Sean Bobbitt
Birth : 1958-11-29, Corpus Christi, Texas, USA
History
A frequent collaborator with director Steve McQueen for both film and art installation projects, Sean Bobbitt gained international acclaim working with the director on his debut feature, Hunger, starring Michael Fassbender. The film was awarded the Camera d’Or at Cannes and earned Bobbitt a British Independent Film Award (BIFA) for Technical Achievement. Subsequently, he collaborated with McQueen on Shame—which earned Bobbitt another BIFA Award nomination and a European Film Award for Best Cinematography—followed by the critically acclaimed, Academy Award winner, 12 Years a Slave, which garnered award nominations for Best Cinematography from the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) and the British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA), and Widows.
Bobbitt has also worked frequently with director Michael Winterbottom on films such as Wonderland, Everyday, and The Killer Inside Me. Recent films with other notable directors include Dominic Cooke’s On Chesil Beach and Ironbark; The Rhythm Section with cinematographer-turned-director Reed Morano; David Gordon Green’s Stronger; Mira Nair’s The Queen of Katwe; A Place Beyond the Pines, directed by Derek Cianfrance; Spike Lee’s remake of Oldboy.
Bobbitt’s television credits include the award-winning Sense and Sensibility, for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Cinematography, The Long Firm, which earned a BAFTA nomination for Best Cinematography, The Canterbury Tales, for which he won an RTS Award, and the pilot of HBO’s acclaimed series Game of Thrones.
Prior to becoming established in narrative film and television, Bobbitt photographed numerous documentaries and served as a news cameraman around the globe, particularly in areas of social and political unrest in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, Africa, and Asia.
A graduate of Santa Clara University (California) and St. George’s College (England), Bobbitt is a native of Texas who splits his time between the United Kingdom, where he resides, and the United States, where he frequently works.
Cinematography
Tells the true story of Ramla Ali, who fled Somalia with her family as a young girl, seeking asylum in London from the civil war. As a teenager, she pursued her love of boxing, but did so secretly as she knew her family would disapprove. Ali became the first boxer, male or female, to represent Somalia at the 2020 Olympic Games and made history after winning the first ever professional female boxing match in Saudi Arabia.
Director of Photography
Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree and taken revenge on the Supreme Intelligence. But unintended consequences see Carol shouldering the burden of a destabilized universe. When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, her powers become entangled with that of Jersey City super-fan Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, and Carol’s estranged niece, now S.A.B.E.R. astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau. Together, this unlikely trio must team up and learn to work in concert to save the universe.
Director of Photography
Bill O'Neal infiltrates the Black Panthers on the orders of FBI Agent Mitchell and J. Edgar Hoover. As Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton ascends—falling for a fellow revolutionary en route—a battle wages for O’Neal’s soul.
"A" Camera Operator
When she discovers the plane crash that claimed the lives of her family was no accident, Stephanie Patrick enters the dark, complex world of international espionage seeking vengeance. With nothing left to lose, Stephanie transforms from victim to assassin and discovers that neither revenge nor the truth are what they appear.
Director of Photography
When she discovers the plane crash that claimed the lives of her family was no accident, Stephanie Patrick enters the dark, complex world of international espionage seeking vengeance. With nothing left to lose, Stephanie transforms from victim to assassin and discovers that neither revenge nor the truth are what they appear.
Director of Photography
Cold War spy Greville Wynne and his Russian source try to put an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Director of Photography
A police shootout leaves four thieves dead during an explosive armed robbery attempt in Chicago. Their widows have nothing in common except a debt left behind by their spouses' criminal activities. Hoping to forge a future on their own terms, they join forces to pull off a heist.
Director of Photography
In 1962 England, a young couple finds their idyllic romance colliding with issues of sexual freedom and societal pressure, leading to an awkward and fateful wedding night.
Director of Photography
A victim of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 helps the police track down the killers while struggling to recover from devastating trauma.
Director of Photography
A young girl overcomes her disadvantaged upbringing in the slums of Uganda to become a Chess master.
Director of Photography
A washed-up music producer finds one last shot at redemption with a golden-voiced young girl in Afghanistan. However, when jealousy gets the better of a disgruntled ex-boyfriend, he decides to oppose the young star with talent of his own.
Cinematography
A reporter becomes the target of a vicious smear campaign that drives him to the point of suicide after he exposes the CIA's role in arming Contra rebels in Nicaragua and importing cocaine into California. Based on the true story of journalist Gary Webb.
Director of Photography
A man has only three and a half days and limited resources to discover why he was imprisoned in a nondescript room for 20 years without any explanation.
Camera Operator
In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.
Director of Photography
In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.
Director of Photography
A motorcycle stunt rider considers committing a crime in order to provide for his wife and child, an act that puts him on a collision course with a cop-turned-politician.
Director of Photography
Residents of a coastal town learn, with deadly consequences, the secret shared by the two mysterious women who have sought refuge at a local resort.
