David Watkin (born March 23, 1925 in Margate, England) is an influential British cinematographer who was among the first directors of photography to experiment heavily with the usage of bounce light as a soft light source. He has worked with such noted directors as Richard Lester, Peter Brook, Tony Richardson, Mike Nichols, Ken Russell, Franco Zeffirelli, Sidney Lumet, and Sydney Pollack. March 23 is the 82nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (83rd in Leap years). ... 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... Margate is a town in the district known as the Isle of Thanet (though no longer an island) in Kent, England (population about 12,700). ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Government Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - Prime Minister Tony Blair MP Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq... A cinematographer (from cinema photographer) is one photographing with a motion picture camera (the art and science of which is known as cinematography). ... A Type of lighting fixture that produces a very even, large, soft-beamed light output. ... The film director, on the right, gives last minute direction to the cast and crew, whilst filming a costume drama on location in London. ... Richard Lester (born January 19, 1932 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a UK based film director famous for his work with The Beatles. ... Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH CBE (born 21 March 1925) is a highly influential British theatrical producer and director. ... Tony Richardson (June 5, 1928 - November 14, 1991) was a British theatre and film director and producer. ... Mike Nichols (born Michael Igor Peschkowsky) is an Academy Award winning movie director of films such as The Graduate and Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. He was born on November 6, 1931 in Berlin, to a Jewish Russian family. ... Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell, known as Ken Russell (born July 3, 1927), is a controversial English film director, particularly known for his films about famous composers. ... Franco Zeffirelli (born Gianfranco Corsi on February 12, 1923), is an Italian film director. ... Portrait of Sidney Lumet, May 7, 1939. ... Sydney Pollack (born July 1, 1934 in Lafayette, Indiana) is an American actor, producer, and director. ...

In 1985, Watkin won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Out of Africa. Most recently, he was given lifetime achievement awards in 2004 by both the British Society of Cinematographers and the cinematographic-centric Camerimage Film Festival in Łódź, Poland. 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Academy Award The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are the most prominent film awards in the United States and most watched awards ceremony in the world. ... For the African-origin theory of human evolution sometimes referred to as the Out of Africa theory, see single-origin hypothesis. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Łódź ((?)) is Polands second largest city (population 776,297 in 2004). ...

Watkin was born in Margate on March 23, 1925, the fourth and youngest son of a Catholic solicitor father and homemaker mother, and grew up within a well-to-do upper-middle class household. He gained an early yen for European classical music, which was left to be satisfied only as a passive listener when his father rejected his request for a piano and lessons; Watkin always contends that he would rather have been a professional musician than a cinematographer. Margate is a town in the district known as the Isle of Thanet (though no longer an island) in Kent, England (population about 12,700). ... March 23 is the 82nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (83rd in Leap years). ... 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... A solicitor is a type of lawyer in many common law jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Republic of Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, but not the United States or Canada (in the United States the word has a quite different meaning—see below). ... A homemaker is a person whose prime occupation is to care for their family and/or home; the term is originally an American feminist phrase, but it has entered mainstream English. ... Classical music is a broad, somewhat imprecise term, referring to music produced in, or rooted in the traditions of, European art, ecclesiastical and concert music, encompassing a broad period from roughly 1000 to the present day. ... A grand piano, with the lid up. ... A musician is a person who plays or composes music. ...

After a brief stint in the Army during World War II, Watkin started work at the Southern Railway Film Unit in 1948 as a camera assistant. After the unit was absorbed into British Transport Films in 1950, he eventually climbed the ranks up to director of photography at BTF before going off to work freelance in commercials in around 1960. It was on a commercial shoot that he met Richard Lester, who hired him for his feature film, The Knack...and How to Get It (1965). The two subsequently worked together on Help!, How I Won the War, The Bed-Sitting Room, The Three Musketeers, The Four Musketeers, Robin and Marian, and Cuba. This article is becoming very long. ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... In cinematography, a focus puller or first assistant camera (1 AC) is the member of a film crew responsible for keeping the cameras focus right during a shoot. ... British Transport Films was an organisation set up in 1949 to make documentary films on the general subject of British transport. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... From the earliest days of the medium, television has been used as a vehicle for advertising in some countries. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1960 calendar). ... Richard Lester (born January 19, 1932 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a UK based film director famous for his work with The Beatles. ... The Knack . ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... Help! is the title of a 1965 film starring The Beatles and featuring Leo McKern, Eleanor Bron, Victor Spinetti, John Bluthal and Roy Kinnear. ... How I Won the War is a 1967 film directed by Richard Lester. ... The Bed-Sitting Room is a satirical play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus. ... DArtagnan and the Musketeers The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. ... The Four Musketeers were four tennis players from France, given their name from the Alexandre Dumas story The Three Musketeers. ... Sean Connery as Robin Hood. ...

He is noted for his very casual approach; when asked when he first developed a passion for photography, he answered that he hadn't as of yet (his main passions being classical music and books). He also has a rather famous habit of sleeping on-set in between lighting setups, because "it's the only thing you can do on-set which doesn't make you more tired". This habit was humorously referenced in Night Falls on Manhattan (1997), which he shot, where he has a brief cameo towards the beginning as a sleeping judge. In the case of the film of Marat/Sade (1967), problems of a tight shooting schedule and restricted set space were innovatively resolved through the usage of one single lighting set-up for the entirety of the film - a translucent wall lit by twenty-six 10 kW lamps as the sole source of light. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... [1]#redirect Book ... This article or section needs to be wikified. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, published in 1963, is a play by Peter Weiss, directed both on stage and screen by Peter Brook. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ...

