Dick Pope

Richard Dick Pope is a cinematographer of England. He was born in Bromley (suburban town), Kent. He has worked for a long time in the film industry. He developed his interest in photography when he got a Brownie camera from his father. Later, he was suggested by his uncle, who worked with BBC), that he should choose a career as a camera operator, so he got trained with the Pathe Laboratory in London. Then, he worked hard to make a career in cinematography by being a part of the camera crew in many B-Movies during his early days. He has spent many years working as a documentary camera operator. He was always into music, not classical but contemporary, rock and roll music and jazz. He described music as his first love. He got a chance to work as an operator for the concerts and has seen some of the best bands in the world performing live. That led him to music videos, and subsequently, he worked in many music videos like Clean, I want to Break Free, Freddie Mercury, Great Pretender and some more. Afterward, he worked for various drama productions. His camera work in the documentaries caught the attention of an English writer and director Mike Leigh. Soon, he collaborated with Mike Leigh for various projects. Dick’s first project with Mike was a short film Life is Sweet in 1990. Dick’s other cinematography works were seen in Women in Rock (documentary), Punk and Its Aftershocks (documentary), The Girl in the Picture (1985), Coming Up Roses- comedy drama in Welsh language (1986), Porterhouse Blue by Robert Knights (TV series of 1987),

The Reflecting Skin- thriller/drama (1990), Dark City- a fantasy film by Alex Proyas (1990), A Sense of History (Short film), Naked- comedy (1993), The Air Up There- comedy film of a basketball coach and his new found talent (1994), Nothing Personal- Indie drama (1995), An Awfully Big Adventure by Mike Newell (1995), Secrets & Lies- a movie which as nominated for five Oscars (1996), Career Girls- story of two women reuniting after six years (1997), Swept from the Sea- a romantic drama (1997), Topsy – Turvy- biographical musical drama (1999), and The Debt Collector by Anthony Neilson. Dick was the also the cinematographer of motion pictures like The Way Click to look into! >> Read More... of the Gun- a thriller cult film (2000), Thirteen Conversations About One Thing- Indie drama by Jill Sprecher (2001), Nicholas Nickleby- screenplay based on a novel by Charles Dickens The world-renowned British writer and social criti >> Read More... (2002), Vera Drake- British crime drama (2004), Man of the Year- political thriller/comedy movie (2006), The Illusionist Click to look into! >> Read More... - loosely based on the short story “Eisenheim the Illusionist” (2006), Honeydripper- a musical drama (2007), Me and Orson Welles- period drama movie (2008), Happy – Go – Lucky- comedy drama about a school teacher (2008), Another Year- romantic drama (2010), and It’s A Wonderful Afterlife- comedy film about an Indian mother (2010). More of his recent works are on Thin Ice (2011), Bernie- black comedy film (2011), A Running Jump (2012), Mr. Turner- a biographical film on the life of famous painter J.M.W. Turner (2014), Cuban Fury British romantic comedy (2014), The Pros (2015), and Legend- 2015 crime thriller film adaptation of a book by John Pearson. Pope was also the camera operator of 1981 British film “Urgh! A Music War”. He was also the director of photography of the unit of London for the science thriller movie The X – Files (1988). He bagged two Academy Awards (one for The Illusionist and the other for Mr. Turner), and several other awards were Golden Frog Award, San Diego Film Critics Society Award, Silver Frig Award, Lumiere Award and Awards at Catalonian International Film Festival and Cannes Film Festival. In 2015, he was a lot in the news because of the mispronunciation of his name as “Poop” at the Academy Awards by the Academy President Cheryl Boone. Dick laughed off the incident saying that he has been called a lot worse.