WALTER LASSALLY

GREAT CINEMATOGRAPHERS

#1: From interview [Web of Stories website, 2004]

WALTER LASSALLY

Born: 18 December 1926, Berlin, Weimar Republic/Deutsches Reich [now Germany].

Died: 23 October 2017, Chania, Crete, Greece.

Education: University [evening classes science; unfinished].

Career: 'My father was an engineer and a maker of industrial and training films. My parents and I went to England as refugees in June 1939. In the official jargon of the time I was a 'displaced person' - a DP. We settled in Richmond-upon-Thames, Surrey. I had watched my father at work, and was occasionally allowed to 'help' by turning the handle on his animation bench. By age 15, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life - I wanted to be a cameraman, shooting feature films. Immediately upon leaving school, I mounted a concerted campaign to get into the industry. In 1944 and 1945 I wrote to all the film studios to try and get in as a clapper boy. I did not succeed right away. I took a job at a stills studio, where I often had the loan of a Leica still camera and as much film as I wanted, as well as the chance to process and print my shots. My first jobs in filmmaking were on 16mm documentaries and medical films, where the small crews meant that I helped in every aspect, which was valuable experience. I worked on films like 'A Demonstration of Lifeboat Launching by the 6 x 4 Scammel Tractor' and 'Prefabricated House Components'. In 1946, I got the coveted job of clapper boy at Riverside Studios through the intervention of my father. My first job as clapper boy was on a film called 'Dancing with Crime', with Richard Attenborough in his first starring part. Eventually Riverside went out of business. Around this time I also worked at a 16mm film library. […] I had met Derek York in various film societies that I had joined. We planned to make a short 16mm film about squatters in London, which was a topic in the news. We called it 'Smith, Our Friend'. During the making of that film, I noticed that the primitive lighting dictated by the very cramped conditions helped to give the scenes more realism. That was an important discovery for me. 'Smith, Our Friend' was well received at the annual screening of the Federation of Film Societies, and that led to another film, 'Saturday Night'. During 1949 and 1950 we worked on that film. Audiences never saw 'Saturday Night', but the making of it had a more important result - it got me my first job as a lighting cameraman. A producer [Leon Clore of Basic Films] who had seen some of the rushes gave me a chance to shoot a government trailer, what we now call a public service commercial.' [From interview with David Heuring on the ASC website, October 2007.]

Formed the prod companies The Film Designers [with Derek York] and Screencraft Productions [also with York in 1948].

Ph commercials dir by Val Guest [for Buitoni], a.o. Made 'video essays' for the British Film Institute's DVD-releases of 'A Taste of Honey' [2002] and 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner' [2003]. During the latter part of his career, he [co-]photographed some doc's on Hi-8: 'North Sea Follies' & 'Box Boat to Brazil'.

Was a member [later honorary member] of the BSC.

Was head of the camera department of the National Film and Television School [1988-92].

Wrote his memoirs, 'Itinerant Cameraman', in 1987.

Played 'Patrick' in 'Before Midnight' (2012, Richard Linklater; ph: Christos Voudouris).

Appeared in the doc's 'How the Myth Was Made - A Study of Robert Flaherty's Man of Aran' [1978, George C. Stoney & James B. Brown], 'The Wandering Company' [1984, Humphrey Dixon; ph: Jamie Cabot] & 'After Before' (2016, Athina Rachel Tsangari).

Awards: 'Oscar' AA [1964; b&w] for 'Zorba the Greek'; BAFTA Film Award nom [1984] for 'Heat and Dust'; BSC Award nom [1984] for 'The Bostonians'; Marburger Kamerapreis [2005]; ASC International Achievement Award [2008].

GO TO FILMS

Obituary: The title of the cinematographer Walter Lassally's 1987 autobiography, 'Itinerant Cameraman', could not have been more apt. Lassally, who has died aged 90, was born in Germany [he had a German father and a Polish mother], lived and worked in the UK, and made films in, among many other countries, Czechoslovakia and Greece.

It was the last of these, where he shot 'Zorba the Greek', that meant the most to him. Known locally as 'Walter the Greek', Lassally lived for many years outside the city of Chania, on the island of Crete, near the beach that had served as location for the movie's celebrated final scene, with Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates dancing to the music of Mikis Theodorakis. He shot six films with its Greek director Michael Cacoyannis, but he had earlier been associated closely with the Free Cinema movement in the UK and the directors that came out of it, and his other celebrated connection was with the American director James Ivory.

