Roger Alexander Deakins, CBE, ASC, BSC is a British cinematographer who is most known for his work on films such as ‘The Shawshank Redemption,’ ‘No Country for Old Men,’ ‘Skyfall,’ ‘Sicario,’ and, most recently, ‘Hail, Caesar!’ He is the Coen Brothers’ and other famous directors’ chosen cinematographer. Since his youth, he has been fascinated by painting and photography. He studied graphic design. He then began his career as a documentary filmmaker and worked his way up to Hollywood. His unique cinematographic approach is characterized by the use of sparse lighting, frequently with only a few light sources, and the use of solely spherical lenses. Apart from cinematography, he has worked as a visual consultant on a number of successful animated films, including ‘WALL-E’ and ‘How to Train Your Dragon’. He is a member of both the American and British Societies of Cinematographers and was awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his contribution to cinema in 2013. In 2011, he was presented with the American Society of Cinematographers’ renowned Lifetime Achievement Award. Additionally, he has received twelve Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography. His talent and work continue to inspire film enthusiasts.
Childhood & Adolescence
Roger Deakins was born in Torquay, Devon, on 24 May 1949. He is the son of builder William Albert Deakins and actress Josephine (née Messum).
He attended Torquay Boys’ Grammar School and was involved in drawing from an early age.
True to his enthusiasm, he enrolled at the Bath School of Art & Design in the city of Bath to study graphic design. He discovered his love of photography while pursuing this course.
As he pursued his newfound passion for photography, he discovered that he possessed the considerable artistic ability.
He was eventually contracted to create a photographic documentary about his hometown of Torquay.
After roughly a year, he transferred to Buckinghamshire’s National Film and Television School.
Roger Deakins’s Career
Roger Deakins was hired as a cameraman upon his graduation from the National Film and Television School. He spent the next seven years filming various documentaries in a variety of distant settings.
He was a competitor in one of his earlier ventures, ‘Around the World with Ridgeway,’ a round-the-world yacht race. The project involved documenting the crewmen’s daily tensions during a nine-month voyage at sea. His contribution to the project was much appreciated.
Following the success of ‘Around the World with Ridgeway,’ he began producing documentaries in Africa, including ‘Zimbabwe’ and ‘Eritrea – Behind Enemy Lines,’ that focused on the conflict situation and social turmoil prevailing at the time.
He directed several documentaries and dabbled with music videos till the early 1980s. He directed and shot the concert film ‘Van Morrison in Ireland’ (1981) as well as music videos such as Carl Perkins’ ‘Blue Suede Shoes’.
He next worked on ‘Towers of Babel,’ the British biopic ‘Sid and Nancy,’ and the British drama features ‘The Kitchen Toto,’ (1988), and ‘Pascali’s Island,’ (1988). (1988).
He began his career in Hollywood as a cinematographer for the feature film ‘Mountains of the Moon’ (1990). He then collaborated with the Coen Brothers on the period film ‘Barton Fink in 1991. This film was the start of a long collaboration between Deakins and the Coen Brothers.
He progressively established a reputation for his cinematography and won his first major award from the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) for the international smash ‘The Shawshank Redemption (1994).
He was nominated again by the ASC in the years that followed for films such as ‘Fargo’ (1996), ‘Kundun’ (1997), and ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ (2000). For ‘The Man Who Wasn’t There,’ he received his first BAFTA Award and his second ASC Award (2001).
2008 was an extremely prosperous year for him. For the first time in cinematography history, he received two ASC nominations for his work on ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’ (2007) and ‘No Country for Old Men’ (2009). (2007).
He won his second BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography with ‘No Country for Old Men’. He was also nominated for two Academy Awards for the flicks.
In 2009, he replicated history by receiving two Academy Award nominations for ‘Revolutionary Road’ (2008) and ‘The Reader’ (2008) – co-written with Chris Menges.
He was nominated for an Academy Award for ‘True Grit’ (2010) in 2011 and he got the ASC Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2012, for ‘Skyfall,’ he won his third ASC Award for outstanding accomplishment in cinematography (2012). This was his ninth nomination for the ASC Award.
Additionally, he served as a Visual Consultant for Pixar’s animated feature ‘WALL-E’ (2008), DreamWorks’ ‘How to Train Your Dragon (2010), and Nickelodeon Movies’ ‘Rango’ (2011), among others.
He was given ‘Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)’ during the 2013 Queen’s Birthday Honours for his contributions to cinema.
His Significant Works
Deakins is credited with some of the best cinematography in film history. Some of his most well-known works include ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’, ‘No Country for Old Men’, ‘The Reader’, ‘Revolutionary Road’, and, most recently, ‘Skyfall’.
Awards and Accomplishments
Roger Deakins has received numerous accolades for his cinematography work. Among his other accomplishments, he has been nominated for twelve Academy Awards, won three BAFTA Awards for Best Cinematography, three ASC Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography, and an ASC Lifetime Achievement Award.
He has been a member of both the British Society of Cinematographers (BSC) and the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) since 1986 and the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) since 1994.
He set a record when he received two straight years of dual nominations from the American Society of Cinematographers.
He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire on Queen’s Birthday 2013 for his service to the cinema.
Personal History and Legacies
On 11 December 1991, Roger Deakins married script supervisor Isabella James Purefoy Ellis.
His primary interests include photography, fishing, and travel.
Estimated Net worth
Roger is one of the wealthiest cinematographers and is consistently ranked among the most popular cinematographers. Roger Deakins’ net worth is estimated to be at $1 million, based on our analysis of Wikipedia, Forbes, and Business Insider.
Trivia
He admires Jean-Pierre Melville’s, Andrei Tarkovsky’s, Akira Kurosawa’s, Kenji Mizoguchi’s, and Luchino Visconti’s films.