JACEK LASKUS

#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