John Cabrera (cameraman)

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John Cabrera Puig (born January 14, 1925 in Liverpool , United Kingdom , † April 18, 2014 in Dénia , Spain ) was a Spanish-British cameraman .

Life

Cabrera applied to The Rank Organization at the age of 16 and got to know the film industry from the bottom up. During the Second World War , Cabrera took part as a photographer in the Allied landing operations in Normandy in 1944 and when Allied troops marched into German territory in 1945. Returned to civilian life after the end of the war, Cabrera initially served as material assistant, then as second and finally as first camera assistant . In 1952 he returned to his parents' country, Spain, and served there, beginning that year in the costume and romance drama "Boccaccio's great love" , which was filmed on site, initially as a contact person who spoke both English and Spanish for the British people filming here and US film teams. Here, too, Cabrera had to be content with subordinate jobs, for example as a camera assistant, but also repeatedly served as an intermediary between the foreign film teams and the Spanish authorities or the local extras. In this role, Cabrera was involved in Robert Rossen's colossal ham Alexander the Great in 1955 and in David Lean's masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia in 1961/62 .

At the age of more than 40, John Cabrera had not got beyond the post of a simple cameraman and in this subordinate role he served second-unit film teams in large international productions that were made in Spain in the second half of the 1960s. These include lavishly cast and designed films such as The Last Battle , The Fight , Pancho Villa Rides , A Day to Fight , Shalako , Krakatoa - The Greatest Adventure of the Last Century and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (made in Tenerife ).

John Cabrera finally made his debut as chief cameraman in 1970 for the British Western Captain Apache , who was also filmed in Spain . Initially, he was allowed to continue to photograph internationally produced films ( Call of the Wild , The Man from El Paso , " Paper Tiger " ), but then Cabrera was behind the camera mainly for purely Spanish films, which were mostly rarely shown abroad. In 1981 he took over the second unit camera again in a Hollywood production that was made outside the USA, Conan the Barbarian with Arnold Schwarzenegger . Cabrera's last work remained the unfinished, international large-scale production "Genghis Khan" (Dschingis Khan), which could not be completed in 1992 due to considerable financial difficulties of the Italian co-producer. It was here that Cabrera worked for the last time with the Briton Ken Annakin , who had repeatedly used him as a cameraman since “The Last Battle”. Then Cabrera retired to private life on the Costa Blanca .

Filmography

literature

  • Francisco Llinás: Directores de fotografía de cine español. Filmoteca Española, Madrid 1989. p. 402

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 1: A - C. Erik Aaes - Jack Carson. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 123.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Cabrera, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cabrera Puig, John (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hispanic-British cameraman
DATE OF BIRTH January 14, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Liverpool , UK
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 2014
Place of death Denia , Spain