Robert Elswit
Biography
Robert Christopher Elswit, ASC (born April 22, 1950) is an American cinematographer. He has collaborated with Paul Thomas Anderson on six of his films and won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for There Will Be Blood. Elswit has also collaborated with directors and screenwriters Tony and Dan Gilroy on the six films that either brother directed.
Elswit was born in Los Angeles. An early short film he worked on was the 1982 television adaptation of Ray Bradbury's short story All Summer in a Day. Elswit 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, 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." He started shooting digitally, starting with Nightcrawler. Elswit has worked with George Clooney several times. He shot his black and white, multiple-Oscar-nominated film Good Night and Good Luck. Elswit shot the film in colour and converted the film into black and white in post-production. According to Elswit, the technique preserved the subtlety of the colours (as complex shades of blacks and greys). It made the overall look much richer in the final film. Elswit was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for Good Night and Good Luck but lost to Dion Beebe for Memoirs of a Geisha. Elswit won the award for There Will Be Blood in 2008. Elswit has cited early independent filmmaker John Cassavetes as a major influence. Elswit is a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and worked there as a teaching assistant. Elswit is the godfather of actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
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