Michael Chapman (cinematographer)

Michael Crawford Chapman, A.S.C. (November 21, 1935 – September 20, 2020) was an American cinematographer and film director well known for his work on many films of the American New Wave of the 1970s and in the 1980s with directors such as Martin Scorsese and Ivan Reitman. He shot more than forty feature films, over half of those with only three different directors. Early life and education Chapman was born in New York City in 1935, but raised in Wellesley, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, without much of an interest in film. As a youth, he was more interested in sports than photography or painting. After high school, he attended Columbia University, where he majored in English. Upon his graduation, he worked temporarily as a brakeman for the Erie Lackawanna Railroad in the Midwest and then served a brief stint in the United States Army. Chapman’s father-in-law, Joe Brun, got him his first job in the industry: working as an assistant cameraman and focus puller on commercials, as there weren’t enough feature films being shot in New York at the time. Career Chapman began his film career as a camera operator, distinguishing himself on Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) and Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975). before making the leap to cinematographer. He fondly remembered his time as an operator, and called it one of the best jobs in the movie business because "you get to see the film before anyone else does!"