He had already formed certain strong opinions about cinema - believing in personal, low-budget film-making - and joined the group of budding film-makers, including Lindsay Anderson, Gavin Lambert and the Czech-born Karel Reisz [another refugee from the Nazis], who wrote for the influential 'Sequence' magazine. Many of the writers made pungent comments on the structure of the industry and the social implications of the medium. 'Sequence' was important in disseminating the ideas that were later developed in Free Cinema.

This movement, closely connected with contemporary revolts against orthodoxy in the theatre and literature, grew around a series of short films shown at the National Film Theatre in the 1950s. Lassally shot a number of documentaries for Anderson, including 'Thursday's Children' [1953], about the Royal School for the Deaf in Margate, and 'Every Day Except Christmas' [1956], about Covent Garden market, as well as working on 'Momma Don't Allow' [1954], directed by Reisz and Tony Richardson and filmed at Wood Green jazz club in north London, and Reisz’s 'We Are the Lambeth Boys' [1958]. Although all the directors were middle-class, these films attempted to depict Britain from a working-class point of view. They shot real people in real locations, frequently using the newly available Bolex hand-held cameras.

'The main limitation of that was that it was a spring-operated camera and it had the maximum running time of 21 or 22 seconds,' Lassally said. 'So not only could you not shoot with sound because the camera made a noise, but you also had to limit yourself to the maximum length of 22 seconds. But I have found that when I look at these films again in retrospect the technical limitations, which were considerable, were a stimulant rather than a hindrance. For instance, 'We Are the Lambeth Boys' is mainly visual - you could turn off the soundtrack and you'd still get the information coming across.'

A chance meeting with Cacoyannis at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival was to change Lassally's life. The following year, he went to Athens to start shooting 'A Girl in Black' [1955], in which, immediately, his visual style, with sharp blacks and whites, imposed itself and became identified with the lyrical realism of Cacoyannis's films.

'Zorba the Greek' was shot in four different locations in Crete, using several ravishing aerial shots as well as some noteworthy hand-held camerawork. Lassally fell in love with the island and, in 1998, he moved permanently to Stavros, where he lived alone [his wife, Nadia, having died in 1994] and where he could admire its famous rock, which features so prominently in the film.

In contrast to the films he made in Greece were those he shot in the UK for Richardson during the '60s new wave. 'A Taste of Honey' and 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner' were greyly naturalistic. Lassally used subdued colour for 'Tom Jones', a lively swinging 60s version of Henry Fielding's picaresque 18th-century classic novel that deployed a barrage of visual tricks: Tom's childhood is narrated in the style of a silent film, and there is use of slow and accelerated motion and the freeze frame, all mixed with delicately photographed rustic settings.

Parallel to his work as a film cameraman, which he did less and less from the '90s, Lassally engaged in still photography and, from 1988 to 1992, headed the camera department of the National Film and Television School, in Beaconsfield. [From obituary by Ronald Bergan in 'The Guardian', Tuesday 24 October 2017.]

Walter Lassally: My career followed a most unconventional course. Most of my early feature work was abroad, outside the conventional framework, and often working with very small crews. Almost from the start, feature and documentary work were mixed. I valued the cross-fertilization of ideas and techniques that this provides. My own philosophy tended to keep me outside the mainstream of British/American feature production, a course that I have regretted occasionally but fleetingly. On balance, the creative opportunities seem to me to have always been greater on the fringes. [From interview with David Heuring on the ASC website.]

#1: With c.asst Tom Hoppe - "Life on the Mississippi" [1979; The Great Amwell Co.]

'Zorba the Greek' [1964]: 'Walter Lassally screened two sequences taking place on board ship: the ship's main lounge area and a deck exterior. He explained how they managed a pretty convincing storm simulation: "The interior was entirely shot with a hand-held Arriflex with all the apparent motion of the ship done by me waving the camera about in a special manner which I developed. The movement of a ship in a storm is really quite complex - it consists of a number of shocks and shudders combined with tilts and sudden movements in one direction and a slow recovery in the opposite direction, so I developed a special technique for filming those scenes. The only proviso was it was necessary to choose between hand-held and sync sound - you couldn't have both, because then there were no hand-held sync sound cameras.

