David Watkin

David Watkin BSC (23 March 1925 – 19 February 2008) was an English cinematographer, an innovator who was among the first directors of photography to experiment heavily with the usage of bounce light as a soft light source. He worked with such film directors as Richard Lester, Peter Brook, Tony Richardson, Mike Nichols, Ken Russell, Franco Zeffirelli, Sidney Lumet and Sydney Pollack.

In 1985, Watkin won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Out of Africa. He received lifetime achievement awards in 2004 from the British Society of Cinematographers and the cinematographic-centric Camerimage Film Festival in Łódź, Poland.

In Chariots of Fire, he "helped create one of the most memorable images of 1980s cinema: the opening sequence in which a huddle of young male athletes pounds along the water's edge on a beach" to the film's theme music by Vangelis.

Early life and career Watkin was born in Margate, Kent, England, the fourth and youngest son of a Roman Catholic solicitor father and housewife mother, and grew up within a well-to-do upper-middle class household. He gained an early enthusiasm 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 contended that he would rather have been a professional musician than a cinematographer.

After a brief period 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 around 1960.

Before working in feature films "as a fully fledged cinematographer", he shot the title sequence of the James Bond film, Goldfinger (1964) for Robert Brownjohn.

Personal life David Watkin lived in his adopted home town of Brighton, East Sussex, when he wasn't working on a "picture". He had a personal library of mostly First Edition 18th Century literature.

He was openly gay.

Death David Watkin died, aged 82, at his home in Sussex Mews, Brighton on 19 February 2008, having been diagnosed with prostate cancer just six months previously.

Publications His autobiographies, Why Is There Only One Word for Thesaurus?, first published in 1998 and the second volume, Was Clara Schumann a Fag Hag?, published in 2008, by Scrutineer Publishing, were both designed by his good friend the artist and designer Rachael Adams.

Awards and honours

Selected filmography Director of photography Film

Actor

Year Title Director Role Notes1996 Night Falls on ManhattanSidney LumetSleeping Judge

Camera and electrical department

Year Title Director Role Notes1964 GoldfingerGuy HamiltonCinematographer: Title sequence

Short films Year Title Director1963 The Six-Sided TriangleChristopher Miles

TV movies

TV series