Project Development: Further Research on Jack Cardiff
source: Cambridge Arts Theatre
In this research post, I will do my final research on a famous cinematographer, Jack Cardiff. As he is a widely known figure in the film industry and had a great impact to the evolution of cinema dating back to the 1930's. He was known as "the men who made women look beautiful" (Thompson. 2017).
Jack Cardiff was a British cinematographer, director and photographer from Great Yarmouth, England. He has a career spanning nearly 90 years of working during the development of cinema from silent film to film making half a century later. He was the first ever cameraman to be chosen by Technicolour to work on coloured photography. Moving on to 1935, where he became a camera operator and occasional cinematographer mostly for London Films. He was the first ever person to shoot a film in Technicolor from Britain (Wings of the Morning, 1937).
In the '50s, he began to direct a film called Sons and Lovers (1960) which received seven Oscar nominations including Best Director for him. He returned to cinematography in the '70s and '80s, working on films such as Dogs of War (1981), Conan the Destroyer (1984), and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985). He was best known for his influential colour cinematography for directors such as Powell and Press burger (Black Narcissus 1947, The Red Shoes, 1948), Huston (The African Queen, 1951). The dramatic use of colour in the films are essentially a part of what led to the success of the films by Cardiff. He viewed a cameraman as "the man who paints the movie" (Bergan, 2009)
To summarise, this research was extremely helpful. The information was useful to me to gain the knowledge on how Jack Cardiff contributed in the development of cinematography as he was considered as a legend behind the scenes.
Reference:
- Cambridge Arts Theatre. (2019) Jack Cardiff: The man behind the camera, Jack Cardiff: the man behind the camera. Available at: https://www.cambridgeartstheatre.com/news/jack-cardiff-man-behind-camera (Accessed: March 2, 2023).
- Jack Cardiff: The man behind the camera (2019) Jack Cardiff: the man behind the camera. Available at: https://www.cambridgeartstheatre.com/news/jack-cardiff-man-behind-camera (Accessed: March 3, 2023).
- Jack Cardiff (no date) IMDb. IMDb.com. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002153/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm (Accessed: March 3, 2023).
- Bergan, R. (2009) Obituary: Jack Cardiff, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/apr/23/jack-cardiff-obituary (Accessed: March 6, 2023).
- Thompson, I. (2017) Jack Cardiff: "The man who made women look beautiful", Vanity Fair. Vanity Fair. Available at: https://www.vanityfair.com/london/2017/09/jack-cardiff-the-man-who-made-women-look-beautiful (Accessed: March 6, 2023).
Good that you have made a start on your further research. You need to analyse a couple of the works by the cinematographer in detail. What do critics say about his work? Talk about the structure and features his work. What bits will you be using in your own work and not using in your own work? Explain why. Make it clear in each post WHY you are researching this and it should be clear why the reader is reading this. How has this researched informed your work? You need to state what you have learnt from this and how this will affect your project? What are you going to do following this research?
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