Steven Barry Poster, A.S.C, I.C.G. (born 1 March 1944) is an American cinematographer [1] and photographer [2] who is the former President of the International Cinematographers Guild. [3] [4] [5] He is best known for his collaborations with Richard Kelly, including the director's 2001 cult classic Donnie Darko.
Poster began his career as a creative assistant at 'The Film Group,' a commercial film production company based in Chicago, Illinois. After being promoted to director of photography due to his skill at lighting, he met Herschell Gordon Lewis and worked with him in various crew positions on a total of three films. [1] Poster founded a production company with director Michael Mann and served as the cinematographer on numerous industrial and education films. [1] He served as the second-unit director of photography on Close Encounters of the Third Kind . Poster joined the American Society of Cinematographers in 1987, relocating to Hollywood in the process. He shot the iconic music video to Madonna's "Like a Prayer", as well as commercials directed by Ridley Scott and Kinka Usher. In 1988, he was nominated for the ASC Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatrical Releases for his work on Someone to Watch Over Me. Poster served as the President of the ASC between 2002-2003. In 2006, he received an Emmy nomination for Mrs. Harris . [6] That same year, he was elected as the National President of the International Cinematographers Guild, a position he held until 2019. [3]
Documentary films
Year | Title | Director |
---|---|---|
2001 | The Oscar Legacy | David Haugland |
2015 | Tap World | Dean Hargrove |
2020 | For Madmen Only: The Stories of Del Close | Heather Ross |
TV series
Year | Title | Director | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1978 | What Really Happened to the Class of '65? | James Sheldon | Episode "Mr. Potential" |
1987 | I'll Take Manhattan | Richard Michaels Douglas Hickox | 2 episodes; shared credit with Larry Pizer |
1998 | American Experience | Richard P. Rogers | Episode "A Midwife's Tale" |
2006 | The Loop | Betty Thomas | Episode "Pilot" |
2007-2012 | Craft in America | Carol Sauvion Daniel Seeger Nigel Noble Hilary Birmingham | 8 episodes |
2008 | Raising the Bar | Jesse Bochco | Episode "Pilot" |
2013 | Hemlock Grove | Eli Roth | Episode "Jellyfish in the Sky" |
2020 | Cine Chalom | Yossi Benavraham | Episode "EXTRAIT DU FILM "INCASSABLE" DE M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN... 2000" |
TV movies
Year | Title | Director | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1978 | The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank | Robert Day | |
1979 | The Night Rider | Hy Averback | |
Beggarman, Thief | Lawrence Doheny | ||
1981 | Coward of the County | Dick Lowry | |
1982 | Mysterious Two | Gary Sherman | |
1983 | The Cradle Will Fall | John Llewellyn Moxey | |
1986 | Courage | Jeremy Kagan | |
1990 | Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Special | John Landis | Documentary |
1992 | The Bat, the Cat and the Penguin | Michael Meadows John Pattyson | |
1994 | Roswell | Jeremy Kagan | |
1995 | Present Tense, Past Perfect | Richard Dreyfuss | |
1996 | Once You Meet a Stranger | Tommy Lee Wallace | |
1997 | Color of Justice | Jeremy Kagan | |
2005 | Mrs. Harris | Phyllis Nagy | Nominated- Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography |
2006 | The Danny Comden Project | Robert Duncan McNeill | |
2013 | Gutsy Frog | Mark A.Z. Dippé | |
2021 | The Miles Davis Documentary | Christopher Wilkinson | Documentary film |
The cinematographer or director of photography is the person responsible for the recording of a film, television production, music video or other live action piece. The cinematographer is the chief of the camera and light crews working on such projects and would normally be responsible for making artistic and technical decisions related to the image and for selecting the camera, film stock, lenses, filters, etc. The study and practice of this field is referred to as cinematography.
Janusz Zygmunt Kamiński is a Polish cinematographer and director of film and television. He has established a partnership with Steven Spielberg, working as a cinematographer on his films since 1993. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Spielberg's holocaust drama Schindler's List and World War II epic Saving Private Ryan (1998). He has also received Academy Award nominations for Amistad (1997), The Diving Bell & the Butterfly (2007) War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), and West Side Story (2021). He has also received nominations for five BAFTA Awards, and six American Society of Cinematographers Awards.
The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), founded in Hollywood in 1919, is a cultural, educational, and professional organization that is neither a labor union nor a guild. The society was organized to advance the science and art of cinematography and gather a wide range of cinematographers to discuss techniques and ideas and to advocate for motion pictures as a type of art form. Currently, the president of the ASC is Stephen Lighthill.
László KovácsASC was a Hungarian-American cinematographer who was influential in the development of American New Wave films in the 1970s, collaborating with directors including Peter Bogdanovich, Richard Rush, Dennis Hopper, Norman Jewison, and Martin Scorsese. Known for his work on Easy Rider (1969) and Five Easy Pieces (1970), Kovács was the recipient of numerous awards, including three Lifetime Achievement Awards. He was an active member of the American Society of Cinematographers and was a member of the organization's board of directors.