"The second sequence is an exterior on the deck. For that part of the shooting the sea was actually quite rough but because it's a sync sound sequence, the camera had to be blimped, it had to be tied down. Now if the camera moves with the ship, it's only by reference to the horizon that you can tell that anything unusual is going on and that makes it much less effective visually - it doesn't show the motion of the ship as effectively as the previous sequence."

To demonstrate lighting a location interior, Lassally used as an example, a room representing Alan Bates' modest lodgings: "You can fairly easily simulate the effect of a sunlit room by the use of spotlights, but it's much more difficult to simulate the effect of just daylight coming in through the windows and you also have a problem if you use the windows to light through. My solution was daylight filtered appropriately through ND filters on the window. It's always a question of balancing the exterior and interior and maintaining the detail on the curtain, to make sure it doesn't become a brilliant white triangle.

"For the lighting inside, we had a kind of primitive grid system fixed to the ceiling, which fortunately was quite high. So the room's lit with a mixture of 2Ks and 1Ks hanging from the beams, taking care that you don't get any strong shadows anywhere because in a situation where you've got daylight coming through the window but not sunlight, a very strong shadow would look unnatural."

Lassally then screened what he called the most difficult scene he's ever had to photograph, where Alan Bates visits the widow [Irene Papas]: "It was very difficult because it starts with an oil lamp on in the room and in the first third of the scene she blows that out; there is no moonlight so one is left with a situation where you have to have non-source lighting, so once the lamp is extinguished you can't really say where the light is coming from and the second difficulty [in color it wouldn't be so difficult] is that in b&w there is a certain minimum contrast that has to be maintained otherwise the scene goes muddy or flat and looks very unattractive. So I had to work very hard to maintain that minimum contrast which in this case is all in the upper range of the tonal scale." [see photos above]

Lassally agreed that the lighting equipment he used would today be regarded as fairly primitive: "The biggest light in use on 'Zorba the Greek' would have been a 5K of which we would have had no more than three. On this scene we would have had two of three 2Ks, half a dozen pups, 1Ks, which in those days tended to be either 500W or 750W and some very small inky-dinks which are still in use today - they're 200-250W. Those would be augmented with some floodlights which I developed specially for the daylight interiors, just a very primitive tin can with 4 or 5 mushroom floods in it diffused with some spun over it and that light I would have used on any of the daylight interiors because that would throw a much more indistinct shadow than that from a 2K or a baby. I tend to favor lighting interiors from entirely within the room and only very rarely use lights through the windows."

Lassally is particularly proud of his pioneering use [first on 'A Taste of Honey'] of three different film stocks which are intercut un-noticeably throughout the film: "'Zorba the Greek' was shot on [Ilford] Pan F, FP3 and HP3, and 'A Taste of Honey' was shot on FP3, HP3 and HPS [which no longer exists]. Of course I was advised not to do that - it wouldn't work. So when you cut from interior to exterior you're cutting from one film stock to another which at the time was considered a very dangerous thing to do, they thought it would become very obvious on the cut but of course it isn't.

"The great advantage in 'Zorba the Greek' in shooting all the exteriors on Pan F was that you get a wonderful tonal range and a particularly good range of tones in the highlights and that stands you in good stead when you're dealing with extreme whites and extreme blacks in the same frame." [From article by Lindsay Amos in 'Cinema Papers', Australia, 1997.]

FILMS
194?	Watch the Birdie [Derek York & Walter Lassally] 16mm/b&w/silent; short/2m
1946	Smith, Our Friend [Derek York & Walter Lassally] 16mm/b&w; short/15m; + co-prod
*1948*	Saturday Night [Derek York] short; filmed 1948-1952; unfinished
1950	Don't Smoke in Bed [prod: Leon Clore] b&w; public information film/?m
1950	Every Five Minutes [Max Anderson] 16mm/b&w; comm doc/9m; four different scenarios, highlighting the dangers of fire and the work of the fire service in tackling them; for Central Office of Information (COI)
1951	From Plan Into Action [Donald Alexander] b&w; comm doc/?m; cph: ?; for Steel Company of Wales
1951	Forward a Century [J.B. Napier-Bell] b&w; doc/29m; South Bank ph; ph: Larry Pizer & Victor Procter
1951	Festival [Derek York] b&w; doc/15m; cph: Gerry Turpin
1951	At Whose Door? [Max Anderson] ?; comm doc/12m; for the British Iron and Steel Federation
1951	Sunday by the Sea [Anthony Simmons] b&w; doc/9m; shot over two weekends in the summer of 1951 (including the August Bank Holiday)
1952	Three Installations [Lindsay Anderson] b&w; comm doc/23m; addph: John Jones; for English conveyor belt makers Richard Sutcliffe Ltd.
1952	Power Signal Linesman [Max Anderson] 16mm/b&w; doc/15m
1952	High Speed [various] b&w; doc/30m; cph: ?; doc on motor car racing in Britain
1952	We Who Are Young [Andrew Taylor (= Anthony Simmons)] 16mm/b&w-c; comm doc/32m; as John Walters; for British Youth Peace Committee

