Roger Pratt, Oscar-Nominated Cinematographer Known For ‘Batman’ and ‘Harry Potter’, Dies at 77
British cinematographer Roger Pratt, best known for his work as director of photography on Tim Burton‘s (1989) and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), has died. He was 77.
Pratt’s death was confirmed in a Jan. 3 statement made by the British Society of Cinematographers (BSC), which did not specify a date or location but said the creative passed away in December of 2024.
An Oscar nominee for his work on The End of the Affair (1999), Pratt was born in 1947 and grew up in the U.K. midlands.
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He studied at the prestigious London Film School and went on to collaborate with filmmaker Terry Gilliam across his career after the pair met on the set of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) while Pratt worked as a clapper loader. Gilliam recalled about meeting Pratt: “We were filming the Bridge of Death sequence and needed a dramatic shot looking up at the bridge with the mountains in the distance. I stuck the camera on the edge of the cliff, but the lens wasn’t wide enough. We were a long way from the road, the light was going. It was terrible.”
He continued: “This guy said, ‘Just give me a moment’ and in a few minutes, while we were still faffing around, he had run all the way down the mountain, forded the river, run up the other side, into the camera truck, grabbed the right lens and here it was. We stuck it on the camera and got the shot. That was the moment I fell in love with Roger.”
Pratt, also a two-time collaborator of Richard Attenborough’s, went on to be the director of photography on over 35 films including and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Troy (2004), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994), Chocolat (2000) and The Karate Kid (2010). For superhero fans, many will know Pratt’s work with on the look of his 1989 Batman.
Pratt was awarded the BSC’s highest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award, in 2023. “The son of a parish vicar, the church didn’t capture his career aspirations, seeing 16mm ‘fact and faith’ films did,” the BSC wrote in their tribute to Pratt. “Roger would go on to shoot some of Gilliam’s cult classics, from Brazil (1985) to The Fisher King (1991) and 12 Monkey’s (1995).”
“Our thoughts go out to his family at this time,” the statement ended.
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