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Robert Elswit
American cinematographer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Robert Christopher Elswit, ASC (born April 22, 1950) is an American cinematographer.
He has collaborated with Paul Thomas Anderson from 1996 to 2014, winning the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for There Will Be Blood.[2]
Elswit has also collaborated with directors and screenwriters Tony and Dan Gilroy on all of the six films that either brother directed.
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Early life
Elswit was born in Los Angeles.[3]
He is a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and worked there as a teaching assistant.
Elswit is also the godfather to the actor Jake Gyllenhaal.[4]
Career
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An early short film he worked on was the 1982 television adaptation of Ray Bradbury's short story All Summer in a Day.
He worked as a visual effects camera operator at John Dykstra's Apogee Productions Inc. on each film, including Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Empire Strikes Back and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,[5][6] before shooting made-for-television films and shows.
Elswit has been a fierce defender of shooting on film, and whenever possible avoids using digital cameras. Images shot digitally, he said, have "no texture, no grain",[7] though he started shooting digitally with Nightcrawler.
He shot his black and white, Oscar nominated film Good Night, and Good Luck. He first shot the film in color, and then converted the film into black and white in post production. According to Elswit, the technique preserved the subtlety of the colors (as complex shades of blacks and greys) and made the overall look much richer in the final film.[8] His work on the film earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, but lost to Dion Beebe for Memoirs of a Geisha.
Elswit later won the award for There Will Be Blood in 2008.[9]
He has cited early independent filmmaker John Cassavetes as a major influence.[10]
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Filmography
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Television
TV movies
Feature film
| † | Denotes films that have not yet been released |
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Accolades
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American Society of Cinematographers
Boston Society of Film Critics
British Society of Cinematographers
Chicago Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
National Society of Film Critics
San Diego Film Critics Society
St. Louis Film Critics Association
Other awards
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References
External links
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