John Foster

Movies

Here Come the Videofreex
Director of Photography
An idealistic collective launches a TV channel in the very early days of portable video cameras. This wonderful lesson in journalism makes it clear just how perilous it is to promote your own view of society via autonomous media. From the tumultuous period of Woodstock, the Black Panthers, women’s lib and anti-Vietnam demonstrations.
The Job
Director of Photography
A guy looking to find employment and marry the love of his life, gets in over his head when a fast-talking temp agent lands him a job.
Adrift in Manhattan
Director of Photography
The lives of three lonely strangers intersect while commuting on New York's 1 and 9 subway lines.
Keane
Director of Photography
A mentally ill man searches New York for his missing eight year old daughter. He recreates her steps each day hoping for some clue to her disappearance, until he meets and befriend a woman with a daughter the same age. Could she help him with the missing piece of the puzzle?
Tully
Director of Photography
Tully Jr. and Earl live on their father's Nebraska ranch, proud and independent to a fault. While the shy, reclusive Earl spends his free time watching movies, the cockier Tully works his way through a succession of short-term affairs and an off-again, on-again relationship with April, a stripper in town. When their childhood friend Ella returns to town to start a veterinary practice, however, Tully falls for her — although the townsfolk have their doubts that he could ever commit to one woman.
Secretary
Second Unit Director of Photography
A young woman, recently released from a mental hospital, gets a job as a secretary to a demanding lawyer, where their employer-employee relationship turns into a sexual, sadomasochistic one.
The Year That Trembled
Director of Photography
The Year That Trembled is a coming-of-age story set in 1970 in the shadow of Kent State that focuses on a group of young people facing the Vietnam Draft Lottery.
The Sunshine
Director of Photography
Portrait of the Sunshine Hotel, a flop house on the Bowery in New York's skid row. We meet Vic, the desk clerk, who paints watercolours and pastels; Jonesy, a janitor who talks about bedbugs; Bruce, a voluble alcoholic who makes runs for residents, picking up beer or sandwiches for them and sharing his philosophy with us; Vinnie, on methadone, caring for caged birds; Cashmere, a prostitute, the only woman at the hotel; Earl, who works downstairs in the Bowery's last factory, and Mike, the general manager, who talks about the changing face of the Bowery. The film concludes with tourists outside the Sunshine, hearing from Seth Kamil of Big Onion Walking Tours.
Innocent Until Proven Guilty
Director of Photography
James Forman, a 31-year-old public defender and son of a civil rights leader, provides representation for black youth in Washington, D.C., who can't afford their own attorneys in this riveting documentary that goes inside the criminal justice system. Director Kirsten Johnson's award-winning film also sheds light on the difficulties that ex-offenders face when trying to break the cycle of crime and imprisonment.
The Adventures of Sebastian Cole
Director of Photography
Hank marries the divorced Joan, who's the mother of teens Sebastian and Jessica. After living with his new family for years, Hank announces that he's getting a sex change operation. The family deserts Hank, with Jessica going her own way and Sebastian staying with his mom. But Joan becomes an alcoholic, so Sebastian moves back in with Hank — now Henrietta — who turns out to be far more supportive than anyone else.
The Land Girls
Focus Puller
During World War II, the organisation "The Women's Land Army" recruited women to work on British farms while the men were off to war. Three such "land girls" of different social backgrounds - quiet Stella, young hairdresser Prue, and Cambridge graduate Ag - become best friends in spite of their different backgrounds.
Sunday
Director of Photography
This film concerns two mysterious characters who meet on a Sunday in Queens. Madeleine the most unsettling creature of that name since "Vertigo" is a middle-aged, moderately successful actress. Oliver/Matthew is either a homeless man or a famous film director or both. Madeleine hails him on the street as the latter, launching a bizarre chain of events that includes a conversation in a diner, a very unromantic sexual encounter, the arrival of Madeleine's odd husband and unsuspecting daughter, and a child's birthday party. The film also compassionately tracks the daily rounds of Oliver/Matthew's fellow denizens of the homeless shelter, some of whom will be recognizable to New York audiences.
Resident Alien
Director of Photography
At age 73, writer and melancholy master of the bon mot, Quentin Crisp (1908-1999), became an Englishman in New York. Nossiter's camera follows Crisp about the streets of Manhattan, where Crisp seems very much at home, wearing eye shadow, appearing on a makeshift stage, making and repeating wry observations, talking to John Hurt (who played Crisp in the autobiographical TV movie, "The Naked Civil Servant"), and dining with friends. Others who know Crisp comment on him, on his life as an openly gay man with an effeminate manner, and on his place in the history of gays' social struggle. The portrait that emerges is of one wit and of suffering.
Fools of Fortune
Clapper Loader
A Protestant Irish family is caught up in a conflict between Irish Republicans and the British army.
Sebastian and the Sparrow
Focus Puller
The story of the unlikely friendship between two teenage boys from vastly different cultural backgrounds. Sparrow is a working-class street kid and Sebastien a middle-class boy of privilege. One day, they meet at a video-game arcade. Together, they become friends and embark on a journey of self-discovery to locate Sparrow's long-lost mother, an immigrant Vietnamese woman.
Captain Johnno
Focus Puller
A young deaf boy who calls himself "Captain Johnno" befriends Tony, an Italian fisherman in the small Australian fishing town they live in. Both feel outcast by the town and both share a great love of the sea. When Johnno's beloved sister leaves to go to boarding school, he is so upset he runs away to an island hiding place, causing much distress in the town. His friend Tony helps him understand how much he is loved and missed by the townsfolk and his family.
Seven Minutes in Heaven
Gaffer
Natalie allows her classmate Jeff, who ran away from home after a fight with his stepfather, to stay at her place while her father is away on a business trip. Natalie soon starts dating Jeff's friend James Casey, who isn't as faithful as she thinks, while her best friend Polly falls in love with baseball player Zoo Knudsen.
Variety
Director of Photography
A repressed young woman becomes obsessed with pornography and the mysterious rich patron of the Times Square porn theater where she works selling tickets.
Alone in the Dark
Gaffer
A quartet of murderous psychopaths break out of a mental hospital during a power blackout and lay siege to their doctor's house.
Wild Style
Director of Photography
Legendary New York graffiti artist Lee Quinones plays the part of Zoro, the city's hottest and most elusive graffiti writer. The actual story of the movie concerns the tension between Zoro's passion for his art and his personal life, particularly his strained relationship with fellow artist Rose.
Friday the 13th Part 2
Still Photographer
Five years after the horrible bloodbath at Camp Crystal Lake, a new group of counselors roam the area, not sensing an ominous lurking presence that proves the grisly legend is real.