he shot for Walter Hill), "The Funhouse," "First Blood," "Innerspace," and "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier." He received Emmy Award nominations for his work on "Man With a Country" in 1973 and "Shogun" in 1980. Outside of his film and television program work, Laszlo also shot TV commercials for such top advertisers as Kodak, Sprint, Budweiser, Chevrolet, and American Express. Moreover, Andrew wrote several books that include his autobiography "Footnote to History" which was published in 2002. In addition, Laszlo taught cinematography at workshops, seminars, and universities. Andrew died at age 85 at his home in Bozeman, Montana on October 7, 2011; he was survived by his wife Ann; three sons and a daughter; and five grandchildren.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Producer
Matthew Libatique is an American cinematographer. He is best known for his work with director Darren Aronofsky on the films Pi (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000), The Fountain (2006), Black Swan (2010), Noah (2014) and Mother! (2017). He also shot Bradley Cooper's directorial debut film, A Star Is Born (2018).
Libatique also work as an cinematographer in the films Tigerland (2000), Phone Booth (2002), Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010) and Venom (2018).
He has received two Academy Awards nominations for Best Achievement in Cinematography, one for Black Swan and the other for A Star Is Born.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Claudio Miranda was born in March 1965 in Valparaíso, Chile. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for Life of Pi (2012), Top Gun: Maverick (2022) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). He has been married to Kelli Bean since February 2009.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Rachel Morrison is an American cinematographer. She is best known for the films Fruitvale Station (2013), Cake (2014), Dope (2015), Mudbound (2017) and Black Panther (2018).
She began her career working on series and TV movies for a number of networks.
The independent film Palo Alto (2007) marked Morrison's debut as the primary cinematographer on a feature film.
For her work on Mudbound she earned a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, making her the first woman ever recognized in the category.- Cinematographer
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Robert Richardson has won three Academy Awards and earned seven Academy Award nominations for his cinematography. His work on director Oliver Stone's JFK earned him his first Oscar. His second and third came with The Aviator and Hugo directed by Martin Scorsese. These two films also garnered him BAFTA nominations for Best Cinematographer.
Prior to regularly collaborating with well-known directors like Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino, Richardson served an apprenticeship shooting second unit on Repo Man while filming television documentaries for PBS and the BBC. His work in television led Stone to hire Richardson to shoot both Salvador and Platoon. From there, he worked almost exclusively with Stone, filming Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July and The Doors, while occasionally branching out to shoot films like John Sayles' Eight Men Out and City of Hope.
Richardson also shot Stone's Natural Born Killers, Nixon and U-Turn. He then began collaborating with Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. Scorsese chose him as DP on 1999's Bringing Out the Dead, while Tarantino snapped him up for Kill Bill, Vol. 1 and Kill Bill, Vol. 2.
Richardson continued to make his mark as Tarantino's DP on 2012's Django Unchained and 2015's The Hateful Eight, as well as on Ben Affleck's 2016 film Live By Night. He shot Director Andy Serkis's 2017 Breathe starring Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy; 2018's Adrift for Director Balthasar Kormakur starring Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin for STX, and 2018's A Private War for Director Matthew Heineman starring Rosamund Pike. Richardson then shot Tarantino's 2020 hit Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, and 2021's Venom 2 for Sony/Director Andy Serkis.
Recent credits include 2022's Emancipation again with Fuqua for Apple Studios, 2023's Air directed by Ben Affleck for Amazon Studios, and The Equalizer 3 for Director Antoine Fuqua and for Columbia Pictures.- Cinematographer
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- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Harold G. "Hal" Rosson, a cinematographer known for his subtle and imaginative lighting, was born in Genaseo, New York, on August 24, 1895, although some sources cite his birthday as April 6, 1895, or in 1889.
Rosson entered the movie industry in 1908 as an actor at the Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn, New York. Eventually, he quit acting to become an assistant to director of photography Irvin Willat at the Mark Dintenfass Studios. Moving on to the Famous Players Studio in 1912, he served as a "film johnny," or jack-of-all-trades, working as an assistant, extra and handyman, while simultaneously holding down a job as an office boy in a stock brokerage. By 1914, he was employed by a small theater in Brooklyn, where his duties included being the projectionist and manning the ticket booth.
