Michael Slovis

Michael Slovis is an American cinematographer and television director. He is best known for his cinematography on the AMC series Breaking Bad.

Michael Slovis
Slovis at the 2013 Montclair Film Festival
Born	Plainfield, New Jersey, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Cinematographer, television director
Years active	1981–present
Spouse	Maria Slovis
Children	3

Career

Slovis began his professional career in 1981. For many years, he worked as a camera operator on films. He became a cinematographer in 1995, working on the films Party Girl (1995), Half Past Dead (2002), Halloweentown (1998), The Thirteenth Year (1999), and Ready to Run (2000). In 2000, Slovis became a cinematographer on the series Ed, and worked on the series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, New Amsterdam, Fringe, Royal Pains, Rubicon, Running Wilde, Breaking Bad, and Better Call Saul.^[1]

As a director, Slovis made his directorial debut with the 2001 television film Spirit. Later, he directed episodes of Ed, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Rubicon, Breaking Bad, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Hell on Wheels^[1] In 2006, Slovis won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography for a One Hour Series for his work on CSI.^[2]

In 2014, Slovis directed the first two episodes of the fifth season of the HBO series Game of Thrones, titled "The Wars to Come" and "The House of Black and White".^[3] In 2017, he directed episode 3 of the second season of the series Preacher.^[4] Slovis directed the episodes "Thank You", "Something They Need", and "Worth" of The Walking Dead, and returned to the franchise by directing two episodes of the spin-off series The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.^[5][6]

Personal life

Slovis currently resides in Montclair, New Jersey with his wife Maria. They have three children.^[1] He is an alumnus of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts^[7] and holds a BFA in Professional Photographic Illustration from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Filmography

Cinematographer

Film

Short film

Year	Title	Director
1989	Coyote Mountain	Jeffrey W. Mueller
1990	The Burning Ghat	James Rasin

Feature film

Year	Title	Director
1994	Heading Home[a]	Maria Heritier
1995	Party Girl	Daisy von Scherler Mayer
	Malicious	Ian Corson
	Breach of Trust	Charles Wilkinson
1998	Scar City	Ken Sanzel
	Charlie Hoboken	Thomas F. Mazziotti
	The White Raven	Andrew Stevens
1999	Five Aces	David Michael O'Neill
	The 4th Floor	Josh Klausner
2002	Half Past Dead	Don Michael Paul

1. Also credited as co-producer

Direct-to-video

Year	Title	Director
1996	Vibrations	Michael Paseornek
	Crash Dive	Andrew Stevens
2003	The Foreigner	Michael Oblowitz
2005	The Marksman	Marcus Adams

Television

TV movies

Year	Title	Director
1996	Angel Flight Down	Charles Wilkinson
1997	Seduction in a Small Town
	Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story	Steven Hilliard Stern
	Out of Nowhere	Charles Wilkinson
1998	Halloweentown	Duwayne Dunham
1999	The Thirteenth Year
	Michael Landon, the Father I Knew	Michael Landon Jr.
2000	Ready to Run	Duwayne Dunham
2009	Exit 19

TV series

Year	Title	Director	Notes
2004	Ed	Himself	Episode "Pressure Points"
2006-2007	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation		3 episodes
2008	New Amsterdam		7 episodes
2009	Castle	Rob Bowman	Episode "Flowers for Your Grave"
	Fringe	Norberto Barba Brad Anderson Bobby Roth	Episodes "Ability", "Unleashed", "Midnight" and "There's More Than One of Everything"
	Royal Pains	Don Scardino Jace Alexander Constantine Makris	4 episodes
2009-2013	Breaking Bad		48 episodes
2010	Rubicon	Guy Ferland Jeremy Podeswa	2 episodes
	Running Wilde	Alex Hardcastle Jeff Melman Scott Ellis	4 episodes
2012	30 Rock	John Riggi Beth McCarthy-Miller Jeff Richmond Michael Engler Steve Buscemi Claire Cowperthwaite	11 episodes
2014	The Leftovers	Peter Berg	Episode "Pilot"

Director

Year	Title	Director	Executive Producer	Notes
2001	Spirit	Yes	No	TV movie
2004	Ed	Yes	No	Episode "Pressure Points"
2006-2007	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	Yes	No	3 episodes
2010	Rubicon	Yes	No	Episode "Wayward Sons"
2010-2013	Breaking Bad	Yes	No	Episodes "Kafkaesque", "Cornered", "Live Free or Die" and "Confessions"
2011	Hell on Wheels	Yes	No	Episode "Pride, Pomp and Circumstance"
2011-2018	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Yes	No	13 episodes
2012	30 Rock	Yes	No	Episode "Alexis Goodlooking and the Case of the Missing Whisky"
2012-2014	Chicago Fire	Yes	No	4 episodes
2014	Once Upon a Time in Wonderland	Yes	No	Episode "Nothing to Fear"
	Chicago P.D.	Yes	No	Episodes "Stepping Stone" and "At Least It's Justice"
	Gracepoint	Yes	No	Episode 8
2014-2017	Elementary	Yes	No	4 episodes
2015	Game of Thrones	Yes	No	Episodes "The Wars to Come" and "The House of Black and White"
	The Man in the High Castle	Yes	No	Episode "Kindness"
	The Affair	Yes	No	Episode "211"
2015-2018	The Walking Dead	Yes	No	Episodes "Thank You", "Something They Need", "Worth"
2016	The New Yorker Presents	Yes	No	1 episode
	Better Call Saul	Yes	No	Episode "Bali Ha'i"
2016-2018	Preacher	Yes	Yes	7 episodes
2017	The Path	Yes	No	Episodes "The Father and the Son" and "The Red Wall"
2018	The Looming Tower	Yes	No	Episodes "Boys at War" and "The General"
2018-2022	New Amsterdam	Yes	Yes	15 episodes
2022	The Calling	Yes	Yes	Episode "Blameless and Upright"
2024	The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live	Yes	Co-Executive	Episodes "Bye" and "What We"
	The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon	Yes	No	Episodes "L'Invisible" and "Vouloir, C'est Pouvoir"