IEC
#2: "Frankie and Johnny Are Married" [2003]
Born: 29 August 1951, Warsaw, Poland, as Jacek Wojciech Laskus.
Education: PWSFTviT, Lódz [graduated in 1976].
Career: Started as c.op. Came to the USA in 1977 and started his career in New York shooting commercials and doc's, both independent and for BBC-tv. Moved to Los Angeles in 1987.
Ph commercials dir by Mark Story, Tom De Circcio, a.o.
Also active as stills ph [exhibition in Los Angeles, 1999]. Gives master classes at the International Film & Television Workshops in Rockport, Maine.
Member of the ASC since August 2000.
Appeared in the doc's 'Polscy operatorzy w Los Angeles' [1993, Pawel Hanczakowski; ph: Marek Beczek; 35m] & 'Cinematographer Style' [2005, Jon Fauer; ph: J. Fauer, Jeff Laszlo, Brian Heller & David Morgan].
Awards: ASC Award nom [1989] for 'The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial'; ASC Award nom [1998] for 'The Garden of Redemption'.
'Frankie and Johnny Are Married' [2003]: 'The budget was going to be small and after several and lengthy conversations with the director about the look he wanted for the film, we did a great deal of research and shot some tests. After looking at the test footage we decided to shoot in multiple formats, both film and using digital. The choices were based on story, locations and on financial considerations. For the main bulk of the film we chose a Hi Def camera, a Panasonic VariCam and the Zeiss DigiPrime lenses. However, for shooting scenes at the house of the married couple, who are the film's main characters, we decided to go with a small unobtrusive camera that would allow us to capture the intimacy of their private lives. Our choice was a brand new Mini DV camera from Panasonic, the 24P, that can shoot both 30 frame or 24 frame video which looks more like film. For shooting daylight exteriors we chose to shoot on film in the Super 16 format which gave us more latitude in the highlights. To shoot the finale of the film, the actual performance of the play, we wanted to give it a more glamorous and rich look, so we decided to shoot with a 35mm camera on a Steadicam. We had all of the footage transferred to HI Def D5 format. This will allow further corrections and on line edit to prep for the final transfer from video to film. The editing was done using the Apple Final Cut Pro system.'
FILMS AT THE PWSFTviT | |
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1972 |
Przyczynek do teorii jezykoznawstwa/Contribution to Linguistic Theory [Filip Bajon] b&w; doc/8m |
1972 |
W trzeciej osobie/Sto pietnascie [Ryszard Bugajski; short] actor; ph: Stanislaw Szymanski |
1973 |
Dwukrotnie sie przysluzyc [Mohamed Ben Said; short] c.asst; ph: Ryszard Jaworski |
1973 |
Zasada... [Jerzy Domaradzki; short] c.asst; ph: Wiktor Skrzynecki |
1976 |
Zezem [Janusz Zaorski; 10-part tv-series] co-c.asst (ep #7-10); ph: Jacek Zygadlo |
1976 |
Wedrówki po polsce [ep (3m) 'Lidzbark Warminski' dir by Jacek Laskus] c; doc/10 seg |
FILMS | |
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1982 |
Far from Poland [Jill Godmilow] 16mm-35bu/b&w-c; dram doc/106m |
1983 |
Almonds and Raisins [: A History of the Yiddish Cinema] [Russ Karel] b&w-c; doc/90m |
1985 |
Parting Glances [Bill Sherwood] s16-35bu/c |
1986 |
Heart [James Lemmo] c; addph: Dariusz Wolski |
1986 |
Square Dance/Home Is Where the Heart Is [Daniel Petrie] c; 2uc: Rick Anderson |
1987 |
Inheritance [Bill Donovan] ?; doc/80m; cph: Tom Sigel, Robert Fulton, a.o. |
1988 |
Stepfather II/The Stepfather 2: Make Room for Daddy [Jeff Burr] c; 2uc: Steve Schklair & Martin Schaer; addph: Gerry Lively & Don McCuaig |
1989 |
[William Peter Blatty's] The Exorcist III [: Legion] [William Peter Blatty] c; ph Los Angeles; ph: Gerry Fisher |
1990 |
New Jack City [Mario Van Peebles] c; 2uc; ph: Francis Kenny |
1990 |
Red Hot + Blue [seg #9 (5m) 'In the Still of the Night' dir by Jonathan Demme (a: The Neville Brothers)] b&w-c/V; mus comp/111m; other ph: Tom Sigel, Ed Lachman, Declan Quinn, a.o.; this film (18 music videos + art breaks) accompanied the comp album (20 tracks) from the Red Hot Organization (an AIDS Benefit project); also an ABC-tv special |
1991 |
Cousin Bobby [Jonathan Demme] 16mm-35bu/c; doc/69m; cph: Ernest Dickerson, Declan Quinn, Tony Jannelli & Craig Haagensen; also aired as ep of PBS-tv series 'P.O.V.' |
1991 |
It Was a Wonderful Life [Michèle Ohayon] 16mm/c; doc/84m; cph: Theo van de Sande & Bruce Ready |
1992 |
The Opposite Sex… And How To Live with Them [Matthew Meshekoff] c |
1993 |