[Right] with dir James Broughton - "The Pleasure Garden"

1952	The Pleasure Garden [James Broughton] 16mm/b&w; short/38m
1952	Wakefield Express [Lindsay Anderson] 16mm/b&w; 'Free Cinema'-doc/33m
1953	Bow Bells [Anthony Simmons] b&w; doc/14m
1953	One Great Vision [Andrew Taylor (= Anthony Simmons)] 16mm/b&w; comm doc/50m; as John Walters; filmed in Romania; for British Youth Peace Committee
1953	Thursday's Children [Guy Brenton & Lindsay Anderson] b&w; doc/20m
1953	The Passing Stranger/Stolen Journey [John Arnold] b&w; 67m
1954	Another Sky [Gavin Lambert] b&w
1954	Friend of the Family [Margaret Thomson] 16mm/b&w; comm doc/17m; for National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC)
1954	Green and Pleasant Land [Lindsay Anderson] 16mm/b&w; comm doc/4m; for NSPCC
1954	Henry [Lindsay Anderson] 16mm/b&w; comm doc/4m; for NSPCC
1954	The Children Upstairs [Lindsay Anderson] 16mm/b&w; comm doc/5m; for NSPCC
1954	A Hundred Thousand Children [Lindsay Anderson] 16mm/b&w; comm doc/3m; for NSPCC
1954	Foot and Mouth [Lindsay Anderson] b&w; comm doc/20m; for Ministry of Agriculture
1954	Simon [Peter Zadek] b&w; short/18m
1954	Momma Don't Allow/Jazz [Karel Reisz & Tony Richardson] 16mm/b&w; 'Free Cinema'-doc/22m
1955	Continuous Observation [Margaret Thomson] 16mm/b&w; comm doc/25m; for Ministry of Health
1955	The Gentle Corsican [Anthony Simmons] c; doc/25m
1955	Why Bri? [Sam Napier-Bell] c; comm doc/?m; cph: Larry Pizer
1955	Together/The Glass Marble [Lorenza Mazzetti & Denis Horne] 16mm/b&w; 'Free Cinema'-doc/52m; co-addph (1955); ph: Hamid Hadari (summer 1954)
1955	The Brighton Story [Pamela Wilcox Bower] c; doc/24m; see 1957

1955	To kopitsi me ta maypa/A Girl in Black [Michael Cacoyannis] b&w
*1956*	Time Without Pity [Joseph Losey] scheduled as doph, but star Ann Todd didn't want to entrust herself to a young and untried doph; ph by Freddie Francis
1956	Every Day Except Christmas [Lindsay Anderson] b&w; 'Free Cinema'-doc/47m; ep #1 of Ford of Britain series 'Look at Britain'
1956	The Simpson & Godlee Story [Hans Casparius] ?
1956	A River Speaks [H.G. Casparius] 16mm/b&w; doc/18m; views of the rural and industrial scenes of the river Tyne
1956	Return from the Sun [Hans Casparius] c; travelogue/19m
1956	Ten Bridges [Michael Luke] b&w; doc/14m
1956	Children's Corner/Day Nursing [Walter Lassally & Leo Nadelmann] ?; doc/18m; + ed
1956	George Bernard Shaw/Bernard Shaw [Robert Hamer] b&w; doc/18m; cph: Robert Paynter
1957	A.B.C./Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao [John Fernhout] c; comm doc/18m
1957	Blue Peter [John Fernhout] c; comm doc/15m; doc of the Windward Islands (= Bovenwindse Eilanden: Sint-Maarten, Sint-Eustatius & Saba), while traveling on the government schooner the 'Blue Peter'
1957	Alone with the Monsters [Nazli Nour] 16mm/b&w; short/20m
1957	To teleftaio psemma/A Matter of Dignity/The Final Lie [Michael Cacoyannis] b&w
1957	Beside the Seaside [Pamela Bower] b&w; doc/2136 ft; the same film as 'The Brighton Story' (1955) ?
1958	Jago hua savera/The Day Shall Dawn [A.J. 'Aaejay' Kardar] b&w; cph: Sadhan Roy

