Sandi Sissel | |
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Born | August 9, 1949 |
Alma mater | University of Wisconsin |
Occupation |
Sandra "Sandi" Sue Sissel (born August 9, 1949) [1] is an American cinematographer, director and producer. Her interest in photography was apparent as early as high school, where she was a photojournalist for her school paper. [2] She is best known for documentaries such as Chicken Ranch, The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition [3] , andMother Teresa (1986) as well as TV shows like 60 Minutes, and feature films like Salaam Bombay! , Master and Commander Far Side of the World [4] and Mr. and Mrs. Smith . [1] She has been a member of the American Society of Cinematographers since 1994, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences [5] since 2004, and the Australian Cinematographers Society [6] since 2017.
She started college in 1967. She pursued her interests and desire to become a reporter by studying journalism and television. [2] While she still wanted to pursue journalism, she did contribute to a few small films during her time in college. After completing this degree, she moved to Wisconsin where she pursued a graduate degree and filmed for the University of Wisconsin. [2] After this she moved to New York City, where she soon got a job with both NBC and later ABC. [2] During this time, she contributed as cinematographer for "The Wobblies" and assisted in camera or electrical work for Best Boy, Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang, Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists, Fame , No Nukes and "Rush". [2] After working for ABC for a few years, she eventually decided to pursue a career that focused primarily on cinematography for documentaries and feature films [2] in Los Angeles. In her pursuit of this career she has gained a great deal of respect from her colleagues as a female working behind the camera. She taught "Advanced Cinematography Techniques" and "Advanced Cinematography Practicum" at Tisch School of the Arts. [5] from 2001 until 2015. Sissel adopted Raju Barnad (now known as Bernard Chamblis Sissel), one of the real-life street children who was cast in Salaam Bombay! [7] In 2005 she married Kelly Drummond Cawthon with whom she has two children Joshua Cawthon and Jack Thomas Cawthon.
Sandi is best known for her work as a cinematographer. She has a very impressive filmography that includes many well known, important documentaries. Her interest in being behind the camera may have originated from her father's career as a photographer during her childhood. [2]
Sandi has had experience teaching at the University of Wisconsin, [1] and Tisch School of the Arts. [5] In both cases she has taught film related classes.
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Mira Nair is an Indian born-American filmmaker based in New York City. Her production company, Mirabai Films, specializes in films for international audiences on Indian society, whether in the economic, social or cultural spheres. Among her best known films are Mississippi Masala, Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, The Namesake, the Golden Lion winning Monsoon Wedding, and Salaam Bombay!, which received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language.
James Francis "Frank" Hurley was an Australian photographer and adventurer. He participated in a number of expeditions to Antarctica and served as an official photographer with Australian forces during both world wars.
Visions of Light is a 1992 documentary film directed by Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy and Stuart Samuels. The film is also known as Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography.
George Tyssen Butler was a British filmmaker and photographer, and a pioneer of the theatrical documentary. Some of his most popular films include Pumping Iron (1977), which introduced a wider audience to Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Endurance films, retelling Sir Ernest Shackleton’s saga of Antarctic survival, and Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry (2004), about his friend John Kerry's leadership in the peace movement.
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. After Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition in 1911, this crossing remained, in Shackleton's words, the "one great main object of Antarctic journeyings". Shackleton's expedition failed to accomplish this objective, but became recognized instead as an epic feat of endurance.
Endurance was the three-masted barquentine in which Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men sailed for the Antarctic on the 1914–1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The ship, originally named Polaris, was built at Framnæs shipyard and launched in 1912 from Sandefjord in Norway. After her commissioners could no longer pay the shipyard, the ship was bought by Shackleton in January 1914 for the expedition, which would be her first voyage. A year later, she became trapped in pack ice and finally sank in the Weddell Sea off Antarctica on 21 November 1915. All of the crew survived her sinking and were eventually rescued in 1916 after using the ship's boats to travel to Elephant Island and Shackleton, the ship's captain Frank Worsley, and four others made a voyage to seek help.
HMS Endurance was a Royal Navy ice patrol vessel that served from 1967 to 1991. She came to public notice when she was involved in the Falklands War of 1982. The final surrender of the war, in the South Sandwich Islands, took place aboard Endurance.
Endurance is the act of sustaining prolonged stressful effort.
John Robert Francis Wild, known as Frank Wild, was an English sailor and explorer. He participated in five expeditions to Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal with four bars, one of only two men to be so honoured, the other being Ernest Joyce.
The Endurance is a 2000 documentary film directed by George Butler about Ernest Shackleton's legendary Antarctic expedition in 1914. It is based on the book of the same name. Endurance was the name of the ship of Shackleton's expedition. Butler followed it up the next year with another documentary about Shackleton's expedition titled Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure.
Mrs Chippy was a male ship's cat who accompanied Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917.
Henry McNish, often referred to as Harry McNish or by the nickname Chippy, was the carpenter on Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917. He was responsible for much of the work that ensured the crew's survival after their ship, the Endurance, was destroyed when it became trapped in pack ice in the Weddell Sea. He modified the small boat, James Caird, that allowed Shackleton and five men to make a voyage of hundreds of miles to fetch help for the rest of the crew.
Leanne Pooley ONZM is a Canadian filmmaker based in Auckland, New Zealand. Pooley was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, she immigrated to New Zealand in the mid-1980s and began working in the New Zealand television and film industry before moving to England where she worked for many of the world's top broadcasters. She returned to New Zealand in 1997 and started the production company Spacific Films. Her career spans more than 25 years and she has won numerous international awards. Leanne Pooley was made a New Zealand Arts Laureate in 2011 and an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year's Honours List 2017. She is a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure is an IMAX film about the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton between 1914 and 1917. Directed by George Butler, the film was released in February 2001 and was narrated by Kevin Spacey. It documents Shackleton's journey aboard the Endurance and was the follow-up to Butler's previous film, The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition.
Maryse Alberti is a French cinematographer who mainly works in the United States on independent fiction films and vérité, observational documentaries. Alberti has won awards from the Sundance Film Festival and the Spirit Awards. She was the first contemporary female cinematographer featured on the cover of American Cinematographer for her work on Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine.
Svetlana Cvetko is an American cinematographer and film director. She was the cinematographer of the documentary films Inside Job (2010), Facing Fear (2010), and Inequality For All (2013).
Joan Hutton is a Canadian cinematographer, with work featured in over 36 films. She is best known for her work in Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows (1998), The Famine Within (1990), The Spring and Fall of Nina Polanski (1974) and the TV series The Newsroom. Hutton was the first female president of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers, and the first woman to be given the ability to place 'csc' after her name, which represents being a full member.
Rampart Berg was an iceberg discovered by the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1915, estimated by Frank Worsley to have been 1150 feet tall, with a thousand feet of that below the sea. According to expedition photographer Frank Hurley, the berg’s prominence throughout the months in which they were stuck in the ice caused the members of the expedition “to look upon it as an old friend”.
Judy Irola was an American cinematographer, film producer, and director. The third woman accepted into the American Society of Cinematographers, she was a head of the cinematography department at USC School of Cinematic Arts for 15 years and held the Conrad Hall Chair in Cinematography there. She co-founded a National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians branch in San Francisco in 1969, and was a founding member of the short-lived Cine Manifest film collective in 1972.