With dir Ang Lee [left]
"The Ice Storm" [1996]
[Right] with dir Charlie Kaufman
"Synecdoche, New York" [2007]
|
|
With dir Ang Lee [left] "The Ice Storm" [1996] |
[Right] with dir Charlie Kaufman "Synecdoche, New York" [2007] |
|
|
Born: 4 November 1946, Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, USA. A.k.a. Fred Elmes.
Education: Rochester Institute of Technology [Fine Art Photography]; American Film Institute [AFI], Los Angeles [graduated in 1972]; Graduate Film Program at New York University's Department of Film and Television [NYU] [MA in 1975].
Career: At the AFI he started his collaboration with fellow student David Lynch on the film 'Eraserhead’ [it took 4 years to make this film, which was mostly shot at night]. Ph student and educational films.
Ph numerous commercials dir by Paul Meijer, Michael Haussman, Walter Kehr, Anthony Atanasio, Barry Sonnenfeld, Ang Lee, David Lynch, a.o.
Active member of the ASC since December 1993. Conducted a workshop for Grad Film cinematography students at NYU in 2009.
Appeared in the doc's 'Jonathan Ross Presents for One Week Only: David Lynch' [1990, Andy Harries], 'Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography' [1991] & 'Mysteries of Love' [2002, Jeffrey Schwarz; ph: Eric Brubaker].
Awards: Independent Spirit Award nom [1987], BSFC Award [1987] & NSFC Award [1987] for 'Blue Velvet'; Independent Spirit Award [1991] for 'Wild at Heart'; Independent Spirit Award [1993] for 'Night on Earth'; Hawaii IFF 'Excellence in Cinematography Award' [1996]; 'Emmy' Award nom [1997] for 'In the Gloaming'; WorldFest Houston 'Gold Special Jury Award' [1997] for 'The Empty Mirror'; Camerimage Special Award 'Best Duo' [2000; shared with David Lynch].
Website: Fred Elmes
'Shooting a feature film takes a lot out of you. It requires a lot of thought and a certain amount of physical endurance. It takes time to recharge. That's where it helps to shoot commercials. Commercials are short term commitments that enable me to be more selective about features. They are also fun to shoot. It's an opportunity to work with a lot of different directors who have fresh ideas. You can experiment more freely. […] I shot a Mazda commercial in Europe. A man is driving at night on a lonely dark road. You see only his close-up and his point of view of the road. He's nodding off. An animal dashes in front of the car. He swerves. He nods off again. The man awakens and swerves to avoid a truck. Is he going to crash? The tension builds. The car rolls to a stop and the front bumper taps against a phone pole. He backs up, drives forward and taps the pole harder. He backs up again, and the third time he rams into the pole. That activates an airbag in the car, which he uses as a pillow while he naps. The tagline is 'airbags save lives.' That's a good example of a one-minute story with a beginning, middle and ending. Commercials like that one are packed with visual information. You can compress the story and the audience will still follow the logic. These techniques, eventually, carry into features, but commercials and [music] videos are much more experimental. Sometimes it takes years for ideas you routinely use in commercials or videos to filter into features. I shot a Guinness Beer commercial in England, with Michael Haussman, an American director who lives there. We were creating a Salvador Dali world. We shot tests on our pre-lit stage and took them into telecine. We had a couple of hours of play-time to find the look. We tried some really complicated approaches, such as laying off one pass of the negative in black and white and another pass in color, a third with a bit of diffusion, and combining them in different ways. It pays to experiment before you shoot.' [From interview with Bob Fisher in 'International Photographer', 1996.]