Threesome [Andrew Fleming] c; addph; ph: Alexander Gruszynski |
1993 |
The Spirit Realm/Spirit [Jonathan Wacks (replaced Louis Morneau)] announced as doph, but replaced by Bryan England |
1993 |
The Glass Shield/The Johnny Johnson Trial [Charles Burnett] c; 2uc; ph: Elliot Davis |
1995 |
Cover Me/Selected Models [Michael Schroeder] c |
1995 |
A Thin Line Between Love and Hate [Martin Lawrence] c; co-add c.op; ph: Francis Kenny |
1996 |
The Undercover Kid [Linda Shayne] c; 2uc: Patrick Reddish |
1997 |
Colors Straight Up [Michèle Ohayon] s16/c; doc/93m; cph: Theo van de Sande; addph: Teresa Medina |
1998 |
The Giving Tree/Shaded Places/The Brutal Truth [Cameron Thor] c; cph: David Snedeker |
1998 |
Choke [Robert Raphael Goodman] c; doc/98m; addph: Neil Shapiro |
1999 |
The Whole Shebang [George Zaloom] c |
2000 |
Frank's Last Dance [David J. Burke] c; short/18m; cph: Francis Kenny |
2003 |
Frankie and Johnny Are Married [Michael Pressman] HD+mdv+s16+35mm-to-35mm/c; see above |
2005 |
Last Best Chance [Ben Goddard] HD+mdv+s16-to-?/c/V; short/45m; prod Nuclear Threat Initiative |
2006 |
Golda's Balcony [Jeremy Kagan] HD (Genesis)-to-35mm/c |
2007 |
Multiple Sarcasms [Brooks Branch] c |
2008 |
12 Stones [Sandy Smolan] HD/c; doc/21m |
2008 |
Stand [Tavis Smiley] HD/c; doc/95m; add camera: Michael Hamm & Jonathan Meyer |
2009 |
Love and Other Drugs [Edward Zwick] s35-to-35mm (+ D-Cinema)/c; plate unit ph; ph: Steven Fierberg |
2010 |
Bloody Mary [Jacek Laskus] HD/c; short/4m; prod Maine Media Workshop (Feature Film Lighting) |
2013 |
The Human Face of Big Data [Sandy Smolan] c; doc/56m |
2014 |
The 636 [Mark W. Travis] c; short/16m; 2uc: Justin Aguirre |
2014 |
Viva Verdi! [Yvonne Russo] HD (ARRI AMIRA)/c; doc/?m |
2015 |
Offer and Compromise [Valerie Landsburg] c; pitch & social media videos for crowdfunding ph by Peyton Skelton & Daniel Stephens |
2015 |
Jackson Norful [Anthony Cook] c; short/?m; prod New York Film Academy |
2015 |
Shot [Jeremy Kagan] c |
TELEVISION | |
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1986 |
Penn and Teller's Invisible Thread [Bob Balaban] comedy-magic special/41m/16mm; for Showtime-tv |
1987 |
Circus [Fielder Cook] pilot/60m; for ABC-tv |
1988 |
The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial [Robert Altman] tvm |
1988 |
Dirty Dancing [pilot 'Baby, It's You' dir by Tony Bill] 10-part series, 1988-89; for CBS-tv |
1989 |
Incident at Dark River/Dark River: A Father's Revenge/The Smell of Money [Michael Pressman] tvm |
1991 |
Bad Attitudes [Alan Myerson] tvm |
1991 |
Quicksand: No Escape [Michael Pressman] tvm |
1992 |
Blindsided [Tom Donnelly] tvm |
1993 |
Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics [Robert Markowitz] tvm; 2 seg: 'The Theatre' & 'Where the Dead Are' |
1995 |
Disney's Pocahontas - The Musical Tradition Continues [John Jopson] mus special/30m; cph: Joe DeSalvo & Michel Taburiau |
1996 |
The Garden of Redemption [Thomas M. Donnelly] tvm |
1997 |
[Elmore Leonard's] Gold Coast [Peter Weller] tvm |
1997 |
A Soldier's Sweetheart [Thomas M. Donnelly] tvm |
1998 |
The Devil's Arithmetic [Donna Deitch] tvm |
1999 |
Common Ground [Donna Deitch] tvm |
2000 |
Cousin Skeeter [ep #51 'Bellboyz in the Hood' dir by Michael Negrin] 52-part series, 1998-2001; 3rd season, 2001 (9 ep); other ph: Michael Negrin (6 ep) |
2001 |
The Guardian [pilot dir by Michael Pressman + 21 ep dir by various] 67-part series, 2001-04; 1st season, 2001-02 (22 ep) |
2003 |
The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire [pilot dir by Michael Pressman] unaired pilot + 8-part (3 unaired) series, 2003; other ph: Tim Suhrstedt |
2007 |
On the Lot [ep (2m) 'The Malibu Myth' dir by Kenny Luby, ep (2m) 'Sweet' dir by Jason Epperson & ep (2m) 'Worldly Possession' dir by Adam Stein] 16-part filmmaking competition series/HD |
2007 |
Masters of Science Fiction [ep #3 'Jerry Was a Man' dir by Michael Tolkin] 6-part (2 unaired) series |
2010 |
Industrial Light & Magic: Creating the Impossible [Leslie Iwerks] doc/60m; co-addph; ph: S. Douglas Smith; for Starz-tv |
MISCELLANEOUS | |
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1982 |
Come back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean [Robert Altman] still ph; ph: Pierre Mignot |
1986 |
Something Wild [Jonathan Demme] creative cons; ph: Tak Fujimoto |
2010 |
Bloody Mary [dir; + ph] see Films |
2010 |
Bless Me, Ultima [Carl Franklin] visual cons (+ c.op 'b' cam); ph: Paula Huidobro |
2011 |
Dark Hearts [Rudolf Buitendach] HD (ARRI ALEXA)/c; EPK ph; ph: Kees van Oostrum |