Wally Pfister

Wally Pfister
Born	Walter C. Pfister (1961-07-08) July 8, 1961 (age 63) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Education	AFI Conservatory
Occupation(s)	Cinematographer, director
Years active	1988–present
Organization(s)	American Society of Cinematographers British Society of Cinematographers
Spouses	Anna Julien ​ ​ (m. 1992; div. 2015)​ Loan Chabanol ​ (m. 2018)​
Children	3, including Claire Julien

Walter C. Pfister (born July 8, 1961) is an American director and former cinematographer, who is best known for his work with filmmaker Christopher Nolan. Some of his collaborations with Nolan include Memento (2000), The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2012), and Inception (2010). For his work on Inception, Pfister won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography and received a BAFTA Award nomination.

Pfister is also known for his work on director F. Gary Gray's The Italian Job and Bennett Miller's Moneyball. In 2014, Pfister made his directorial debut with Transcendence (2014), through Alcon Entertainment. In addition to feature films, he has also directed commercials and television, including episodes of Flaked and The Tick.

Early life

Pfister was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in the New York City suburb of Irvington-on-Hudson.^[1] He is the son of Patricia Ann (née Conway) and Walter J. Pfister, Jr.^[2] His grandfather was the city editor of a newspaper in Wisconsin. His father, also known as Wally, was a TV news producer, who began his career with CBS-TV in Chicago in 1955. Later, as an executive at ABC News, the elder Pfister worked with David Brinkley and Peter Jennings, covering political conventions, space flights and the civil rights movement.

When Pfister was about 11, a film company shot scenes for Shamus (1973), featuring Burt Reynolds, in his Irvington neighborhood. The boy was fascinated by the crew setting up lights and cameras. Soon afterward, he began shooting 8 mm home movies and short films. Pfister also emulated his father by shooting slides on Kodachrome film and assembling them into shows for family and friends.

Career

After high school, Pfister found a job as a production assistant at a television station, WMDT-TV, in Salisbury, Maryland. Within a couple of months, he borrowed a CP-16 news camera and began shooting films on weekends, including a visual essay about a Victorian house. "I did these slow, little intricate moves around the architecture of the house", he recalls, "cut it together with music, and showed it to the production manager. They made me a cameraman. I shot very low budget PSAs for $125 a week".

Within a few months, Pfister found a job as a cameraman for a Washington news service, which provided film for TV stations around the country. He covered the United States Congress, the White House and breaking news from 1982 through 1985. In 1985 Pfister began a freelance career shooting documentaries for the PBS series Frontline and industrial videos for various Washington production companies.

In 1988, Robert Altman came to Washington to direct a mini-series for HBO called Tanner '88 (1988). Altman was looking for a real news cameraman to play that role in his show. They hired Pfister and asked him to also shoot some B-roll. When the producers saw his work, they brought Pfister on the show as the second unit cameraman. It was the first time he was exposed to acting and dramatic material.

After that experience, Pfister enrolled at the American Film Institute. During his second year, he collaborated with his classmates on a short film called "Senzeni Na?", which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 1991. The film told the story of a man caught up in the apartheid struggle. Pfister drew on his documentary experience, and lit it darkly and stark, using a single light so the actor could play in and out of that source.

Janusz Kamiński had just graduated from the AFI Conservatory and met Pfister that year. He saw Pfister's film and recruited him as a grip and electrician for various projects, including a few with Phedon Papamichael.

Roger Corman gave Pfister an opportunity to shoot pickup shots and inserts for a Papamichael film. It was the first time he shot a 35 mm film. After that, Pfister handled the second unit for Papamichael on Body Chemistry and also on other Corman films.

Pfister shot The Unborn, his first feature, in 1991. After that, he filmed an array of independent B-movies, typically on 15-day schedules. Many of these early films were directed by Gregory Dark.

In 1995, Papamichael asked Pfister to operate for him on Diane Keaton's Unstrung Heroes (1995).

Work with Christopher Nolan

In 1998, Pfister shot The Hi-Line in Montana in the dead of winter on a $300,000 budget. It got into the competition at Sundance Film Festival. There, he met Nolan, who had a film at Slamdance. Pfister's first collaboration with Nolan was on the neo-noir thriller Memento (2000). The success of this collaboration resulted in Pfister working as the director of photography for Nolan's subsequent films. Pfister has stated that he "turned down many projects (including several Harry Potter films), in some cases just to be available for Nolan, or to stay home with my family."^[3] Pfister's collaboration with Nolan came to an end with The Dark Knight Rises, as he then got the chance to direct his first film, Transcendence. He was replaced with Hoyte van Hoytema, who has acted as the director of photography for all of Nolan's films since Interstellar (2014).

Pfister has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography four times, each time for a film directed by Nolan. He won an Academy Award for his work on Inception at the 83rd Academy Awards. He also has been nominated three times for the American Society of Cinematographers Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases, for Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Inception, winning for the latter, in 2011.

Directorial work

Pfister made his directorial debut with the science fiction thriller Transcendence, starring Johnny Depp, which was released by Warner Bros. on April 18, 2014.^[4] The cast also featured Morgan Freeman, Kate Mara, Cillian Murphy, Rebecca Hall, and Paul Bettany.^[5]

Pfister had stated in 2015 he is finished with working as a cinematographer and planned to continue as a director.^[6]

Personal life

Pfister currently resides in Los Angeles, California with his partner Loan Chabanol and has three children: Nick, actress Claire Julien, and Mia.^[7]

He is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) since 2002, and the British Society of Cinematographers (BSC) since 2011.

