Joseph F. Coffey

Movies

Eddie Murphy Raw
Camera Operator
Eddie Murphy delights, shocks and entertains with dead-on celebrity impersonations, observations on '80s love, sex and marriage, a remembrance of Mom's hamburgers and much more.
For Love of Ivy
Director of Photography
A white family has had the same Black maid for many years. When she tells them she wants to go back to school and will be leaving soon, the 20ish year old son decides what she needs is a change and begins searching for a man to wine and dine her, but who won't marry her, thinking that this will distract her from her plans. The man he finds doesn't entirely cooperate.
The Producers
Director of Photography
Broadway producer, Max Bialystock and his accountant, Leo Bloom plan to make money by charming little old ladies to invest in a production many times over what it will actually cost, and then put on a sure-fire flop, so nobody will ask for their money back – and what can be a more certain flop than a tasteless musical celebrating Hitler.
Up the Down Staircase
Director of Photography
Sylvia Barrett is a rookie teacher at New York's inner-city Calvin Coolidge High: her lit classes are overcrowded, a window is broken, there's no chalk, books arrive late. The administration is concerned mainly with forms and rules (there's an up and a down staircase); bells ring at the wrong time. Nevertheless, she tries. How she handles the chaos and her despair in her first semester makes up the film: a promising student drops out, another sleeps through class, a girl with a crush on a male teacher gets suicidal, and a bright but troublesome student misunderstands Sylvia's reaching out. A discussion of Dickens, parents' night, and a mock trial highlight the term. Can she make it?
Film
Camera Operator
A man attempts to evade observation by an all-seeing eye.