Camera Operator
Residents of a coastal town learn, with deadly consequences, the secret shared by the two mysterious women who have sought refuge at a local resort.
Director of Photography
Brandon, a thirty-something man living in New York, eludes intimacy with women but feeds his deepest desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his younger sister temporarily moves into his apartment, stirring up bitter memories of their shared painful past, Brandon's life, like his fragile mind, gets out of control.
Director of Photography
Two doctors in Victorian England use manual stimulation of female genitalia to cure their patients' ills, leading to the invention of the vibrator.
Cinematography
The extraordinary story of three Rwandan children who attempt to realize the dream of their life: to attend the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup 2010 at Johannesburg.
Additional Director of Photography
Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is a pillar of the community in his small west Texas town, patient and apparently thoughtful. Some people think he is a little slow and maybe boring, but that is the worst they say about him. But then nobody knows about what Lou calls his "sickness": He is a brilliant, but disturbed sociopathic sadist.
Director of Photography
Static was filmed from a helicopter circling around the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour. It was shot shortly after the monument was fully re-opened following the September 11th attacks. Flying alongside the statue, the camera presents us with startling close-up views of its oxidised copper surface. The continual sense of movement is disorienting, undermining its sense of permanence and stability.
Director of Photography
The story of Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 hunger strike during The Troubles in which Irish Republican prisoners tried to win political status.
Director of Photography
Milo is a professional hit man living on the edge. When failing to fulfil a contract for the first time, Milo escapes the city to avoid the wrath of his employers. Hiding out in a remote rural village, the locals mistake him for the new baker.
Director of Photography
The first U.S.-made film drama set during the Iraq war, THE SITUATION chronicles the tragic death of an Iraqi teenager at the hands of U.S. soldiers. The incident sets off an "investigation," a cover-up, and complications involving Iraqi mayor Sheikh Tahsin (Saïd Amadis), who has a complex relationship with the Americans.
Second Unit Cinematographer
A real-time account of the events on United Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked on 9/11 that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the terrorist plot.
Director of Photography
A close-up fixes on the eye of British actor Charlotte Rampling. McQueen's finger moves around her eye, pulling the skin and momentarily touching her eyeball. Rampling's eye continually adjusts to the movement of the finger, just as the camera lens goes in and out of focus. Suffused in red, Charlotte is a reflection on the act of looking.
Cinematography
Fitness fanatic, Donald Leek, indulges in a monthly Chunky Monkey experience with, someone vaguely resembling movie-songstress, Julie Andrews, who he's expecting at 7:30pm. His obsession with Ms. Andrews (and her posterior) is somewhat disturbing to say the least. Before she arrives however, he has to dispose of the body parts of Mr Azam, manager of his favourite Indian restaurant, who has neglected to send him a Christmas card. He is interrupted by a peculiar assortment of unwelcome visitors, amongst them, Jesus Christ and a one-testicled self-made millionaire. Each one is as unhinged as their host, who retaliates to the intrusion in extreme fashion
Cinematography
A satirical look at the 'secret' TRUE life of Jeffrey Archer. The Truth, the whole truth and everything BUT the truth.
Director of Photography
In a British seaside resort, several lives intertwine following the funeral of a gay restaurant owner.
Director of Photography
Two couple of friends, one very rich, the other almost homeless, decide to go on Holiday. Julie, a single mother, joins them too. Once at seaside, it starts a complicate love cross among them that will involve also a transsexual, a jealous brother, a Latin Lover and another nervous stressed couple. Not to mention about the daughter of one of them that is secretly in Chicago with one of her father's employees... At the end of the summer, all of them will join the same party...
Director of Photography
An exploration of the sensory experience of the TauTona gold mine in South Africa, showing migrant labourers working in dark, claustrophobic environments and the ear-splitting noise of drilling. The TauTona mine in South Africa, known as 'Western Deep' is the world's deepest gold mine. Employing more than 5,000 people, it operates twenty-four hours day. The film begins in complete darkness as the miners descend three-and-a-half kilometres underground. McQueen documents an intense work regime where the temperature can reach over ninety degrees celsius. Accompanied by jarring sounds created by the mechanical equipment, Western Deep is a hellish representation of labour that makes the silent resolve of the miners all the more powerful.
Director of Photography
A teenage girl gets ready to go out to meet her boyfriend, despite her mother's loud verbal disapproval of her clothes. She goes out to a deserted area with him and he begins to touch her up and have sex with her, however a dog reveals the true nature of her boyfriend.
Director of Photography
There's little wonder in the working-class lives of Bill, Eileen, and their three grown daughters. They're lonely Londoners. Nadia, a cafe waitress, places personal ads, looking for love; Debbie, a single mom, entertains men at the hair salon after hours; her son spends part of the weekend with her ex, a man with a hair-trigger temper. Molly is expecting her first baby and its father acts as if the responsibility is too much for him.