With dir Karel Reisz [right] - "We Are the Lambeth Boys"

1958	We Are the Lambeth Boys [Karel Reisz] b&w; 'Free Cinema'-doc/52m; ep #2 of Ford of Britain series 'Look at Britain-2'
1958	Refuge England [Robert Vas] 16mm/b&w; 'Free Cinema'-doc/27m; cph: Louis Wolfers
1958	A Song for Prince Charlie [Hans Nieter] c; comm doc/18m; cph: Adrian Jeakins; dir and crew cred as 'Production Unit'; for Drambuie Liquor Company
1959	An Enquiry Into General Practice [Paul Dickson] 16mm/b&w; comm doc/30m
1959	Midsummer Music [Hazel Swift] c; doc/18m; cph: David Mason
1959	Britain's Wealth from Coal [J.B. Napier-Bell] 16mm/b&w; comm doc/22m; cph: Larry Pizer & John Fletcher; for the National Coal Board
1959	'Beat' Girl/Wild for Kicks [Edmond T. Gréville] b&w
1959	Eroica/Our Last Spring [Michael Cacoyannis] b&w
1960	Maddalena/Madalena [Dinos Dimopoulos] b&w
1960	I Aliki sto naftiko/Alice in the Navy/Alice My Love [Alekos Sakellarios] c; cph: Nikos Dimopoulos
1961	Kleine Begebenheit [Leo Nadelmann] b&w; doc/12m
1961	Let My People Go! [John Krish] 16mm/b&w; comm doc/23m; for Anti-Apartheid Committee

1961	A Taste of Honey [Tony Richardson] b&w; 'For 'A Taste of Honey', Tony wanted an all-location film. So many films are made on location today that it is hard to remember that this idea was very difficult to sell to the financiers in those days. They were afraid that a lack of sunlight would delay the shooting interminably. It was impossible to convince them that for greater realism, it was actually desirable to shoot exteriors without sun on films like 'A Taste of Honey'. It was the first British feature made for a major distributor to be shot entirely on location, and among the first films to use three different types of film stocks, including one previously considered to be suitable only for newsreel and documentaries. It was also the first film to 'key' the use of these different film stocks to different locations, so that the 'look' they created became part of the setting. There was considerable opposition from the laboratory to my approach, but it proved entirely successful. I used the same idea on 'Zorba the Greek'.' [From interview with David Heuring on the ASC website.]
1961	University of London [Sam Napier-Bell] c; comm doc/21m; cph: Larry Pizer
1961	I Liza kai i alli/Liza and Her Double [Dinos Dimopoulos] b&w

