my top cinematographers
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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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- Producer
Chung-hoon Chung was born on 15 June 1970 in Seoul, South Korea. He is a cinematographer and writer, known for The Handmaiden (2016), Oldboy (2003) and Last Night in Soho (2021).- Cinematographer
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
Bill Pope was born on 19 June 1952 in Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA. He is a cinematographer and director, known for The Matrix (1999), The Jungle Book (2016) and Bound (1996). He is married to Sharon Oreck. They have one child.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Producer
Frank Griebe was born on 28 August 1964 in Hamburg, West Germany. He is a cinematographer and producer, known for Run Lola Run (1998), Cloud Atlas (2012) and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006).- 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
Peter Deming was born in Beirut, Lebanon. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for Mulholland Drive (2001), The Menu (2022) and The Continental (2023).- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Writer
Amir Mokri was born in Iran. He is a cinematographer and writer, known for Man of Steel (2013), Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) and Lord of War (2005). He is married to Winnie Mokri.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Special Effects
Frederick Elmes was born on 4 November 1946 in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, USA. He is a cinematographer, known for The Dead Don't Die (2019), The Night Of (2016) and Paterson (2016).- Cinematographer
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- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
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
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Additional Crew
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
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
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
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Cinematographer
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
- Camera and Electrical Department
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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
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
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
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
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
- Director
- Producer
After studying film and photography at the San Francisco Art Institute, Lance moved to New York to assist photographer/filmmaker Bruce Weber. He began his career as a cinematographer shooting music videos and commercials with close friend and collaborator Spike Jonze. Lance quickly became one of the industry's most sought after cinematographers and shot seminal music videos for directors Michel Gondry, Mark Romanek, Stéphane Sednaoui, and Dayton Faris. In 2001 he won the MTV Music Award for Best Cinematography for Fatboy Slim's Weapon of Choice.
Lance's feature Cinematography debut was Vincent Gallo's cult classic Buffalo 66. His long list of credits include Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (BAFTA nomination for Best Cinematography), Marie Antoinette as well as Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Where the Wild Things Are.
In the late 90's Lance began his transition into directing and in 1998, together with his business partner Jackie Kelman Bisbee, founded the production company Park Pictures. Over the years, he has received 35 Cannes Lions for his work with clients such as Nike, Apple, HP, VW, P&G, Subaru and more. He was nominated Best Commercial Director by the DGA in 2003, 2011, 2012, and 2017. In 2011, Lance's Super Bowl spot for Volkswagen, The Force, became the undisputed highlight of the year's Super Bowl broadcast. The Force was named the best ad of 2011 by AdWeek, Creativity, and YouTube, and consistently ranks on lists of the greatest Super Bowl ads of all time.
His Apple film "Misunderstood" won the 2014 Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial. In 2019 Lance won his second Emmy Award for Nike "Dream Crazy," starring Colin Kaepernick.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Location Management
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).- Cinematographer
- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
Hossein Jafarian was born in 1944 in Tehran. He graduated from University of Tehran's School of Dramatic Arts and began his career working for Iran's state-run television where he shot over 40 documentaries and TV shows before retiring early soon after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He debuted in cinema in 1980, and his skills as a cinematographer were soon recognized with the 1984 film titled Grandfather (1986), which received the Best Picture award at Tehran's Fajr International Film Festival. Since then, he has repeatedly been recognized nationally and internationally for his work with numerous cinematography awards. He was a guest at the 2004 Plus CAMEIMAGE International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography with Crimson Gold (2003) and was nominated for the 'Golden Frog' award in the main competition of the festival in 2009 for his work on About Elly (2009).