Haskell Wexler, ASC was an American cinematographer, film producer, and director. Wexler was judged to be one of film history's ten most influential cinematographers in a survey of the members of the International Cinematographers Guild. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography twice, in 1966 and 1976, out of five nominations. In his obituary in The New York Times, Wexler is described as being "renowned as one of the most inventive cinematographers in Hollywood."
Gordon Hugh Willis Jr., ASC was an American cinematographer and film director. He is best known for his photographic work on eight Woody Allen films, six Alan J. Pakula films, four James Bridges films, and all three films from Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather series.
Michael Crawford Chapman, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer and film director well known for his work on many films of the American New Wave of the 1970s and in the 1980s with directors such as Martin Scorsese and Ivan Reitman. He shot more than forty feature films, over half of those with only three different directors.
Owen Roizman was an American cinematographer. He received five Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography, for the films The French Connection (1971), The Exorcist (1973), Network (1976), Tootsie (1982), and Wyatt Earp (1994). He served on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was president of the American Society of Cinematographers.
Jordan Scott Cronenweth, ASC was an American cinematographer based in Los Angeles, California. A contemporary of Conrad Hall, he was recognized for his distinctive style of heavily textured, film noir-inspired photography, seen in numerous classic films, including Zandy's Bride, Gable and Lombard, Altered States, and Peggy Sue Got Married. He is perhaps best remembered for his BAFTA Award-winning work on the groundbreaking science fiction film Blade Runner, which is credited as codifying the cyberpunk aesthetic, and is lauded by some as among the best cinematographers of all time.
Matthew Frank Leonetti A.S.C. is an American cinematographer. Accomplished and highly prolific, he has worked on dozens of well-known and acclaimed films spanning numerous genres, including Poltergeist, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Weird Science, Jagged Edge, Strange Days, and Star Trek: First Contact. He has collaborated with directors such as Tobe Hooper, Walter Hill, John Hughes, Kenneth Branagh, Kathryn Bigelow, Zack Snyder, and The Farrelly Brothers.
Steven Bernstein, ASC, DGA, WGA is an American cinematographer, director, screenwriter and author. In 1992 he won the Best Artistic Contribution Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival for Like Water for Chocolate alongside Emmanuel Lubezki. He also won the Cannes Golden Lion for his work in commercials. His book Film Production has been translated into several languages and at one time was the bestselling textbook about film making. Bernstein was a 2014 ASC nominee for the Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in One-Hour Episodic Television Series Award for his work on Magic City. Bernstein is a regular contributor to SonyCine Magazine where he writes articles on various aspects of filmmaking. Bernstein is a regular subject matter expert for articles about screenwriting and filmmaking for Adobe creative hub.
Shelly Johnson, ASC is an American cinematographer. He is a frequent collaborator with director Joe Johnston, working with him on films such as Jurassic Park III, The Wolfman and Captain America: The First Avenger.
Richard Crudo, A.S.C. is an American cinematographer and director. He is a 6-term past-president of the American Society of Cinematographers.
Roman Sergeyevich Vasyanov, ASC, RGC is a Russian cinematographer. He is best known for his collaborations with director David Ayer and the Russian musical film Stilyagi, for which he was nominated for a Golden Eagle Award for Best Cinematography.
Nancy Schreiber is an American cinematographer known for her work on Chain of Desire, Dead Beat, The Celluloid Closet, November, and The Nines.
Antonio Riestra, ASC, AČK., is a Mexican-born cinematographer, working in both North America and Europe. He won a Goya Award, and a Gaudí Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Augustí Villaronga's Black Bread.
Jonathan Freeman, ASC is a Canadian cinematographer. A multi-award-winning director of photography for motion pictures, television and commercials, he is known for his work on Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. Freeman's motion picture credits include Remember Me, Fifty Dead Men Walking, The Edge of Love, Hollywoodland and The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio. He frequently collaborates with directors Allen Coulter, Ernest Dickerson, David Nutter, and Russell Mulcahy.
Luis Gabriel Beristáin, ASC, BSC, AMC is a Mexican cinematographer, producer, and television director known for his work on numerous well-known films including The Distinguished Gentleman, The Spanish Prisoner, Blade II, and Street Kings, and several entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe including the Agent Carter television series.
Raymond Charles Argall is best known as a cinematographer and director for both film and television. He has also worked as an editor. His multi-award-winning feature film Return Home (1990) is regarded by many critics as an Australian cinema classic. Argall served on the board of the Australian Directors Guild (ADG) for sixteen years, holding the position of president from 2006 to 2015 and secretary from 2015 to 2017. In 2016, Argall launched a business restoring archival films through his production company Piccolo Films. In 2018 the ADG presented him with its prestigious Cecil Holmes Award.
Judith Carol Irola was an American cinematographer, film producer, and director. The third woman accepted into the American Society of Cinematographers, she was head of the cinematography department at USC School of Cinematic Arts for 15 years and held the Conrad Hall Chair in Cinematography there. Irola 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.