Christopher Chapman

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Christopher Chapman (born January 24, 1927 in Toronto , † October 24, 2015 in Uxbridge , Ontario , Canada ) was a Canadian film director , cameraman and special effects artist . He won an Oscar at the 1968 Academy Awards for his short film A Place to Stand .

Life

Chapman and his twin brother Francis, as well as their four previously born siblings, were the sons of the respected architect Alfred Hirschfelder Chapman (Chapman and Oxley) and the concert pianist Doris Chapman. In the early 1950s, Chapman was in England for about a year, designing cars for the Ford Motor Company. After returning to Canada, he started making films.

Chapman made his first documentary short film The Seasons in 1954 , in which he captured the changing seasons in a small part of Ontario . He directed, produced, operated the camera and edited this film himself. The Season was named Film of the Year at the Canadian Film Awards (CFA) . In his 1964 film The Persistent Seed , Chapman used visual and natural sounds and left the film uncommented to show how the forces of nature defend themselves against cement, dynamite and bulldozers even in large urban areas. For his Oscar- winning short film A Place to Stand from 1967, which was created for the Ontario pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal , he first used the so-called “multi-dynamic image technique”, in which several images were shot simultaneously on one Screen could be played, whereby in the film partly the same scenes are shown in parallel from different perspectives. This enabled material with a length of around 90 minutes to be combined into 18 minutes - the beginning of IMAX technology. The film is set in Ontario, Canada and shows pictures of the people living and working there and the variety of their activities both in professional life and in dealing with the family and during their leisure time. In addition to the Oscar in the “Best Short Film” category , A Place to Stand also received an Oscar nomination in the “Best Documentary Short Film” category and various other awards. The aforementioned technique also inspired the opening scene of the heist movie Thomas Crown Unbelievable (1968) with Steve McQueen , who became a friend of Chapman, as well as the crime film The Women Killer of Boston (1968) and the disaster film Airport (1970).

The 1981 drama film Kelly , in which a young girl who has multiple problems both at school and at home and decides to run away to live with her father in the wilderness, was directed by Chapman. At the time, the film advertised with the slogan: “She was a tough city kid. It took Alaska's wilderness to tame it. "

In the course of his career, Chapman made several films in addition to cinema and television films for the National Film Board of Canada , tourism organizations, science centers and international exhibitions. In 1987 he was appointed to the Advisory Board of the Order of Canada and in 2000 he was honored with a doctorate from Ryerson University . He was also President of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and the Directors Guild of Canada. He was also a member of the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto.

Christopher Chapman's first marriage was from 1952 to Aljean Pert, who died of heart disease nine years later. The marriage produced a son. From 1974 until his death he was married to Barbara Glen Chapman (née Kennedy). Christopher Chapman died at the age of 88 in a long-term care facility in Uxbridge.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1954: The Seasons (documentary short film) - direction, production, camera, editing
  • 1958: Quetico (documentary short film) - direction, production, editing
  • 1962: Saguenay (documentary) - director
  • 1963: The Enduring Wilderness (short documentary) - camera
  • 1963: Lewis Mumford on the City, part 1 to 3 (documentary short film) - director, camera
  • 1964: The Persistent Seed (documentary short film) - director, camera, editor
  • 1964: Magic Molecule (documentary short film) - director, camera
  • 1967: A Place to Stand (documentary short film) - director, camera, producer, editor
  • 1968: Thomas Crown is unbelievable (The Thomas Crown Affair) - special effects
  • 1968: The Boston Strangler (The Boston Strangler) - Special Effects
  • 1969, 1970: Three Girls and Three Boys (The Brady Bunch) - series, 25 episodes, special effects
  • 1970: Airport special effects
  • 1971–1975: MisteRogers' Neighborhood series, 32 episodes, various functions
  • 1973: Volcano
  • 1973: Toronto the Good
  • 1976: A Sense of Humus (documentary short film) - director, camera, editor
  • 1980: Saskatchewan: Land Alive
  • 1981: Kelly - director

Awards (selection)

Canadian Film Awards

  • 1954: The Seasons , Award as "Film of the Year"
  • 1968: A Place to Stand , award as "Film of the Year"

Academy Awards 1968

Chicago International Film Festival

  • 1967: A Place to Stand , awarded the Gold Hugo in the "Best Short Film" category

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Judy Stoffman: Christopher Chapman: Oscar winner invented Brady Bunch effect sS theglobeandmail.com
  2. ↑ Cf. George C. Konder: A Place to Stand , on expo67.ncf.ca
  3. ↑ The 40th Academy Awards | 1968 sS oscars.org (English)
  4. ↑ Kelly see the film poster in IMDb.com
personal data
SURNAME Chapman, Christopher
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian film director, cameraman and special effects artist
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Toronto , Canada
DATE OF DEATH October 24, 2015
Place of death Uxbridge , Ontario , Canada