|
FILMS |
|
1970 |
Street Scenes/Street Scenes 1970 [Fred Elmes, Oliver Stone, Don Lenzer, a.o.; prod superv: Martin Scorsese] b&w-c; doc/75m; cph: Don Lenzer, Oliver Stone, Fred Hadley, Arnold Klein, a.o. |
|
|
1972 |
Eraserhead [David Lynch] b&w; cph: Herbert Cardwell; + sfx ph; co-prod AFI |
|
|
1974 |
The Amputee [David Lynch] b&w; short/5m; cph: Herbert Cardwell |
|
|
1976 |
Number One [Dyan Cannon] v-to-35mm/b&w; short/42m; + co-ed; prod AFI |
|
|
1976 |
Young Lady Chatterley/Naked Young Lady [Alan Roberts] c; co-2uc; ph: Bob Brownell |
|
|
1977 |
Breakfast in Bed [William Haugse] 16mm/c; short/56m |
|
|
1978 |
The Flight of the Gossamer Condor [Jacqueline Phillips Shedd (JPS) & Ben Shedd] c; doc/27m; co-addph; ph: JPS & Boyd Estus |
|
|
1978 |
Real Life [Albert Brooks] c; addph; ph: Eric Saarinen |
|
|
1982 |
Valley Girl/Bad Boyz/Rebel Dreams [Martha Coolidge] c; 2uc: Don Cirillo |
|
|
1982 |
Citizen: The Political Life of Allard K. Lowenstein [Julie Thompson] 16mm/c; doc/72m |
|
|
1983 |
Dune [David Lynch] c; co-addph (+ 2ud); ph: Freddie Francis |
|
|
1983 |
Red Dawn [John Milius] c; 2uc; ph: Ric Waite |
|
|
1985 |
Real Genius [Martha Coolidge] cs/c; 2uc; ph: Vilmos Zsigmond |
|
|
1985 |
Broken Rainbow [Victoria Mudd] c; doc/69m; cph: Baird Bryant, Joan Weidman, Michael Anderson, a.o. |
|
|
1985 |
Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold [Gary Nelson] J-D-C Scope/c; ph Los Angeles; ph: Alex Phillips |
|
|
1985 |
Blue Velvet [David Lynch] J-D-C Scope/c |
|
|
1986 |
Heaven [Diane Keaton] c; doc/88m; cph: Joe Kelly; filmed January-October |
|
|
1986 |
River's Edge [Tim Hunter] c |
|
|
1986 |
Aria [seg #7 'Tristan und Isolde: Liebestod' dir by Franc Roddam] b&w-c; filmed July 1986-March 1987 |
|
|
1987 |
Permanent Record [Marisa Silver] c |
|
|
1987 |
[Michael Jackson:] Moonwalker [Jim Blashfield (seg 'Leave Me Alone'), Colin Chilvers (seg 'Smooth Criminal') & Jerry Kramer (anthology seg)] c; ph anthology seg; cph: Thomas Ackerman, Robert E. Collins, Crescenzo Notarile; ph 'Smooth Criminal': John Hora; filmed February 1987-May 1988 |
|
|
1989 |
Cold Dog Soup [Alan Metter] c |
|
|
1989 |
Wild at Heart [David Lynch] p/c |
|
|
1989 |
Hollywood Mavericks [Todd McCarthy & Michael Henry Wilson] 16mm/c; doc/90m; cph: John Bailey, Peter S. Rosen, Steve Baum, Mead Hunt, a.o. |
|
|
1991 |
Night on Earth [Jim Jarmusch] c |
|
|
1992 |
The Saint of Fort Washington [Tim Hunter] c |
|
|
1992 |
Duke Ellington - Reminiscing in Tempo [Robert Levi] b&w-c; doc/50m; cph: ? |
|
|
1992 |
Coffee and Cigarettes III/Coffee and Cigarettes: Somewhere in California [Jim Jarmusch] b&w; short/12m; ed into 'Coffee and Cigarettes' (see 2003) |
|
|
1993 |
Trial by Jury [Heywood Gould] c |
|
|
1994 |
Reckless [Norman René] c |
|
|
1995 |
The Empty Mirror [Barry Hershey] c |
|
|
1996 |
The Ice Storm [Ang Lee] c; 2uc: Frank Prinzi |
|
|
1997 |
The Object of My Affection [Nicholas Hytner] c; uncred addph; ph: Oliver Stapleton |
|
|
1998 |
Ride with the Devil [Ang Lee] J-D-C Scope/c; 2uc: Michael Benson |