1961	Elektra/Electra [Michael Cacoyannis] b&w
1962	The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner/Rebel with a Cause [Tony Richardson] b&w
1962	Tom Jones [Tony Richardson] c; 2uc: Manny Wynn; replaced scheduled doph Oswald Morris
1963	The Peaches [Michael Gill] b&w; short/15m
*1963*	Pleasure Garden/Beaulieu River [Joan Littlewood] unfinished
1963	Psyche '59 [Alexander Singer] b&w
1964	Zorba the Greek/Alexis Zorbas [Michael Cacoyannis] b&w; see above
1964	Kataskopoi sto Saroniko/O anthropos mas stin ellada/Assignment Skybolt/Operation Skybolt [Gregg Tallas (= Grigoris Thalassinos)] c
1964	Mao le veut [Simon Spivac] ?; doc/?m
1964	Lila [Hugh Raggett] b&w; doc/27m; cph: David Watkin & Rose Parsons; the story of Lila, a clairvoyant who has a fruit stall in an East London market
1965	Labyrinth [Roman Kroitor, Colin Low & Hugh O'Connor] mixed-media/multi-screen project for EXPO '67, Montreal; cph: Michel Thomas-d'Hoste, Georges Dufaux, Gilles Gascon, a.o.
1965	Dan [Walter Lassally & Kate Campbell] 16mm/b&w; doc/?m
*1966*	David Jones [Walter Lassally & Kate Campbell] doc; prod abandoned
1966	The Day the Fish Came Out [Michael Cacoyannis] c
1967	Anoihti epistoli/Open Letter [Yiorgos Stamboulopoulos] b&w
1967	Oedipus the King [Philip Saville] c
1967	Joanna [Michael Sarne] cs/c; 2uc: David Muir
1968	Henry Moore at the Tate Gallery [David Sylvester & Walter Lassally] c; doc/14m
1968	The Adding Machine [Jerome Epstein] c
1968	Three Into Two Won't Go [Peter Hall] c
1968	About the White Bus [John Fletcher] 16mm/b&w-c; doc/60m; uncred cph (shot only a very small portion); ph: J. Fletcher & Eon Wood
1968	Olimpiada en México/The Olympics in Mexico [Alberto Isaac] ts/c; doc/116m; ph 'Gymnastics' seq; other ph: Tony Imi, Alex Sheridan, Bertrand van Munster, Brian Probyn, Arthur Wooster, Eric van Haren Noman, Alan Hewison, a.o.
1969	Twinky/Lola/London Affair [Richard Donner] c
1969	Something for Everyone/Black Flowers for the Bride/The Rook [Harold Prince] c
1970	Eagle in a Cage [Fielder Cook] c; ph add footage; ph: Frano Vodopivec
*1970*	Le Mans [Lee H. Katzin] p/c; WL was replaced after 6 weeks as 1st unit doph (for dir John Sturges, who left the prod at the same time); ph: Robert B. Hauser & René Guissart, Jr.
1970	Can Horses Sing? [Elizabeth Sussex] 16mm/c; doc/25m
1971	To Kill a Clown [George Bloomfield] c
1971	Savages [James Ivory] c
1972	Bilocation/Within Hail [Aurora Cornu] c
*1972*	Paris Restaurants [Steve Scher] unfinished
1972	Visions of Eight [seq 'The Highest' dir by Arthur Penn] c; doc/110m (Olympic Games, Munich); cph: Stewart Harris; other ph: Rune Ericson, Jörgen Persson, Alan Hume, Ernst Wild, Mike Davis, a.o.; chief ph cons: Michael Samuelson

[Center] - "Happy Mother's Day, Love George" - photo by Ken Howard

1972	Happy Mother's Day, Love George/Run, Stranger, Run [Darren McGavin] c
1972	Girling WSP [John Armstrong] 16mm/b&w; comm doc/14m; cph: Adrian Jeakins
1973	Malachi's Cove/The Seaweed Children [Henry Herbert] c
1973	[Henry Cotton -] This Game of Golf [Michael Raeburn] 16mm/c; doc/55m
1973	Requiem for a Village [David Gladwell] 16mm/c; doc/68m; addph; ph: Bruce Parsons
1974	Carved in Ivory [Michael Gill] 16mm/c; doc/30m
*1974*	Vildanden/The Wild Duck [Tutte Lemkow] prod collapsed within days of the start date
1974	Autobiography of a Princess [James Ivory] 16mm/c; short/59m; 2uc: R.M. Rao
1974	Après le vent des sables/La trame/The Web [Claude Zaccai] c
1974	The Wild Party [James Ivory] b&w-c
*1974*	Rider [Andrew Sinclair] prod collapsed after 1 week 2u filming and on the eve of the start of main shooting
1975	Ansichten eines Clowns/The Clown [Vojtech Jasný] c
1975	Fluchtversuch/Ivo/Attempted Flight [Vojtech Jasný] c
1976	[Rätsel der Sphinx -] Ernst Fuchs [Vojtech Jasný] c; doc/44m
1976	Shenanigans/The Great [Georgia] Bank Hoax [Joseph Jacoby] c
1976	The Blood of Hussain [Jamil Dehlavi] c; cph: Jamil Dehlavi
1977	Tausend Morgensterne tanzen um einen blassen Mond [Gernot Friedel] ?
1977	Die Frau gegenüber/The Woman Across the Way [Hans Noever] b&w
1978	Something Short of Paradise/Perfect Love [David Helpern Jr.] c; 2uc: Danny Quinn & Tom Houghton
1978	The Pilot/Danger in the Skies [Cliff Robertson (replaced Robert P. Davis)] p/c
1979	Der Preis fürs Überleben/The Price of Survival [Hans Noever] c; 2uc: Renato Fortunato (+ c.asst) & Kim Schäfermeyer
1980	Engel aus Eisen/The Iron Angel/Angels of Iron [Thomas Brasch] b&w
1980	Memoirs of a Survivor [David Gladwell] c; 2uc: Roger Deakins
1981	Der Zauberberg/The Magic Mountain [Hans W. Geissendörfer] c; theatrical version/153m; 3-part tvm/312m; replaced Robby Müller during the 1st month of shooting, but was replaced after several weeks by Michael Ballhaus (who is the credited doph)
1981	Tuxedo Warrior [Andrew Sinclair] c; 2uc: Harmon Cusack
1981	The Case of Marcel Duchamp [David Rowan] 16mm/c; addph: D. Rowan & Peter Harvey
1982	Heat and Dust [James Ivory] c
*1982*	The Secret of Planet Earth [Andrew Sinclair] announced for October start; prod never started
1982	Private School [Noel Black] c

