Robert Gaffney

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert "Bob" Gaffney (born October 8, 1931 in Bronx New York , † November 24, 2009 ) was an American film producer , cameraman , film director and filmmaker who was nominated for an Oscar in 1962 with the short film Rooftops of New York .

biography

Gaffney left Iona College, which he attended for two years, to work for Louis de Rochemont , creator of the newsreel The March of Time, as a messenger, then a film editor, and finally as a producer, director and cameraman. While at Rochemont, Gaffney worked on the documentary Cinerama Holiday and designed, built and operated the camera for the Cinemiracle-presented film Windjammer von Rochemont.

Soon after, Gaffney founded his own company, Seneca Productions, with which he primarily made documentaries, many of which were shot in the 70mm format he loved. With his first film Rooftops of New York (1961), Gaffney was able to score an Oscar nomination as a producer , two other films Wehrhaft Schweiz ( Fortress of Peace , 1964) and Sky Over Holland (1967), in which Gaffney was in front of the camera, were also nominated for an Oscar in the “Best Short Film” category.

In 1962, Gaffney directed the horror - science fiction film Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster , in which a nuclear war on Mars has the result that there are no women, which is to change a visit on Earth. In the romantic drama Light Fantastic , Gaffney worked again in 1964, as in Rooftops of New York , with Robert McCarty. In the film, a handsome dance teacher makes a lonely secretary sign a long-term contract. In the same year Gaffney produced the comedy The Troublemaker , in which a naive farmer from New Jersey moves to Greenwich Village to open a coffee house there. The following year, Gaffney was a producer on the dramatic comedy Harvey Middleman, Fireman of Ernest Pintoff involved. Fireman Harvey leads a happy family life but falls in love with a young woman whom he saved from a fire.

When Stanley Kubrick , with whom Gaffney was friends, asked him to come to England in 1968 to work with him on his new film Napoleon , Gaffney spent two years pre-producing the film, which was never produced. Gaffney had already supported Kubrik in his film Lolita , and he also shot the end sequence for his 2001 film : A Space Odyssey in Monument Valley .

After returning to the United States in 1970, Gaffney was busy shooting television commercials for major advertising agencies. He started his own production company, Bob Gaffney Productions, which produced hundreds of commercials for major brands. These productions took him to many different places, including visiting many European countries, the Sahara and New Zealand.

Robert Gaffney, who was also a member of the Directors Guild of America and the International Cinematographers Guild , was 78 years old.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1961: Rooftops of New York (short documentary film; producer)
  • 1962: Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (Director)
  • 1962: An Answer (documentary short film; producer, director)
  • 1962, 1963: Story of ... (documentary television series, episodes Story of an Actress and Story of a Harness ; camera)
  • 1964: Light Fantastic (producer)
  • 1964: The Troublemaker (producer)
  • 1965: Harvey Middleman, Fireman ( Harvey Middleman, Fireman ; co-producer)
  • 1965: Well-fortified Switzerland (Oscar title Fortress of Peace , short film; camera)
  • 1967: Sky Over Holland (documentary short film; camera)
  • 1968: 2001: A Space Odyssey ( 2001: A Space Odyssey ; Camera: Recordings Monument Valley )
  • 1973: Super Fly TNT (camera)

Awards (selection)

Academy Awards 1962

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Sherry Gaffney: Robert Gaffney, Cinematographer Information see in70mm.com (English)
  2. ↑ The 34th Academy Awards | 1962 see oscars.org (English)
personal data
SURNAME Gaffney, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gaffney, Bob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film producer, cameraman, film director and filmmaker
DATE OF BIRTH October 8, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Bronx, New York City , United States
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 2009