Edward Colman

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Edward Colman (born January 25, 1905 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , USA , † January 24, 1995 in Newport Beach , California , USA) was an American cameraman . He became internationally known for his work on feature films for the Walt Disney Studios , including box-office hits like Mary Poppins and A Great Beetle . He also worked under the pseudonyms Eddie Cohen , Edward Cohen , Edward Coleman and Eddie Colman .

Life

Edward Colman was born in Philadelphia on January 25, 1905. He started working in the film business in the early 1930s. He was one of the - unnamed - cameramen, the magnificent aerial views of the Howard Hughes produced war film Hell's Angels ( Hell's Angels contributed). During this time he concentrated on the convincing design and photography of special effects . He completed his training primarily in Great Britain . Among the most famous films, he worked on the special effects in this period include the science fiction -Klassiker Things to Come ( Things to Come ) and the man who wanted to change the world ( The Man Who Could Work Miracles ), both in 1936 with a large star line-up based on templates from HG Wells . During the filming he also met Peter Ellenshaw , with whom he would later work often in Hollywood at Disney.

At the end of the 1930s, Colman finally returned to the USA and worked as a camera operator ("Schwenker", English camera operator) on films such as The Executioner of London ( Tower of London , 1939). After military service in World War II , he was awarded the Attention! Nuclear spies! ( Walk a Crooked Mile ) named for the first time as chief cameraman together with George Robinson . In the following years, however, he mainly worked for television. Among other things, he photographed 22 episodes of the successful television series Police Report ( Dragnet ).

He got his first job at Disney Studios with the lavish real-life film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea , directed by Richard Fleischer ( 20000 Leagues Under the Sea , 1954). Franz Planer was responsible for the photographic management of this Jules Verne film . Colman was employed as the head cameraman of the second unit team, which was a challenge, for example, with the complicated underwater shots. After Colman in 1955 in five episodes of the television series Mickey Mouse Club had worked as Cameraman, offered him Walt Disney finally the photographic line of Fantasy Film -Komödie The Shaggy Dog ( The Shaggy Dog , 1959) with Fred MacMurray on. Colman benefited from the knowledge he had acquired in Great Britain before the war in the implementation of the numerous special effects for which the film was shot in black and white.

After the huge box office success this produced only a modest budget strip and the even more successful The Absent-Minded Professor ( The Absent Minded Professor , 1961), also with Fred MacMurray and many film tricks to Colman has established itself at Disney as one of the most important cameramen. He was helped by the fact that he had received an Oscar nomination for his original black and white photography of The Flying Pauker . In the years that followed, Colman was involved in almost all of the studio's major real-life film projects and directed the recordings of numerous successful Disney films. He mainly worked with the directors Norman Tokar and Robert Stevenson . With the latter he also made his most famous film, the musical Mary Poppins ( Mary Poppins , 1964). The film version of PL Travers' Stories, starring Julie Andrews in the title role, earned Colman another Academy Award nomination in 1965.

Not only did he specialize in captivating intricate special effects photography, he also had a talent for landscape photography, as evidenced by the atmospheric shots from Vermont for Those Calloways ( Those Calloways ), a story about a family of conservationists in New England . He combined both in 1967 in Die adventurliche Reise ins Zwergenland ( The Gnome-Mobile ), in which the “forced perspective” was used to make the interaction between humans and dwarfs believable. This recording technique developed for the Disney film The Secret of the Cursed Cave ( Darby O'Gill and the Little People , 1959) makes use of the fact that the human eye cannot see how far things or people really are due to the two-dimensionality of the film image apart as long as the camera or the objects being filmed do not move towards each other. After A Great Beetle ( The Love Bug , 1968), the first part of the " Herbie " film series, Colman retired. A year earlier he had with Burnett Guffey at The Ambushers ( The Ambushers ), his only non-Disney movie directed during the 1960s, the recordings.

In the Disneyland episode Back Stage Party (1961) at the end of the shooting of Aufruhr im Toyland ( Babes in Toyland ), he can also be seen once in the picture.

Colman was a member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) . His brother Ben Colman (1907–1988) was also a cameraman.

Edward Colman died on January 24, 1995 in Newport Beach, the day before his 90th birthday.

Awards

  • 1955: Emmy nomination for the Dragnet episode The Big Bible in the category "Best Cinematography"
  • 1962: Oscar nomination for The Absent Minded Professor (1961) in the category "Best Cinematography"
  • 1962: 3rd place in the Golden Laurel for The Absent Minded Professor (1961) in the category "Best b / w camera"
  • 1965: Oscar nomination for Mary Poppins (1964) in the category "Best Cinematography"

Filmography (selection)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Colman, Edward
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cohen, Eddie (pseudonym); Cohen, Edward (pen name); Coleman, Edward (pen name); Colman, Eddie (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American cameraman
DATE OF BIRTH January 25, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia , Pennsylvania, USA
DATE OF DEATH January 24, 1995
Place of death Newport Beach , California, USA