Rosson finally abandoned New York for California in December 1914 and secured employment at Metro Pictures as assistant to both property man Danny Hogan and director of photography Arthur A. Cadwell. He moved back to New York when Metro relocated there, eventually becoming a director of photography in 1915. His first film has been cited as David Harum (1915) for director Allan Dwan (film credits for cinematographers were not inaugurated until 1919, under the influence of the American Society of Cinematographers, which Rosson joined in 1927). As a cinematographer, he also worked for the Kalem Company, Famous Players and Essanay before his career was interrupted by WWI, during which he served in the army.
After being demobilized, he got a job as assistant to cinematographer H. Lyman Broening on The Dark Star (1919), which starred Marion Davies and was shot in Fort Lee, NJ. He became an employee of Davies' production company, Cosmopolitan Productions, which had been set up for her in 1918 by her lover, William Randolph Hearst. In 1920, Rosson was signed by Mary Pickford to shoot movies starring her brother, Jack Pickford.
He eventually rejoined Metro (which in 1924, merged with Goldwyn Studios and then with Louis B. Mayer Productions to become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), where he made his reputation. At MGM he was the lighting cameraman on Red Dust (1932), Red-Headed Woman (1932) and Bombshell (1933), on which his camera work showed off star Jean Harlow's platinum blonde look to maximum advantage. Rosson was married to Harlow for two years, from 1933 to 1935, which was indicative of his high status in the film community. In 1935 he moved to England to work for Alexander Korda's London Film Productions, but eventually he returned to MGM.
Rosson became a noted cinematographer in color, using the skills he had developed shooting in black & white to soften the palette created by the Technicolor process. Due to its need for high light levels, Technicolor often created gaudy images that resembled a child's coloring book. Rosson was able to make the colors more subtle, and was the recipient along with W. Howard Greene of an honorary Academy Award plaque for his color photography on The Garden of Allah (1936) in 1937 (the cinematography category was not split into color and B&W categories until the awards for 1939. The awards for color cinematography made for the 1936, '37, and '38 production years were awarded on the basis of a recommendation of a committee of leading cinematographers that viewed all the color pictures made during the year. For the 1967 awards, the B&W category was eliminated).
Rosson also was hailed for his photography on The Wizard of Oz (1939), for which he received the first of his five Academy Award nominations. When Rosson shot "Oz," he had the aid of two cameramen lent to MGM by Technicolor, and enjoyed the advice of Technicolor consultant Henri Jaffa, whose title was Technicolor Color Director (all early Technicolor films were overseen by a consultant from the company, to ensure that cinematographers and directors didn't use the process in ways Technicolor deemed improper and that violated its aesthetic criteria).
Ironically, four of Rosson's five Oscar nominations for best cinematography were for his B&W work. His B&W cinematography for The Asphalt Jungle (1950), for which he received his fourth Oscar nomination, is noted for creating the stark atmosphere that was central to the story and the overall success of the John Huston picture.
He retired in 1958 after shooting Onionhead (1958) for director Norman Taurog, though he returned to shoot El Dorado (1966) for Howard Hawks. In addition to shooting eight films for Allan Dwan between 1915 and 1929 and The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and The Red Badge of Courage (1951) for John Huston, Rosson also worked many times with directors Josef von Sternberg, Sam Wood, Cecil B. DeMille, W.S. Van Dyke, Howard Hawks, Mervyn LeRoy, Norman Taurog, Fred Zinnemann, and Vincente Minnelli. He shot the "The Trolley Song" number in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) for Minnelli and On the Town (1949) and Singin' in the Rain (1952) for Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen. His most famous collaboration was with director Victor Fleming, starting in 1923 with Dark Secrets (1923) and culminating in 1939 with his work on The Wizard of Oz (1939) (in December 1938, under the direction of producer David O. Selznick, Rosson shot the burning of Atlanta sequence for Gone with the Wind (1939), for which Fleming was credited as the director).