Watkin also conceived of the idea for a new light which would tackle the problem of light falloff during night shoots. Because of the inverse square law, light from even moderately strong sources starts to fall off fairly quickly as the subject walks away from the light source. Therefore films shooting at night had the problem of trying to hide light sources in places which would be out of shot but maintain a fairly constant level of illumination over any amount of distance (and thus not indicate a large lamp as a light source). His solution was to build a large array of tightly spaced Fay lights in a 14x14 square (196 lights total), which was then elevated 150 feet high on a cherry picker placed roughly a quarter of a mile away. Because of the large distance between the light and the actors and the high luminescence of this light array, the actors could walk across long distances without the intensity of the light hitting them seeming to vary. Subsequently, the array was named the "Wendy-light" in honor of Watkin, whose "camp name" is Wendy. In physics, an inverse-square law is any physical law stating that some quantity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from a point. ... Camp is an aesthetic in which something has appeal because of its bad taste or ironic value. ...

His autobiography, Why Is There Only One Word for Thesaurus?, was first published in 1998 and is currently being prepared for a revised second edition. 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ...

Selected filmography

• The Six Sided Triangle, 1963
• Goldfinger, 1964 (title sequence)
• The Knack...and How to Get It, 1965
• Help!, 1965
• Mademoiselle, 1966
• Marat/Sade, 1967
• How I Won the War, 1967
• The Charge of the Light Brigade, 1968
• The Bed-Sitting Room, 1969
• Catch-22, 1970
• The Devils, 1971
• The Boy Friend, 1971
• The Homecoming, 1973
• A Delicate Balance, 1973
• The Three Musketeers, 1973
• The Four Musketeers, 1974
• Mahogany, 1975
• Robin and Marian, 1976
• Joseph Andrews, 1977
• Jesus of Nazareth, 1977
• Hanover Street, 1979
• Cuba, 1979
• Chariots of Fire, 1981
• Yentl, 1983
• The Hotel New Hampshire, 1984
• Return to Oz, 1985
• White Nights, 1985
• Out of Africa, 1985 (Academy Award for Cinematography)
• Moonstruck, 1987
• Last Rites, 1988
• Memphis Belle, 1990
• Hamlet, 1990
• The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez, 1991
• This Boy's Life, 1993
• Bopha!, 1993
• Milk Money, 1994
• Jane Eyre, 1996
• Night Falls on Manhattan, 1997
• Gloria, 1999
• Tea with Mussolini, 1999

Goldfinger is the third film in the EON Productions James Bond series, and the third to star Sean Connery as British Secret Service agent, Commander James Bond 007. ... The Knack . ... Help! is the title of a 1965 film starring The Beatles and featuring Leo McKern, Eleanor Bron, Victor Spinetti, John Bluthal and Roy Kinnear. ... The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, published in 1963, is a play by Peter Weiss, directed both on stage and screen by Peter Brook. ... How I Won the War is a 1967 film directed by Richard Lester. ... This may refer to: The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936 film) The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968 film) ... The Bed-Sitting Room is a satirical play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus. ... Catch-22 is a 1970 film, adapted from the book of the same name by Joseph Heller. ... For the 2002 musical project, see The Devils (band). ... Hortense holds the packages as Maisie, Fay, Dulcie and Nancy surrond her. ... The Three Musketeers is a 1973 film with an all-star cast. ... The Four Musketeers is the title of a 1974 Richard Lester film, which follows upon his film of the previous year, The Three Musketeers, and covers the second half of Dumass novel. ... Mahogany is a 1975 feature film, directed by Berry Gordy, produced by Motown Productions and released to theaters by Paramount Pictures. ... Sean Connery as Robin Hood. ... Picture of Robert Powell playing Jesus of Nazareth. ... Hanover Street is a 1979 movie directed by Peter Hyams, starring Harrison Ford and Lesley-Anne Down. ... Chariots of Fire is a British film released in 1981. ... Barbara Streisand on the soundtrack cover for the movie Yentl. ... The Hotel New Hampshire movie poster The Hotel New Hampshire is a 1984 film based on the 1981 novel by John Irving. ... DVD cover For other uses, see Return to Oz (disambiguation) The 1985 film Return to Oz is a motion picture arguably created as an unofficial sequel to The Wizard of Oz. ... White Nights is a 1985 movie starring Gregory Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikov. ... For the African-origin theory of human evolution sometimes referred to as the Out of Africa theory, see single-origin hypothesis. ... Moonstruck is a 1987 romantic comedy film directed by Norman Jewison. ... Memphis Belle is a 1990 film directed by Michael Caton-Jones. ... Hamlet is a 1990 film based on the Shakespearean play of the same name. ... This Boys Life was a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Tobias Wolff . ... Bopha! is a 1993 drama film directed by Morgan Freeman and starring Danny Glover. ... Milk Money is a romantic comedy film about three friends who travel to the city to hire a prostitute (Melanie Griffith) to strip for them, then try and set her up with their single dad (Ed Harris). ... Charlotte Brontës novel Jane Eyre (1847) has been the subject of numerous television and film adaptations. ... This article or section needs to be wikified. ... Tea With Mussolini (1999) is a semi-autobiographical film directed by Franco Zeffirelli, telling the story of young Italian boy Lucas upbringing by a kind Englishwoman and her circle of friends. ...

External links

• David Watkin at the Internet Movie Database
• Internet Encyclopedia of Cinematographers