Hall takes top lenser kudos for 'Beauty'
Three-time winner is 1st in ASC history, Beatty gets Governors Award
Hall is the first lenser to take three outstanding achievement awards in a single category. He won in 1988 for "Tequila Sunrise" and in 1993 for "Searching for Bobby Fischer."
Also on hand at the Century Plaza Hotel was Warren Beatty, who accepted ASC's Board of Governors Award and regaled the 1,500-plus crowd with stories about his relationships with cinematographers Vittorio Storaro, Hall, Fraker and Allen Daviau, among others. "The brilliance of your lighting is almost secondary, it's your brilliance as cameramen that allows us to be at the top of our game," said Beatty. "Not one of you guys needs electricity to walk on the set, you do it with your personality."
Topping the TV competition were Robbie Greenberg and Bill Roe, both of whom received kudos at last year's competish. Greenberg nabbed the made-for/miniseries honor for the HBO telepic "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge," while Roe won for his episodic work on "The X-Files."
Oswald "Ossie" Morris, who shot such pics as "Oliver," "Fiddler on the Roof," Moulin Rouge," "Look Back in Anger" and "Lolita," was feted with the International Achievement Award, while fellow Brit Guy Green, a lenser-turned-writer-director ("A Patch of Blue") was given the org's President's Award in recognition of their career achievements.
The ASC also tipped its hat to the future when dp Laszlo Kovacs presented the Gregg Toland Heritage Award to two young lensers, Christopher Popp, a recent AFI graduate student, and Andrew Huebscher, a graduate of the USC film program.
(Steve Chagollan contributed to this report.)
