Bruno Delbonnel, AFC took top honors in the feature film competition of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Outstanding Achievement Awards last week on the strength of A Very Long Engagement, which was directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. It was the first ASC Award for Delbonnel and his second ASC nomination. He was first nominated in 2002 for Amelie, another collaboration with Jeunet. (After a four-year hiatus from spots, feature filmmaker Jeunet is again available in the ad discipline, being represented stateside by New York-headquartered Curious Pictures and in Europe via Grand Large, Paris.)
Delbonnel topped a field of feature nominees consisting of Dion Beebe, ASC, ACS and Paul Cameron for Collateral; Caleb Deschanel, ASC for The Passion of the Christ; Pawel Edelman, PSC for Ray; and Robert Richardson, ASC for The Aviator. Several of the nominees have ties to commercialmaking. For example, Deschanel is a director/cameraman via Dark Light Pictures, West Hollywood. Richardson is represented as a director/DP for commercials by bicoastal Tool of North America. And Beebe and Cameron have each been active as spot cinematographers. Incidentally, Beebe and Cameron recently scored the British Academy Award in cinematography for Collateral.
During the ASC event, SHOOT caught up with Deschanel who reported that principal photography had wrapped on his most recent feature, Ask The Dusk, directed by Robert Towne. The cinematographer was preparing to supervise the digital intermediate process on the film. Deschanel also directed an episode of the new Dick Wolfe-created NBC series Law & Order: Trial By Jury, scheduled to debut in March.
Meanwhile, fellow nominee Richardson and last year’s ASC feature Award winner John Schwartzman (Seabiscuit) reported that they are available for ad assignments and were focusing on new spot projects. Schwartzman is represented as a director/DP for commercials via bicoastal RSA USA
The three ASC Award winners in the television categories were: Jonathan Freeman for Iron Jawed Angels (HBO) in the cable movie competition; Robbie Greenberg, ASC for Homeland Security (NBC) in the original movie for broadcast TV category; and Nathan Hope in the episodic series competition for Down the Drain, an installment of Csi: Crime Scene Investigation. Greenberg, who won ASC Awards for the cable movies Winchell in ’99 and Dorothy Dandridge in ’00, also has spot credits as a DP.
Receiving the prestigious ASC Lifetime Achievement Award was Fred Koenekamp, ASC, an Academy Award winner for The Towering Inferno in ’75, and an Oscar nominee for Patton and Islands in the Stream.
And the Presidents Award went to Richard Moore, ASC, who co-founded Panavision with Robert Gottschalk in ’54. He shared a technical Oscar for designing and developing a 65mm camera system. His cinematography credits included The Wild Angels, Sometimes a Great Notion, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean and Annie.
Director/editor Larry Bridges cut the opening to the ASC Awards ceremony again this year. Bridges is principal in editorial house Red Car, which has shops in such markets as Santa Monica, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Dallas and Buenos Aires.