Rosson died on September 6, 1988, in Palm Beach, Florida, well into his 90s. His long life was a fitting cap to a long and productive career.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
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Harris Savides was born on 28 September 1957 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a cinematographer and actor, known for Elephant (2003), Zodiac (2007) and Birth (2004). He was married to Medine Chenet. He died on 9 October 2012 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Cinematographer
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Leon Shamroy, born Leon Shamroyevsky, was an American film cinematographer. He is best known for The Black Swan (1942),Wilson (1944), Leave Her to Heaven (1945), David and Bathsheba (1951), The Robe (1953), Cleopatra (1963), The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965) and Planet of the Apes (1968).
He and Charles Lang share the record for most number of Academy Award nominations for Cinematography. During his five-decade career, he gained eighteen nominations with four wins, sharing the record with Joseph Ruttenberg.
Shamroy died in 1974 at the age of 72.- Cinematographer
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Born in Illinois in 1904, the only child of Jennie and Frank Toland, Gregg and his mother moved to California several years after his parents divorced in 1910. Through Jennie's work as a housekeeper for several people in the movie business, Gregg may had gotten a $12-a-week job at age 15 as an office boy at William Fox Studios. Soon he was making $18 a week as an assistant cameraman. When sound came to movies in 1927, the audible whir of movie cameras became a problem, requiring the cumbersome use of soundproof booths. Toland helped devise a tool which silenced the camera's noise and which allowed the camera to move about more freely. In 1931, Toland received his first solo credit for the Eddie Cantor comedy, "Palmy Days." In 1939 he earned his first Oscar for his work on William Wyler's "Wuthering Heights." In the following year he sought out Orson Welles who then hired him to photograph "Citizen Kane." (Toland was said to have protected the inexperienced Welles from potential embarrassment by conferring with him in private about technical matters rather than bringing these up in front of the assembled cast and crew.) For "Kane" Toland used a method which became known as "deep focus" because it showed background objects as clearly as foreground objects. (Film theorist Andre Bazin said that Toland brought democracy to film-making by allowing viewers to discover what was interesting to them in a scene rather than having this choice dictated by the director.) Toland quickly became the highest paid cinematographer in the business, earning as much as $200,000 over a three year period. He also became perhaps the first cinematographer to receive prominent billing in the opening credits, rather than being relegated to a card containing seven or more other names. Tragically, Toland's career was cut short in 1948 by his untimely death at age 44. Toland had a daughter, Lothian, by his second wife and two sons, Gregg jr. and Timothy, by his third. Lothian became the wife of comic Red Skelton.- Cinematographer
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John Toll is an American cinematographer. His filmography spans a wide variety of genres, including epic period drama, comedy, science fiction, and contemporary drama. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography in both 1994 and 1995 for Legends of the Fall and Braveheart respectively.
He has collaborated with several noteworthy directors, including Francis Ford Coppola, Edward Zwick, Terrence Malick, Mel Gibson, John Madden, The Wachowskis, and Ang Lee. Outside of film, he has shot several commercials, the pilot episode of Golden Globe-winning drama series Breaking Bad, and has served as chief cinematographer on the Netflix original series Sense8.
Toll was also nominated for an Academy Award for his work on The Thin Red Line (1998).- Cinematographer
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Two-time Academy Award-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler was adjudged one of the ten most influential cinematographers in movie history, according to an International Cinematographers Guild survey of its membership. He won his Oscars in both black & white and color, for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) (1966) and Bound for Glory (1976) (1976). He also shot part of Days of Heaven (1978) (1978), for which credited director of photography Nestor Almendros -- won a Best Cinematography Oscar that Wexler initially felt should have been jointly shared by both. Later he admitted he was just finishing the work of Almendros and when Bert Schneider offer him more credit in the Criterion Dvd release of the film, he turned down the offer. In 1993, Wexler was awarded a Lifetime Achivement award by the cinematographer's guild, the American Society of Cinematographers. He received five Oscar nominations for his cinematography, in total, plus one Emmy Award in a career that has spanned six decades.
In addition to his masterful cinematography, Wexler directed the seminal late Sixties film Medium Cool (1969) and has directed and/or shot many documentaries that display his progressive political views. He was the subject of a 2004 documentary shot by his son Mark Wexler, Tell Them Who You Are (2004).- Cinematographer
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Gordon Willis was an American cinematographer. He's best known for his work on Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather films, as well asWoody Allen's Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979).
