Michael Ballhaus
Michael Ballhaus (* August 5, 1935 in Berlin ) is a German cameraman, one of the greatest of the German and international film. He worked in the 1960s with German television and was the late 1960s master cinematographer Rainer Werner Fassbinder, with whom he turned 17 films. In the 1980s he moved to Hollywood, there became one of the most sought after cinematographers and turned with many major U.S. directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Robert Redford and Wolfgang Petersen. In 2007, he announced his retirement from Hollywood and has been dedicated to various projects, he is active in the promotion of young talent and training and called a climate protection project to life. Ballhaus is considered the inventor of the 360 -degree camera movement, the so-called " Ballhaus gyro ." However, it was already introduced in 1966 by Claude Lelouch, but Ballhaus made them popular. In film and television since she was much imitation.
Life
His parents were the theater actor Oskar Ballhaus and Lena Hutter, co-founder and until her death in the name of its present venue Frankish castle theater Maßbach Prinzipalin. Through them he came upon the theater to film. As a child he lived in Coburg, where his parents founded the Coburg culture. He spent his youth in the Lower Franconian Wetzhausen where the parents had found in 1948, a first permanent home for their private theater.
Ballhaus was allowed to watch the 1955 shooting of the film Lola Montez close. Director of this film was the family friend, Max Ophuls, cinematographer Christian Matras the Frenchman. This experience led him to the decision itself to be a cameraman. After two years of training photographers Ballhaus began Südwestfunk (SWF) in Baden -Baden, a camera assistant. Training as a cameraman there was not at the time. As early as 1960, he worked as a cameraman for the television, at first mainly for the Southwest Radio. His first film was there for director Peter Lilienthal. Until 1966 he was with the SWF chief cameraman. In 1968 he directed his first feature film: the comedy several times a day with Dieter Hallervorden.
By participating in some low-budget productions in the late 1960s he met Rainer Werner Fassbinder. With him alone then he turned seventeen films that made him known beyond Germany in the scene and opened the doors to him in the United States. Renowned directors were aware of him about working on numerous independent productions there. Since the film After Hours 1985 he was the director of photography by Martin Scorsese. Overall, Michael Ballhaus led the camera direction in over 80 movies. He worked among many others with Mike Nichols, Volker Schlöndorff, Wolfgang Petersen, Francis Ford Coppola, Jeanine Meerapfel and Peter Stein. Its efficient, at the same time creative way of working makes it a highly popular cinematographer. In 1987 he received his first Oscar nomination for his work on Broadcast News. Two years later he was nominated for The Fabulous Baker Boys once more. He received a third nomination in 2003 for Gangs of New York. Michael Ballhaus got 2007 as the first German the coveted prize for his life's work by the American Society of Cinematographers ( American Association of Cinematographers ).
On the edge of the Berlinale in February 2007, Michael Ballhaus announced its withdrawal from Hollywood to continue to produce and shall, in particular films. Previously Ballhaus as a regular guest of the Berlinale and as a lecturer at the Berlinale Talent Campus and the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin gave his experiences young cameramen on. Since 1999 he was a member of the Free Academy of the Arts in Hamburg. In the same year he also called the ball home into the project, an initiative on climate change, calling for the economical use of energy.
2009 took over Ballhaus at the Hamburg Media School, the faculty management camera for the master 's degree program in collaboration with Achim Poulheim. Since 2010 he is head of the camera at the University of Television and Film Munich.
In 2014 he retired from the film business. On March 11, 2014 it was announced that Ballhaus since 1996 suffers from glaucoma and blindness progressively; reading him is already no longer possible. On March 17, 2014 Michael Ballhaus published his autobiography images in my head - The Story of My Life, which he wrote together with co - authors Claudius Seidl.
Ballhaus lives in Berlin -Zehlendorf.
Family
From 1960 closed marriage to actress and Filmaustatterin Helga Ballhaus, the two sons Sebastian and Florian Ballhaus (camera in Flightplan and The Devil Wears Prada ) emerged, with whom he works closely. His wife died September 28, 2006 in Los Angeles.
Looking back on his life Ballhaus always points to the close professional trustworthy and not only private role of his wife, with whom he worked for many decades. From the same industry coming involved in the days of Fassbinder films as production designer on location in the production process, she had after his statements large share of his professional success.
Five years after the death of his first wife Helga married Michael Ballhaus on 28 October 2011, the director Sherry Hormann. In May 2012, the common rotational began to film the 3096 days of the kidnapping of Natascha Kampusch, whose world premiere took place in Vienna on 25 February 2013.