|
|
1999 |
Chain of Fools [Traktor = Pontus Löwenhielm & Patrick von Krusenstjerna] Hawk Scope/c |
|
|
2000 |
Chosen [Ang Lee] p/c; short/7m; promotional film for carmaker BMW; ep of 5-part internet film series 'The Hire' |
|
|
2000 |
Storytelling [Todd Solondz] c; 2 seg ('Fiction' & 'Non-Fiction'); ph video seg: Dylan Verrechia |
|
|
2001 |
Trapped/24 Hours [Luis Mandoki] c; cph: Piotr Sobocinski; 2uc: Eduardo Martínez Solares; replaced ph P. Sobocinski, who died on 26 March 2001 in Vancouver, Canada |
|
|
2001 |
Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet [seg 'Int. Trailer Night' dir by Jim Jarmusch] b&w-c; 7 seg + links; other ph: Phedon Papamichael, Timo Salminen, Ángel Luis Fernández, Shu Yang, a.o. |
|
|
||
|
2002 |
Hulk [Ang Lee] c; aph: Hans Bjerno; vfx ph: Eric Swenson & Martin Rosenberg |
|
|
2003 |
Coffee and Cigarettes [Jim Jarmusch] b&w; 96m; cph: Tom DiCillo (1986), Robby Müller (1989) & Ellen Kuras; ed from 3 'Coffee and Cigarettes'-films (1986, 1989 & 1992) and other shorts |
|
|
2003 |
Kinsey [Bill Condon] J-D-C Scope/c |
|
|
[Right] with dir Jim Jarmusch - "Broken Flowers" |
|
2004 |
Broken Flowers [Jim Jarmusch] 16mm+35mm-to-35mm/c |
|
2005 |
The Namesake [Mira Nair] c; 2uc: Jay Jay Odedra |
|
2006 |
A Dog Year [George LaVoo] c; addph: Clay Westervelt |
|
2007 |
Synecdoche, New York [Charlie Kaufman] s35/c; 2uc: David M. Dunlap |
|
2007 |
Brothers [Jim Sheridan] s35/c; 2uc: Michael Lohmann |
|
2008 |
Bride Wars [Gary Winick] c; 2uc: David M. Dunlap |
|
2009 |
Transfer at Aachen [Paul Warner] pre-production |
|
TELEVISION |
|
1986 |
Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 [Jeremy Paul Kagan] tvm |
|
1988 |
Les Français vu par/The French as Seen by... [seg (22m) 'The Cowboy and the Frenchman' dir by David Lynch] 5-part series |
|
1988 |
Roughhouse [Martha Coolidge] pilot/30m for CBS-tv |
|
1988 |
The Louie Anderson Show [Anthony Eaton] comedy perf/60m |
|
1988 |
The Closed Set [Mollie Miller] tvm/60m; ep 6-part PBS-tv series 'Tales from the Hollywood Hills' |
|
1989 |
The Judds: Across the Heartland [Bud Schaetzle] mus special/60m for CBS-tv; ph concert seq; ph doc seq: Candy Gonzalez |
|
1993 |
Laurel Canyon [Tim Hunter] pilot |
|
1996 |
In the Gloaming [Christopher Reeve] tvm/67m |
|
1997 |
[Oprah Winfrey Presents:] The Wedding [Charles Burnett] 2-part tvm |
|
FILMS AS CAMERA ASSISTANT/OPERATOR |
|
1972 |
Invasion of the Blood Farmers [Ed Adlum] c.asst; ph: Frederick Douglass |
|
1974 |
A Woman Under the Influence [John Cassavetes] co-c.asst (left prod early on); ph (in charge of lighting): Mitchell Breit; film was started by ph Caleb Deschanel |
|
1975 |
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie [John Cassavetes] co-c.op; ph (lighting superv): Mitchell Breit |
|
1976 |
Opening Night [John Cassavetes] co-c.op; ph: Al Ruban |
|
1977 |
A Secret Space [Roberta Hodes] c.asst; ph: Fred Aronow |
|
1978 |
A Force of One [Paul Aaron] co-c.op; ph: Roger Shearman |
|
1980 |
Modern Romance [Albert Brooks] c.op; ph: Eric Saarinen |