His work on the first two Godfather films turned out to be groundbreaking in its use of low-light photography and underexposed film, as well as in his control of lighting and exposure to create the sepia tones that denoted period scenes in The Godfather Part II (1974).
In the seven-year period up to 1977, Willis was the director of photography on six films that received among them 39 Academy Award nominations, winning 19 times, including three awards for Best Picture. During this time he did not receive a single nomination for Best Cinematography.
He directed one film of his own, Windows (1980). His last film as a cinematographer was The Devil's Own (1997), directed by Alan J. Pakula.
Willis died of cancer on May 18, 2014, ten days before his 83rd birthday, at the age of 82.- Cinematographer
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Robert D. Yeoman was born on 10 March 1951 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Asteroid City (2023) and Moonrise Kingdom (2012).- Cinematographer
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Bradford Young is an American cinematographer. His feature films as director of photography include White Lies, Black Sheep (2007), Pariah (2011), Restless City (2011), Middle of Nowhere (2012), Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013), Mother of George (2013), and Arrival (2016).
In January 2017, Young became the first African-American cinematographer to be nominated for an Academy Award, for his work on Arrival. He is also the first person of color to be nominated in the Academy Award cinematography category since 1998 when Remi Adefarasin was nominated for Elizabeth.- Cinematographer
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Jeff Cronenweth was born on 14 January 1962 in Los Angeles County, California, USA. He is a cinematographer and director, known for Gone Girl (2014), The Social Network (2010) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011).- Cinematographer
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Cinematographer Russell Metty, a superb craftsman who worked with such top directors as John Huston, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg and Orson Welles, was born in Los Angeles on September 20, 1906. Entering the movie industry as a lab assistant, he apprenticed as an assistant cameraman and graduated to lighting cameraman at RKO Radio Pictures in 1935. Metty's ability to create effects with black-and-white contrast while shooting twilight and night were on display in two films he shot for Welles, The Stranger (1946) and the classic Touch of Evil (1958), the latter showing his mastery of complex crane shots. (Metty shot additional scenes for Welles' second masterpiece, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), whose lighting cameraman was Stanley Cortez but had the look of Citizen Kane (1941), which was shot by Gregg Toland). At Universal in the 1950s, he enjoyed a productive collaboration with director Douglas Sirk on ten films from 1953-59, including Sirk's masterpieces Magnificent Obsession (1954) and Imitation of Life (1959), a remake of the 1934 classic (Imitation of Life (1934)). However, his collaboration with Kubrick on Spartacus (1960) proved troublesome.
A union cinematographer himself who had been an accomplished professional photographer, Kubrick exerted control over the look of his films. Kubrick gave far less leeway to his directors of photography than did traditional directors, even directors such as Welles and noted bizarre-camera-angle freak Sidney J. Furie (The Appaloosa (1966)), men who were extraordinarily active partners in crafting the look of their films. Kubrick was not deferential to his directors of photography, even to such top cameramen as Lucien Ballard and future Academy Award winners Oswald Morris and Geoffrey Unsworth. Metty and Kubrick clashed over the filming of "Spartacus," as Kubrick--with his extraordinary sense of light and effect--considered himself to be the director of photography on the film.
Ironically, it was "Spartacus" that won Metty his sole Academy Award, for color cinematography (he received his second nomination for the color cinematography on Flower Drum Song (1961)). Metty continued to work on top productions into the 1970s, including The Misfits (1961), That Touch of Mink (1962), Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), Madigan (1968), and The Omega Man (1971). Metty also worked extensively on television, including Columbo (1971) and The Waltons (1972).
Russell Metty died on April 28, 1978, in Canoga Park, California. He was 71 years old.- Cinematographer
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Bill Butler was born on 7 April 1921 in Cripple Creek, Colorado, USA. He was a cinematographer, known for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Jaws (1975) and Grease (1978). He was married to Iris Butler and Alma Hortense Smith. He died on 5 April 2023 in Los Angeles, California, USA.