1983	The Bostonians [James Ivory] c
1984	? [Jonathan Power] ?; doc/?m; made in Africa
*1984*	The Bengal Lancers [Stephen Weeks] prod was aborted; In 1984, Mahmoud Sipra, the Pakistani shipping magnate, moved into films. He decided to back 'The Bengal Lancers', an epic set on the North-West Frontier in 1897, during the British Raj. Starring Michael York and Trevor Howard, it was the brainchild of Stephen Weeks. The cameraman was Oscar-winning Walter Lassally. James Swann was to be the completion guarantor - the person who insures against the film going over budget. Filming started in Jodphur, India, with rushes being processed at the Technicolor lab in London. The early rushes, Mr. Weeks maintains, were fine, 'as one would expect from Walter Lassally'. Then disaster struck. Mr. Weeks received news from the lab that in fact, the rushes were 'all out of focus and unusable'. Filming was suspended as new cameras were sent out from Britain. Then Mr. Swann flew out and fired Mr. Weeks. As completion guarantor, he had that right. Mr. Weeks returned to London and together with Mr. Lassally went to view the 'flawed' rushes. They were shown them out of focus, Mr. Weeks said. Then, on changing projectors, 'the rushes were clear and sharp and beautiful. I didn't know what to think'. [From article by Chris Blackhurst in the 'Independent', Thursday 15 October 2015.]
*1985*	The Avalon Awakening [Stephen Weeks] prod abandoned
1986	Indian Summer [Timothy Forder] c
1987	The Perfect Murder [Zafar Hai] c; 2uc: Rajesh Joshi
1987	The Deceivers [Nicholas Meyer] c; 2uc: Rajesh Joshi; optical ph: Alan Church
1988	Kamilla og tyven II/Kamilla's Friend [Grete Salomonson] c
1989	Fragments of Isabella [Ronan O'Leary] b&w-c
1990	Diary of a Madman [Ronan O'Leary] c
1990	The Ballad of the Sad Cafe [Simon Callow] c; 2uc: Briggs Palmer
1993	Ta delfinakia tou amvrakikou/The Little Dolphins [Dinos Dimopoulos] c
1996	Silent Film [Malcolm Venville] c; short/11m
2000	Aci gonul/Crescent Heart [Ersin Pertan] c; 2uc: Alekos Yiannaros
2010	Talking Hands [Walter Lassally] c; doc/10m

