Matthew F. Leonetti

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Matthew Frank Leonetti (born July 31, 1941 in Los Angeles , California ) is an American cameraman who specializes in action-packed entertainment films.

Life

Leonetti first came into contact with the film business when he was 13 years old. At that time, his father ran a rental company that also sold camera equipment. Years later, from 1965, father and son Leonetti specialized in renting out camera equipment as joint owners of a business. The year before, Leonetti started as a camera assistant at the advertising company VBI, and later switched to cinema as assistant to cameraman Charles Rosher junior.

In 1973 Leonetti became chief cameraman, initially for commercials, in July of the same year he shot his first television film ( The Elevator ) and finally with the horror flick Bat People - The Bloodsuckers, his first cinema production, in which he also - for the first time and once in his career - was responsible as co-executive producer. Until the end of the 1970s, Leonetti primarily photographed television films, including various pilot episodes of television series ( Bronk, Trouble Shooter, Hostage Heart, Heart of the West ).

Leonetti's rise to the front row of young camera talent came in the early 1980s, after he made two sizeable, low-budget films for Peter Yates ( Four Crazy Guys - We Can All, None Can Make Us , The Eye Witness ) and the box office hit Poltergeist for producer Steven Spielberg had photographed. Since then, Leonetti has concentrated on action-packed police and gangster films with a 'urban jungle' background ( Red Heat , Schlappen Bullen Don't Bite , Action Jackson , Johnny Handsome - The beautiful Johnny , And again 48 hours ), in which rapid tracking shots and less the logic of the Stories were in the foreground.

Leonetti was also involved in camera research, so he developed a particularly lightweight sound camera in the first half of the 1990s. His brother John R. Leonetti works as a cameraman and director in the film business. His son is the film producer Matthew F. Leonetti Jr.

Filmography (selection)

literature

  • 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 4: H - L. Botho Höfer - Richard Lester. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 690.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Leonetti, Matthew F.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leonetti, Matthew Frank (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American cameraman
DATE OF BIRTH July 31, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California