Christopher Challis
| Christopher Challis | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Christopher George Joseph Challis 18 March 1919 London, United Kingdom |
| Died | 31 May 2012 (aged 93) Bristol, England |
| Occupation | Cinematographer |
Christopher George Joseph Challis BSC, FRPS (18 March 1919 – 31 May 2012) was a British cinematographer who worked on more than 70 feature films since beginning in the industry during the 1940s.
After working as camera operator on several films for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, he made his debut as director of photography on The End of the River (1947) one of their projects as producers. After filming of the The End of the River concluded, Challis was camera operator under Jack Cardiff on The Red Shoes. He did not object to the demotion as he wanted to work on the film. Following this he went back to being director of photography. He was cinematographer on most of Powell and Pressburger's later films, including The Small Back Room (1949), The Elusive Pimpernel (1950), The Tales of Hoffmann (1951), Oh... Rosalinda!! (1955), The Battle of the River Plate (1956) and Ill Met by Moonlight (1957).
His expertise in colour cinematography meant that he was frequently chosen by British film makers of the 1950s to work on their projects, and he worked on a number of successful comedies, including Genevieve (1953), The Captain's Table (1958) and Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965). He worked on projects in other genres too, such as The Spanish Gardener (1956), the war film Sink the Bismarck! (1960), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), and Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970). He was nominated for several BAFTA Awards for Best British Cinematography, including a win in 1966 for Stanley Donen's film Arabesque.
...
Wikipedia