#2: "Frankie and Johnny Are Married" [2003]

 

   


JACEK LASKUS   ASC/PSC

 

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

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

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

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

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