Robert Yeoman

Robert David Yeoman, (born March 10, 1951) is an American cinematographer.

He is best known for his collaboration with director Wes Anderson, working on all of his live-action films from 1996 to 2024, with his work on The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) earning him an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Cinematography.

Life and career Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, Yeoman spent his childhood in the northern suburbs of Chicago. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University in 1973 and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts in 1979.

Yeoman's first filmwork was done as a second unit director of photography on To Live and Die in LA, directed by William Friedkin in 1986. He went on to shoot many independent films including Gus Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy — for which he won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography — Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, Roman Coppola's CQ and Kevin Smith's Dogma. He has worked on almost every live-action feature film by Wes Anderson (except The Phoenician Scheme ), including Bottle Rocket (1996), Rushmore (1998), and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) as cinematographer, as well as The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), Moonrise Kingdom (2012) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), credited as director of photography. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Yeoman is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers.

Style

Yeoman frequently collaborates with director Wes Anderson. His style in Anderson's films consists of using color palettes to highlight the colors of the set and costumes. Anderson and Yeoman shoot the movies with film stock, anamorphic lenses, soft lighting, and theater-like composition, giving them the distinctive visuals for which Anderson's films are known.

Filmography Film

Short film Year Title Director 2007 Hotel ChevalierWes Anderson2023 The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar The Rat Catcher Poison

Television TV movies Year Title Director 1986 C.A.T. Squad William Friedkin 1991 Perfect Harmony Will Mackenzie 1993 Double Deception Jan Egleson 1998 The Pentagon Wars Richard Benjamin

Awards and nominations