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With actress Kelsey Enright - "Janey Mary" [2007] |
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SEAMUS DEASY ISC |
Born: ?, Ireland.
Career: 'I worked for a small radio studio in the sixties doing sponsored radio programs. They would be 15 minutes long: music, soaps, quizzes. The studio made about 28 of these sponsored programs, including a soap called 'The Kennedy's of Castleross'. I was 15 years of age when I started working for them; putting on the discs, doing the sound effects on the soaps. The guy who owned it, a guy called Bill Stapleton, was really interested in film, so he bought a film camera and he bought a small place in Bray where he developed a studio. He then went to get work with RTÉ-tv supplying them with facilities and crews. A complete crew was a cameraman, a soundman and an electrician; I was in that first crew that he supplied to RTÉ. I think it was in 1964 or 1965. I worked on farming programs for most of that time; the odd time when farming programs weren't on, during the summer, we would do documentaries.'
One of the founding members of the Irish Society of Cinematographers [ISC] [2010].
Formed 'Emdee Productions' [for tv-prod] with Mike Murphy in 1985. His son Shane [1972-] is a c.asst; his brother Brendan is a sound recordist/mixer.
Awards: LAFCA Award nom [1998] & IFTA Award nom [1999] for 'The General'; IFTA Award nom [2000] for 'When the Sky Falls'; IFTA Award nom [2005] for 'The Mighty Celt'; IFTA Award [2007] for 'The Tiger's Tail'; Rhode Island IFF 'Best Cinematography' [2nd place] [2008] for 'Janey Mary'; IFTA Award nom [2009] for 'A Film with Me in It'.
About 'The General': 'I asked my cameraman Seamus Deasy to shoot tests. We experimented with both b&w and color stock which we had the lab print in b&w. We chose the latter option because the b&w stocks available are very limited. We found there is no loss of quality from going from color to b&w. The real challenge for Seamus was to adjust his style of lighting. Like every other modern cameraman he uses soft, indirect lighting bouncing off sheets of polystyrene or Chinese lanterns giving a flattering glow to faces and relying on the graduations of color to separate the various levels and objects. In b&w the planes must be differentiated by shaft of direct light. Objects need black light to rim their contours. It is more complex and time consuming. It is also something of a lost art. Like me, Seamus is old enough to have shot a lot of b&w before color came along and he began to dust off his technique.' [John Boorman]
FILMS |
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1974 |
Bodhran [Tom Hayes] c; doc/29m; cph: Paddy Baron |
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1976 |
Circasia/Masquerade [John McColgan & Brian MacLochlainn] 16mm/c; short/39m; cph: Ken Murphy |
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1977 |
Poitín/Poteen [Bob Quinn] 16mm/c; 65m; first filmed drama of its length in the Gaelic (Irish) language |
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1978 |
The Ballad of the Irish Horse [Rory O'Farrell] c; doc/47m |
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1983 |
The Schooner [Bill Miskelly & Mary Jackson] c; short/58m |
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1985 |
The End of the World Man/The Bulldozer Brigade [Bill Miskelly] c |
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1986 |
Sometime City [Joe Lee & Frank Deasy] 16mm-35bu/?; short/37m |
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1986 |
Budawanny [Bob Quinn] 16mm/b&w-c; 2uc: Joe Comerford |
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1987 |
The Courier [Joe Lee & Frank Deasy] c; 2uc; ph: Gabriel Beristáin |
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1992 |
Kylie: Live - 'Let's Get to It' Tour [Ian Hamilton] c/V; mus doc/80m; co-c.op |
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1993 |
The Bishop's Story [Bob Quinn] 16mm/b&w-c; 2uc: Joe Comerford; re-edited version of 'Budawanny' |
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1994 |
An Gobán Saor [Liadh Ní Riada] s16/?; short/52m |
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1994 |
Omós don Sulán [Peadar Ó Riada] s16/?; doc/?m |
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1994 |
Broken Harvest [Maurice O'Callaghan] b&w-c; ph b&w seq; color ph: Jack Conroy; 2uc: Ivan Meagher |
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1994 |
Holding the Baby [Kate Gillen & Bernie Morrison] c; short/24m |
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1994 |
The Life of Reilly [Alan Archbold] s16-35bu/c; short/27m |
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1995 |
Fishing the Sloe-Black River [Brendan Bourke] scope/c; short/14m |
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1995 |
Irish Cinema: Ourselves Alone? [Donald Taylor Black] v/b&w-c; doc/51m |
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1995 |
The Boy from Mercury [Martin Duffy] s16-35bu/b&w-c |
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1996 |
Angela Mooney [Dies Again] [Tommy McArdle] c; 2uc: Laurence Manly |
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1996 |
Southpaw [: The Francis Barrett Story] [Liam McGrath] c; doc/80m; co-addph; ph: Cían De Buitléar; filmed 1996-98; also ep of Channel 4 series 'True Stories' (2001) |
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1996 |
Where Do I Begin [David Keating] s16/?; doc/54m |
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1996 |
Ceol na talamhan/Song of the Earth [Peter Carr] ?; 13 doc's/30m each & 4 doc's/60m each; cph: Tony Coldwell & Peter Robertson; prod 1996-98 |
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1996 |