He has shot some of Iran's critically acclaimed films including Narges (1992), Through the Olive Trees (1994), The May Lady (1998), and Two Women (1999), all of which have won Best Picture awards at international film festivals. He has worked with some of Iran's most renowned directors including Rakhshan Banietemad, Kiumars Poorahmad, Jafar Panahi, Palme d'Or winner Abbas Kiarostami, and Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi. He is also the author of "Lens: In Photography and Cinematography."- Cinematographer
- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
Mahmoud Kalari was born on April 30, 1951 in Tehran, Iran. After completing photography courses in the United States, he held his first photo exhibition titled "Visit with People Around Us" at Tehran University in 1976. A few years later he became employed by Paris based Sigma Photo News Agency and worked for them for four years. In 1980 he was ranked one of the '15 Best Photographers of the Year' by Time Magazine, and his photos could be seen in French, German, and American magazines. Kalari moved back to Iran and from 1982 to 1984 worked as the supervisor of the Tehran National TV Photography Unit and taught photojournalism at Tehran University as a guest professor.
Kalari started his film career in 1984 as the cinematographer of Frosty Roads (1985) (Frosty Roads) for which he won the Best Cinematography award at Tehran's Fajr International Film Festival. He has shot more than 65 films since then including some of the most critically acclaimed and talked about movies in Iran and internationally. To mention a few: The Lead (1989) (winner of the best cinematography), Reyhaneh (1990) (screened at San Sebastian and Montreal Film Festivals), Nobat e Asheghi (1995) (filmed in Turkey and screened at Cannes Film Festival), "From Karkheh to Rein" (1990) (filmed in Germany and screened at Hamburg and Mannheim Film Festivals), Sara (1993) (screened at San Sebastian, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago Film Festivals) Hello Cinema (1995) (screened at Montreal, Toronto, Los Angeles, New York, and Cannes Film Festivals) Gabbeh (1996) (screened at Cannes, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles and 21 other International Film Festivals around the world, winner of Best Cinematography at Fajr International Film Festival and winner of Fujifilm Motion Picture Award), Leila (1997) (screened at 7 international film festivals and the winner of the best cinematography at Fajr Film Festival), The Pear Tree (1998) (winner of Silver Hugo at Chicago Film Festival and chosen as the Best Motion Picture Photography by the international jury of the Fajr Film Festival), The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) for which Kalari received nominations for Best Cinematography in the Main Competition of Plus CAMEIMAGE International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography, and Offside (2006) (screened at Berlin, New York, and AFI Film Festivals).
Kalari directorial debut is The Cloud and the Rising Sun (1998) on which he was also the writer and cinematographer. It was screened at Montreal and Chicago Film Festivals and won the Best Film award at Argentina Mardel Plata Film Festival.
Kalari was selected as a Jury Panelist for Poland Film Festival both in 1999 and 2000. In 2001, Nant Festival in Paris held a tribute to his work as a photographer and exhibited his photographs. In 2005 he won the best cinematography award for Bab'Aziz: The Prince That Contemplated His Soul (2005), directed by Tunisian-French director Nacer Khemir, from the Tatarstan International Muslim Film Festival. Later, a gallery of his photos shot during the Iranian Revolution of 1979 was opened to the public, and a photo book of his work from that era was published. Kalari's work on the internationally critically acclaimed and Oscar winner film, A Separation (2011), earned him a Silver Frog from Plus CAMEIMAGE International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography in 2011.
He has brought the vision of many great Iranian directors to life, such as Masud Kimiai, Ali Hatami, Dariush Mehrjui, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Tahmineh Milani, Palme d'Or winner Abbas Kiarostami, Oscar nominee Majid Majidi, and Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi. Kalari has had workshops in different cities of Iran and teaches cinematography as he continues to shoot.- Cinematographer
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Cinematographer Natasha Braier was born December 11th, 1974 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where both her parents practiced psychiatry and where she did her first studies including, as a child, dancing.Her family moved to Europe when she was 18, and where she lived in both Spain and England.She completed her degree at that time at the National Film and Television School in London ,and later moved once again, this time to Los Angeles, California, where she has been active in the industry.- Cinematographer
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Christophe Beaucarne was born on 24 September 1965 in Brussels, Belgium. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for Mr. Nobody (2009), The Brand New Testament (2015) and Coco Before Chanel (2009).- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Art Department
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Asghar Rafijam is known for Killing Mad Dogs (2001), The House of Spider (1983) and Maybe Some Other Time (1988).