Джозеф Бирок: Америка операторының өмірі мен шығармашылығы

American cinematographer

Joseph Francis Biroc, (February 12, 1903 – September 7, 1996) was an American cinematographer. He was born in New York City and began working in films at the Paragon Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey. After working there for approximately six years, he moved to Los Angeles. Once in Southern California, Biroc worked at the RKO Pictures movie studio. During World War II, he served in the U. S. Army Signal Corps and filmed the Liberation of Paris in August 1944. In 1950, Biroc left RKO Pictures and freelanced on projects at various studios. In addition to his film work, which included It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), Biroc worked on various television series, including the Adventures of Superman and Wonder Woman. He frequently collaborated with film director Robert Aldrich. Biroc won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for The Towering Inferno (1974), which he shared with Fred J. Koenekamp, and two Primetime Emmy Awards, one for the TV movie Brian's Song and one for the series Casablanca.

Joseph Francis Biroc was born on February 12, 1903, in New York City, New York. He developed a passion about film in his childhood. He saw his "first movie in 1910 on a vacant lot five blocks from his home" and knew from then he wanted to spend the rest of his life making movies.

At the age of fifteen, with his uncle's help, Biroc began his career in film as a film lab technician with Paragon Labs in Fort Lee, New Jersey in 1918. The apprenticeship marked the beginning of a series of jobs at numerous laboratories for Biroc – which was then a required step for aspiring cinematographers. Two years later, he started working at Craftsman Labs in New York from 1920 to 1923 and shortly for Goldwyn Pictures in Culver City, California in 1923. After his time at Goldwyn Pictures, Biroc returned to New York and took a job as film printer for Famous Players–Lasky, where he was shortly after promoted to assistant cameraman. After Famous Players–Lasky shut down in 1927, Biroc moved to Los Angeles to work for United Artists prior to moving to RKO to work as a camera operator. Biroc started at RKO by serving as assistant to cinematographers Leo Tover, Robert De Grasse, and Edward Cronjager. During his time at RKO, Biroc worked on Cimarron (1931), Swing Time (1936), and Shall We Dance (1937). He also worked on A Woman Rebels (1936), Sylvia Scarlett (1935), and Five Came Back (1939)

Biroc wrote an article for American Cinematographer where he explained the process behind filming the series Washington: Behind Closed Doors (1977). In the article he mentions how the producers of the movie wanted the sets to look like actual locations, so each set had to have a big ceiling on it. He also mentions how he achieved a widespread shot for a scene – “we used a hospital chair as a dolly we put a board across the handles of the wheelchair and the camera operator sat on the board.”

Biroc worked with director Wim Wenders and producers Fred Roos, Ronald Colby, and Don Guest to achieve a classic lighting look for Hammett (1982). He stated in an interview with Richard Patterson for American Cinematographer, “Actually the way I photograph is the way they photographed 40, 50, 60, 80 years ago. It's just basic lighting and basic photography.”

"Hollywood Launches 3 D Production," in American Cinematographer(Hollywood), August 1952. "Photographing Washington: Behind Closed Doors," in American Cinematographer(Hollywood), November 1977. American Cinematographer(Hollywood), July 1981. Focus on Film(London), no. 13, 1973. Patterson, R., on Hammettin American Cinematographer(Hollywood), November 1982. Basinger, Jeanine, in TheIt's a Wonderful Life Book, 1987. American Cinematographer(Hollywood), March 1989. Obituary, in American Cinematographer(Hollywood), November 1996. Obituary, in Cinefantastique(Forest Park), vol. 28, no. 6, 1996.