Director/cinematographer Robert Richardson, ASC, who is represented for commercials by bicoastal Tool of North America, won a best cinematography Oscar for Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s 77th Academy Awards were handed out on Feb. 27 at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood.
This is Richardson’s second win; his first cinematography Oscar was awarded for Oliver Stone’s JFK. In total, The Aviator collected five Academy Awards; Million Dollar Baby earned four, including best picture.
On stage, Richardson’s acceptance remarks were brief and heartfelt, focusing on recognizing his mother, who is ill.
In the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator, Richardson recreated the look of the two and three stripe Technicolor dye processes used on many films of the period during which Hughes was making movies. Richardson did the final work on his gorgeous photography using a digital intermediate (DI) process at Technicolor Digital Intermediates (a Burbank-based entity of Technicolor Creative Services), working closely with the TDI team.
Meanwhile, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind won in the best original screenplay category, for a screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, and a story by Kaufman, Pierre Bismuth and the film’s director, Michel Gondry, who is represented as a commercial helmer by bicoastal/international Partizan.
Meanwhile, SIGGRAPH-goers would remember the Academy’s best animated short winner, “Ryan” by Chris Landreth, which won the jury prize at the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater last summer. Produced by Copper Heart Entertainment in co-production with the National Film Board of Canada in association with Seneca College Animation Arts Centre, “Ryan” explores the turn in the life of Ryan Larkin, a former animator who produced some of the most influential animated films of his time 30 years ago at the National Film Board of Canada. Today Larkin lives on welfare and panhandles for spare change in Montreal. (Many may also remember Landreth’s earlier short, “Bingo”.)
Among the other Oscar nominees for animated short was “Gopher Broke,” from Santa Monica-based Blur Studios and nominees Tim Miller and Jeff Fowler.
Also present at the Academy Awards were editor Matt Chesse of bicoastal/international Cut+Run, who earned an editing nomination for Finding Neverland; Thelma Schoonmaker, A.C.E. earned that prize this year for The Aviator. The cinematography nominees included director/cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, ASC, for Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Deschanel is repped as a spot director via West Hollywood-based Dark Light Pictures.
A final note: PostWorks in New York completed color correction and digital mastering on Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski’s Academy Award winning documentary feature Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids and on documentary nominee Lauren Lazin’s Tupac: Resurrection.