Stephen Goldblatt

Stephen Goldblatt, A.S.C., B.S.C. is a South African-born British cinematographer.

Early life

Goldblatt was born on 29 April 1945 in Johannesburg, South Africa, to a Jewish family. When he was seven years old, he and his family moved to London, where at the age of 18 he started working as a photojournalist for the London Sunday Times.
Goldblatt attended Guildford School of Art for photography, but later discovered his interest in film while working on a special assignment for Lion Films at Shepperton Studios. It was this interest that motivated him to attend London's Royal College of Art Film School.

Career

Upon graduation, he went to work shooting documentaries and animation, much of it in 16mm. Among his assignments were two Disappearing World episodes for Granada TV.
Goldblatt began his career as a cameraman for documentaries and commercials. From 1972-75, he worked shooting TV commercials for directors such as Hugh Hudson, Alan Parker, Ridley Scott, and Brian Gibson. Goldblatt made the transition to feature films in 1979, when he shot Breaking Glass for Gibson, then in the following decade he worked with directors Peter Hyams on Outland, Tony Scott on The Hunger, Francis Coppola on The Cotton Club, and Richard Donner on Lethal Weapon and Lethal Weapon 2.
In the 1990s, Goldblatt joined the Batman series with director Joel Schumacher and shot Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. In the late 1990s, during a “film sabbatical” and after many years of only taking snapshots, Goldblatt built a darkroom and began to photograph his life and surroundings again. After his sabbatical Goldblatt worked with directors such as Mike Nichols on Angels in America, Closer and Charlie Wilson's War, Chris Columbus on Rent and Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Nora Ephron on Julie & Julia, and most recently Tate Taylor on The Help and Get On Up ''.''
Stephen Goldblatt now lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and has three grown children. When he is at home, Goldblatt enjoys tending to his pond and koi fish, gardening, playing his guitar, cooking, reading every day, and mastering the art of husbanding with his wife Deborah.

Photography

One of Stephen Goldblatt's most significant photo shoots was of the British band The Beatles in 1968, who at the time had just finished recording what came to be known as The White Album. The Beatles wanted some fresh publicity photos shot by an unknown photographer, with whom they planned to travel all over London to take random photos. One of Goldblatt's shots became a two-page spread in Life magazine, and a few others were used as album art on Beatles compilations.
In 2019, more than 2,000 unpublished photographs were found in an external storage unit at the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin. He had taken them as a still photographer in Nigeria in 1970 during the production of Things Fall Apart. An extensive research, digitisation and presentation project has since been able to generate a great deal of knowledge about the pre-Nollywood era of Nigerian film on this basis. In his essay ‘’, Mudi Yahaya describes the background.

Filmography

Film

Television

Miniseries

Year	Title	Director
1971-1972	The Flight of the Arctic 7
2003	Angels in America	Mike Nichols

TV movies

Year	Title	Director	Note
2001	Conspiracy	Frank Pierson
2002	Path to War	John Frankenheimer	With Nancy Schreiber

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

Year	Category	Title	Result
1991	Best Cinematography	The Prince of Tides	Nomitated
1995	Best Cinematography	Batman Forever	Nomitated

American Society of Cinematographers
Primetime Emmy Awards

Year	Category	Title	Result
2001	Outstanding Cinematography for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie	Conspiracy	Nomitated
2002	Outstanding Cinematography for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie	Path to War	Nomitated
2003	Outstanding Cinematography for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie	Angels in America	Nomitated

Hollywood Film Awards
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