Wally Pfister - Biography, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Filmography (Read)
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Wally Pfister - Biography, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Filmography
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Wally Pfister - biography, date of birth, place of birth, filmography, clips, Operator, Director, Producer.
Born July 8, 1961, Chicago, Illinois is an American camera operator, director, and producer.
His grandfather was the editor of a city newspaper in Wisconsin. His father was a TV news producer who began his career on the Chicago channel CBS-TV in 1955. He later worked with TV presenters David Brinkley and Peter Jennings, creating programs on political conventions, space travel and African American rights movements.
When Pfister was about 11 years old, the action movie Shamus (1973) with Burt Reynolds was filmed near his house. The boy was fascinated by lighting fixtures and movie cameras. Soon, he himself begins to shoot home videos and short films. Pfister imitates his father by making slides on Kodachrome film, inviting family and friends to small shows.
After graduating from high school, Pfister is hired as an assistant at a television station in Salisbury, Maryland. A couple of months later, using the CP16 news camera, he starts shooting short films on weekends, including doing a visual essay about a Victorian home. “I took small, slow steps around the complex architecture of the house,” he recalls, “after editing it with music, I showed the video to the executive. He made me an operator. I got $ 125 a week. "
Pfister later finds work as a cameraman for the Washington City news service. He reports on the U.S. Congress, the White House, and news specials from 1982 to 1985. Since 1985, Pfister has been involved in filming PBS's Frontline documentaries and production videos for various industrial companies in Washington.
In 1988, Robert Altman comes to Washington to do the HBO miniseries Tanner 88 (1988). Altman was looking for a real news cameraman so that he could film the scene of the show realistically. He hired him and asked him to do some documentaries and interviews. When the producers saw his work, they approved Pfister as the second cameraman to record this show. This was his first experience in a feature film.
After that, Pfister entered the American Film Institute. During his second year, he made a short film about an anti-apartheid fighter. He drew on his experience, lighting the set so darkly and harshly, using only one spotlight, that the actor can leave the frame without problems for the picture.
In the same year, Janusz Kaminski, who had just graduated from the same institute, met him. He hired him as an assistant and electrician for his projects, as he knew his work. At the same time, Kaminski hired cameraman Fidon Papamaikle, with whom Pfister also collaborated.
Roger Corman gave Pfister the opportunity to shoot shots and cut-ins for the films Papamichael was working on. This was his first experience with 35mm film. In particular, he was the second director of photography for Papamaicle on the "Body Chemistry" project, as well as on other films by Corman.
In 1991, Wally Pfister made his first feature-length feature film, making his debut as director of photography for The Unborn Child. After that, he directed several more horror films.
In 1998, Pfister filmed Twist of Fate in Montana, which entered the main competition at the Sundance Film Festival. There he met Nolan, whose film was also presented at this screening.
Their first collaboration was the noir thriller Remember (2000). After it became clear that the collaboration was successful, Pfister worked as a director of photography and in subsequent works of Nolan: "Insomnia" (2002), "Batman Begins" (2005), "Prestige" (2006), "The Dark Knight" ( 2008), which he partly shot with IMAX cameras, Inception (2010) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
Wally Pfister said that he "refused to participate in the adaptation of the Harry Potter books in order to work with Chris."
As of 2015, Pfister is the only cinematographer Christopher Nolan has worked with (with the exception of The Pursuit (1998), in which he himself was a cinematographer, and Interstellar (2015)).