TELEVISION
1957	A Sculptor's Landscape [John Read] doc/b&w/27m; ep BBC-tv series 'British Art and Artists'
1959	As Dark As the Night/The Night Apart [Terence Young] tvm; ph reshoots: Georges Périnal; ep #116 (3rd season) of CBS-tv dramatic anthology series 'Playhouse 90' (1956-60)
1963	Dublin Thru Different Eyes [Martin Carr] doc/58m/16mm
1967	Henry Moore - One Yorkshireman Looks at his world [John Read] doc/b&w/60m; ph 1957 scenes; cph: Alan Lawson (1950) & John Baker (1967); for BBC-tv
1968	?/Battleship Potemkin Survivor [Marco Montaldi] doc/?m/16mm; for RAI-tv
1970	Adventures of a Brown Man in Search of Civilization [James Ivory] doc/54m/16mm
1972	Van der Valk und das Mädchen/Gun Before Butter [Peter Zadek] tvm
1973	The World of Stan Smith [Mai Zetterling] doc/?m
1975	In the Beginning [Michael Gill] doc/55m
1975	Pleasantville [Kenneth Locker & Vicki Polon] tvm/16mm; for PBS-tv
1977	Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures [James Ivory] tvm/16mm; originally shown in 2-parts on LWT series 'The South Bank Show'
1977	Neil Diamond at Woburn Abbey [William Friedkin] mus doc/?m; filmed on 2 July
1978	Too Far to Go [Fielder Cook] tvm; also released theatrically
1979	Gauguin the Savage [Fielder Cook] tvm; stand-by ph Hollywood: Robert Primes
1979	[Mark Twain Classics:] Life on the Mississippi [Peter H. Hunt] tvm/16mm
1980	[Mark Twain Classics:] The Private History of a Campaign that Failed [Peter H. Hunt] tvm/16mm
1980	The Commanding Sea [Michael Gill & Anthony Mayer] 6-part doc series/16mm (1981); cph: ?
1981	[Mark Twain Classics:] The Mysterious Stranger [Peter H. Hunt] tvm; ph USA: Tom Hoppe
1981	Mystery at Fire Island [Robert Fuest] tvm/60m; ep CBS-tv series 'Children's Mystery Theatre'
1983	[The Tragedy of] Pudd'nhead Wilson [Alan Bridges] tvm/16mm; ep PBS-tv series 'American Playhouse'
1984	Children in the Crossfire [George Schaefer] tvm; ph Ireland; ph USA: Edward R. Brown
1984	Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [Peter H. Hunt] 2-part tvm; 2uc: Tom Hoppe; also released theatrically (108m)
1985	Stone Pillow [George Schaefer] tvm
1985	Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry [George Schaefer] tvm
1985	Henry Moore [presenter: John Read; prod: Rosemary Bowen-Jones] doc/b&w-c/50m; co-archive ph; ph: Remi Adefarasin; ep BBC2-tv series 'Arena' (1986); see 1957
1991	Die Erbschaft [Bertram von Boxberg] tvm
1992	The Man Upstairs [George Schaefer] tvm
1993	Ancient Spirits: China and Japan [Walter Lassally] ep #3 of 12-part Channel 4 doc series 'Nature Perfected [: The Story of the Garden]'
1995	Vermeer: Light, Love & Silence [Michael Gill] doc/60m; ep LWT series 'The South Bank Show'

MISCELLANEOUS
1947	Dancing with Crime [John Paddy Carstairs] clapper boy; ph: Reginald H. Wyer
1947	They Made Me a Fugitive/I Became a Criminal [Cavalcanti] c.asst; ph: Otto Heller
1947	Things Happen at Night [Francis Searle] c.asst; ph: Leslie Rowson
1947	This Was a Woman [Tim Whelan] loader; ph: Günther Krampf
1948	What's In a Number [John Krish; comm short] c.asst; ph: ?
1948	What a Life [Michael Law; comm doc] c.asst; ph: Jo Jago & J.M. Burgoyne-Johnson
1949	Saints and Sinners [Leslie Arliss] 2u c.asst; ph: Osmond Borradaile
1949	The Last Days of Dolwyn/Woman of Dolwyn [Emlyn Williams] 2u c.asst; ph: Otto Heller
1949	Night and the City [Jules Dassin] 2u focus puller; 2uc: Jo Jago; ph: Max Greene; the whole 2u was fired during shooting
1952	House of Blackmail [Maurice Elvey] asst ed; ph: Phil Grindrod
1953	Strange Stories [John Guillermin (seg 'The Strange Mr. Bartleby') & Don Chaffey (seg 'Strange Journey'); short] c.asst; ph: Arthur Grant & S.D. Onions
1953	Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary? [Maurice Elvey] 2nd asst ed; ph: Phil Grindrod
1956	Du und mancher Kamerad/You and Your Pal - The German Story [Andrew & Annelie Thorndike; doc] speaker English commentary; ph: Waldemar Ruge, a.o.
1966	The Greeks [dir; co-dir: Kate Campbell] 16mm/b&w; doc/36m; ph: George Antonakis
1969	Ned Kelly [Tony Richardson] ph screen tests; film was ph by Gerry Fisher