Filmography

Cinematographer

Direct-to-video

Year	Title	Director
1991	Lower Level	Kristine Peterson
1992	Secret Games	Gregory Dark
	Animal Instincts
1993	Stepmonster	Jeremy Stanford
	Amityville: A New Generation	John Murlowski
	883: Nord sud ovest est	Stefano Salvati
	Mirror Images 2	Gregory Dark
1994	Stranger by Night
1995	The Granny	Luca Bercovici
1997	A Kid in Aladdin's Palace	Robert L. Levy

Feature film

Year	Title	Director
1991	The Unborn	Rodman Flender
1992	In the Heat of Passion
	Night Rhythms	Gregory Dark
1994	Object of Obsession
	Secret Games 3
1999	The Hi-Line	Ron Judkins
2000	Memento	Christopher Nolan
2001	Scotland, PA	Billy Morrissette
	Rustin	Rick Johnson
2002	Insomnia	Christopher Nolan
	Laurel Canyon	Lisa Cholodenko
2003	The Italian Job	F. Gary Gray
2005	Slow Burn	Wayne Beach
	Batman Begins	Christopher Nolan
2006	The Prestige
2008	The Dark Knight
2010	Inception
2011	Moneyball	Bennett Miller
2012	The Dark Knight Rises	Christopher Nolan

Short film

Year	Title	Director	Notes
1995	The Last Laugh	Robert Harders
2010	Pom Wonderful	François Girard	TV short

TV movies

Year	Title	Director	Notes
1991	Barbara Stanwyck: Fire and Desire	Richard Schickel	Documentary film
1992	Sketch Artist	Phedon Papamichael
1998	Rhapsody in Bloom	Craig Saavedra
	Breakfast with Einstein	Craig Shapiro
2000	Sharing the Secret	Katt Shea
2001	Sanctuary

TV series

Year	Title	Director	Notes
1993	883: Nord sud ovest est	Stefano Salvati	TV special
1995	Frontline		Episode "High Stakes in Cyberspace"

Director

Film

• Transcendence (2014)

Television

Year	Title	Notes
2016	Flaked	4 episodes
2016–2017	The Tick	2 episodes (Also executive producer)

Commercials

Year	Brand	Title
2018	Taco Bell	Web of Fries II - Franchise Wars
2019	Hyundai	Hope on Wheels It Takes a Village
2021	Crypto.com	Fortune Favors The Brave

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

Year	Title	Category	Result
2005	Batman Begins	Best Cinematography	Nominated
2006	The Prestige		Nominated
2008	The Dark Knight		Nominated
2010	Inception		Won

BAFTA Awards

Year	Title	Category	Result
2008	The Dark Knight	Best Cinematography	Nominated
2010	Inception		Nominated

American Society of Cinematographers

Year	Title	Category	Result
2005	Batman Begins	Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography	Nominated
2008	The Dark Knight		Nominated
2010	Inception		Won

Other awards

Year	Title	Award	Result
2000	Memento	Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography	Nominated
2005	Batman Begins	British Society of Cinematographers Award for Best Cinematography	Nominated
2006	The Prestige	British Society of Cinematographers for Best Cinematography	Nominated
		Gold Derby Award for Best Cinematography	Nominated
2008	The Dark Knight	Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Cinematography	Won
		Gold Derby Award for Best Cinematography	Won
		Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Cinematography	Won
		Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Cinematography	Won
		Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Cinematography	Won
		British Society of Cinematographers Award for Best Cinematography	Nominated
		Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best Cinematography	Nominated
2010	Inception	Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cinematography	Won
		Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Cinematography	Won
		San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Cinematography	Won
		Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best Cinematography	Won
		Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Cinematography	Won
		Satellite Award for Best Cinematography	Won
		Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Cinematography	Nominated
		Alliance of Women Film Journalists for Best Cinematography	Nominated
		British Society of Cinematographers Award for Best Cinematography	Nominated
		Camerimage Golden Frog	Nominated
		Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Cinematography	Nominated
		Gold Derby Award for Best Cinematography	Nominated
		Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Cinematography	Nominated
2012	The Dark Knight Rises	Hollywood Film Award for Best Cinematography	Won

References

1. "Wally Pfister, ASC". Cameraguild. Archived from the original on May 4, 2012. Retrieved August 5, 2009.
2. "Sheboygan Press Newspaper Archives, Jun 8, 1957, p. 7". June 8, 1957.
3. "Christopher Nolan: The Movies. The Memories. – Part 2: Wally Pfister on Memento". Empire. July 2010. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
4. McClintock, Pamela (March 1, 2013). "Johnny Depp's 'Transcendence' to Hit Theaters in April 2014". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
5. "Cillian Murphy Reuniting with Wally Pfister for 'Transcendence' Sci-Fi". April 15, 2013.
6. Nolan and I have gone our separate ways: Wally Pfister
7. "Inception" winning Best Cinematography on YouTube

External links

• A Conversation with Wally Pfister
• Wally Pfister at IMDb