Riverdance [: The New Show] [in New York] [: Live from New York City] [John McColgan] c; mus perf/103m; co-c.op; ph: Ciarán Tanham |
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1996 |
I Went Down [Paddy Breathnach] c; 2uc; ph: Cían De Buitléar |
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1997 |
The General/I Once Had a Life [John Boorman] p/b&w |
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1998 |
Night Train [John Lynch] c |
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1998 |
Accelerator [Vinny Murphy] c |
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1999 |
The Corrs: Live at Lansdowne Road [Ciarán Tanham & Nick Wickham] c/V; mus doc/87m; co-c.op; ph: Peter Robertson |
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1999 |
When the Sky Falls [John Mackenzie] c; 2uc: Sean Corcoran & Peter Robertson |
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1999 |
An Everlasting Piece [Barry Levinson] c |
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2000 |
Aidan Walsh - Master of the Universe [Shimmy Marcus] v/c; doc/69m; cph: Mick O'Rourke |
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2000 |
Not Afraid, Not Afraid [Annette Carducci] c |
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2001 |
Crust [Mark Locke] c |
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2001 |
Reign of Fire/Where Heroes Go Down [Rob Bowman] p/c; 2uc; ph: Adrian Biddle |
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2003 |
Country of My Skull/In My Country [John Boorman] c |
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2003 |
Man About Dog [Paddy Breathnach] c; co-addph; ph: Cían De Buitléar |
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2004 |
The Mighty Celt [Pearse Elliott] c; 2uc: John T. Davis & Sean Corcoran |
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2006 |
The Tiger's Tail [ John Boorman] HD (Genesis)-to-35mm/c |
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2006 |
Summer of the Flying Saucer [Martin Duffy] c |
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2007 |
Janey Mary [: All Alone in the World] [Paul Brady] b&w; short/20m |
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2007 |
A Film with Me in It [Ian Fitzgibbon] HD-to-35mm/c |
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2008 |
Triage/Shell Shock [Danis Tanovic] s35/c |
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2008 |
Perrier's Bounty [Ian Fitzgibbon] HD-to-35mm scope/c |
TELEVISION |
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1983 |
Atlantean [Bob Quinn] 3-part doc series; cph: Sean Corcoran, Thaddeus O'Sullivan, Joe Comerford & Nick O'Neill |
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1991 |
[The Director's Place:] I Dreamt I Woke Up [John Boorman] doc/44m/16mm |
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1993 |
From Ballybeg to Broadway [Donald Taylor Black] doc/48m/16mm; cph: Sean Corcoran & Peter Dorney; for RTÉ & BBC Northern Island |
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1994 |
A River of Sound [Philip King] 7-part doc series (1995) |
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1994 |
Picture Windows [: Language of the Heart] [ep 'Two Nudes Bathing' dir by John Boorman] 6-part miniseries; other ph: Miroslaw Baszak, Paul Sarossy & Jamie Anderson |
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1998 |
The Ambassador [6 ep dir by various] 13-part series, 1998-99; other ph: Simon Kossoff |
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1998 |
George Thomson: Eighty Years A-Growing [Gerry Gregg] doc/52m |
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1999 |
DDU [- District Detective Unit] [ep dir by A.J. Quinn] 4-part series; other ph: Cedric Culliton |
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1999 |
Monarch of the Glen [ep #5-8 dir by A.J. Quinn] 63-part (+ 1 special) series, 2000-05; 1st season, 2000; other ph: John Hooper (4 ep dir by Edward Bennett) |
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2000 |
McCready and Daughter [A.J. Quinn] pilot; followed by 6-part series, 2001 |
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2000 |
Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor [Mikael Salomon] tvm |
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2000 |
Act Without Words I [Karel Reisz] c; short/16m; ep 19-part series 'Beckett on Film' |
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2000 |
Catastrophe [David Mamet] c; short/6m; ep 19-part series 'Beckett on Film' |
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2000 |
Come and Go [John Crowley] c; short/8m; ep 19-part series 'Beckett on Film' |
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2000 |
Footfalls [Walter Asmus] c; short/27m; ep 19-part series 'Beckett on Film' |
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2000 |
That Time [Charles Garrad] c; short/20m; ep 19-part series 'Beckett on Film' |
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2000 |
Waiting for Godot [Michael Lindsay-Hogg] c; cph: Rob Goldie; ep 19-part series 'Beckett on Film' |
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2001 |
The Seventh Stream [John Gray] tvm |
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2003 |
Dracula's Bram Stoker [Sinead O'Brien] doc/52m/v; cph: Sean Corcoran |
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2004 |
The Grid [Mikael Salomon] 6-part miniseries; cph: Jon Joffin |
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2007 |
Dirty Money - The Story of the Criminal Assets Bureau [presented by Paul Williams] 6-part doc series/DigiBeta, 2008; for TV3 (Ireland) |
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2010 |
Neverland [Nick Willing] 2-part tvm/RED; for Syfy-tv & Sky Movies HD |