Wally Pfister, ASC

Biography

Wally Pfister, ASC was born in Chicago and raised in the outskirts of New York City. There was a time in his teens, when he dreamed about spending his life playing guitar in rock bands. Music is still a main passion.

Pfister began his career shooting TV news and documentary footage in Washington, D.C. during the transition from 16 mm film to video. Serendipity gave him an opportunity to work with Robert Altman as a B video camera operator, and bit actor on an HBO miniseries. Pfister had eight years of non-fiction video camera experience, when he enrolled in the cinematography program at the American Film Institute (AFI) and shifted his focus to dramatic filmmaking.

He launched his narrative film career working in various crew roles on ultra-low budget films produced by Roger Corman. Pfister alternated between shooting low budget movies and operating cameras for former AFI students, including Phedon Papamichael, ASC, and Janusz Kaminski, ASC. In 1998, he turned down a much better paying job as a camera operator to shoot an art house type film called The Hi-Line on a $300,000 budget.

A young director named Chris Nolan saw The Hi-Line at the Sundance Film Festival. He and Pfister subsequently collaborated on Memento and later on Insomnia. Pfister’s other recent credits include Laurel Canyon and The Italian Job.