Hiro Narita

Hiro Narita is a Japanese-American retired cinematographer.

Early life and education

Narita was born to Japanese parents in 1941, in what is now Seoul, South Korea, then part of the Empire of Japan. In 1945, he and his family moved to Nara, Japan, and later to Tokyo. Following his father's early death and his mother's remarriage to a Japanese American, he immigrated in 1957 to Honolulu, Hawaii where he graduated from Kaimuki High School.
He went on to the San Francisco Art Institute where he received a BFA in Graphic Design in 1964. He quickly landed a position at a prominent local design firm, but the job lasted barely six months before he was drafted into the U.S. Army. For two years, he served as a designer and photographer at the Pentagon.

Career

An avid movie fan since childhood, Narita decided to go into filmmaking rather than go back into graphic design upon his return to San Francisco in the mid-sixties. He was a still photographer on Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point. After an internship with John Korty and Victor J. Kemper on the Michael Ritchie movie The Candidate in 1971, he photographed the television movie Farewell to Manzanar in 1975, for which he received an Emmy Award nomination.
In 1976, he was one of the camera operators on Martin Scorsese's documentary The Last Waltz about the last concert of The Band. Later, he worked on projects like Apocalypse Now, More American Graffiti, and the Neil Young documentary Rust Never Sleeps. For his cinematography on the movie Never Cry Wolf he won the Boston Society of Film Critics Award and the National Society of Film Critics Award in 1983. In 1989, he photographed the Visual Effects in the Steven Spielberg film Always. In the following years, he was the Director of Photography on successful films like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Dirty Pictures, The Rocketeer, and James and the Giant Peach.
Narita served as director of photography on the 1997 Live Action Short Film Academy Award winning Visas and Virtue. He also directed the 1997 hour-long documentary film, Isamu Noguchi: Stones and Paper, for PBS' American Masters series.
He has taught at San Francisco Art Institute, lectured, and given master classes at many institutions including Golden Eye in the Republic of Georgia.
He is a member of American Society of Cinematographers and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Filmography

Film

Documentary film

Year	Title	Director	Notes
1979	Rust Never Sleeps	Neil Young	with Jon H. Else, Paul Goldsmith, Robbie Greenberg, L.A. Johnson, David Myers and Richard Pearce
1991	The Inland Sea	Lucille Carra
2000	Dvorak and America	Lucille Carra	with Antonín Chundela and Allen Moore
2007	Strange Culture	Lynn Hershman Leeson
2015	Tania Libre	Lynn Hershman Leeson	with Shane King

Short film

Year	Title	Director	Notes
1982	listen....	Andy Aaron
1997	Visas and Virtue	Chris Tashima
2008	A Perfect Place	Derrick Scocchera
2020	Late Lunch	Eleanor Coppola	Segment of Love Is Love Is Love

Feature film

Year	Title	Director
1983	Never Cry Wolf	Carroll Ballard
1984	Prince Jack	Bert Lovitt
1985	Sylvester	Tim Hunter
1986	Fire with Fire	Duncan Gibbins
1987	No Man's Land	Peter Werner
1989	Shuttlecock	Jerry Barrish
1989	Honey, I Shrunk the Kids	Joe Johnston
1991	The Rocketeer	Joe Johnston
1991	Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country	Nicholas Meyer
1993	Gunmen	Deran Sarafian
1993	Hocus Pocus	Kenny Ortega
1994	White Fang 2: Myth of the White Wolf	Ken Olin
1996	The Arrival	David Twohy
1996	James and the Giant Peach	Henry Selick
1997	Conceiving Ada	Lynn Hershman Leeson
1998	Shadrach	Susanna Styron
1998	I'll Be Home for Christmas	Arlene Sanford
2000	Fortress 2: Re-Entry	Geoff Murphy
2002	Teknolust	Lynn Hershman Leeson
2005	Night of Henna	Hassan Zee
2006	The Darwin Awards	Finn Taylor
2006	Valley of the Heart's Delight	Tim Boxell
2009	La Mission	Peter Bratt
2015	Love & Taxes	Jacob Kornbluth

Television

TV movies

Year	Title	Director	Notes
1976	Farewell to Manzanar	John Korty
1977	Nanette: An Aside	Rik van Glintenkamp
1983	The Haunting Passion	John Korty
1985	The Blue Yonder	Mark Rosman
1989	Mothers, Daughters and Lovers	Matthew Robbins
1991	Plymouth	Lee David Zlotoff
1991	Two-Fisted Tales	Richard Donner	Segment "Showdown"
1993	They	John Korty
1994	Long Shadows	Sheldon Larry
1997	Sub Down	Gregg Champion
2000	Dirty Pictures	Frank Pierson
2001	Other People	Michael W. Watkins

TV series

Year	Title	Director	Notes
1984-88	American Playhouse	Gordon Parks Stan Lathan Sharron Miller	Episodes: "Solomon Northup's Odyssey", "Go Tell It on the Mountain", "Pigeon Feathers"
1986	The Wonderful World of Disney	Mark Rosman	Episode: "Time Flyer"
1987	Amerika	Donald Wrye	Miniseries
1992	Tales from the Crypt	Richard Donner	Episode: "Showdown"
1997	American Masters	Himself	Episode: "Isamu Noguchi: Stones and Paper"
1999	Independent Lens	Chris Tashima	Episode: "Visas and Virtue"
2000	Gilmore Girls	Lesli Linka Glatter	Episode: "Pilot"