Oscar-winning cinematographer Andrew Lesnie has died. The renowned Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings veteran was 59.
According to reports, the Sydneysider suffered a heart attack on Monday. “We have been advised of the sudden death of Andrew,” said a spokesman from the Australian Cinematographers Society, adding that the family would issue an official statement in due course.
Born in New South Wales in 1956, two decades before the emergence of the Australian film industry, Lesnie studied film and television in his home city before launching his career with a gig as camera assistant at the ABC, Australia’s equivalent of the BBC. From there he would go on to refine his skills across a variety of media, taking in short films, music videos, docs and commercials work.
But it will be for his work on feature films that Lesnie will be best remembered, and specifically his work with Peter Jackson across his two Middle-earth trilogies. The New Zealander, an admirer of his work on Babe and its sequel, spotted an approach – a shared sensibility – in Lesnie’s work that he felt perfect for the unique demands of Lord Of The Rings’ mix of location and green screen work. “I’d never worked with him or even met him before,” said Jackson, "but he’d shot the Babe films and I thought they looked amazing, the way he’d used backlight and the sun and natural light to create a very magical effect,” explained Jackson in 2004. “And Babe had that larger-than-life feel about it that I wanted.”
“So when we began looking for DPs in early 1999, I first decided to get either an Australian or New Zealand DP as they’d be used to the way we make films," Jackson added. "Every country is slightly different in that way, and I immediately thought of Andrew. “
That special collaboration scored Lesnie a Best Cinematographer for The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring in 2001. In between Tolkien adaptations he built an impressive body of work, specialising in lighting films that combined CG and real-world environments like I Am Legend, The Last Airbender and Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes.
Devastating news from home. The master of the light, genius Andrew Lesnie has passed on .
— Russell Crowe (@russellcrowe) April 28, 2015
Russell Crowe, who turned to Lesnie to shoot his debut feature The Water Diviner, led tributes that will no doubt be joined in due course by Jackson, M. Night Shyamalan, Rupert Wyatt and his many other collaborators.
from Empire News
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