Jon Fauer, A.S.C. [ resume ] [ website ]
Jon Fauer has been shooting film since he was 8 years old. He attended Collegiate School in New York, and graduated with honors in Art and Film from Dartmouth College. His mentors were screenwriter-director Maurice Rapf, director Joseph Losey, and film historian Arthur Mayer. With a grant from PBS, he directed and filmed the one-hour television documentary “Losey on Film”.
A day after graduation from Dartmouth, he was off to his first major film with Jay Evans, Dartmouth head of admissions and kayak coach. “Wildwater” was shot on location at the World Kayak Championships in Italy. The film, and the awards it won, led to documentaries around the world: skiing, kayaking, and action-adventure specials for ABC, PBS, American Sportsman, and National Geographic in the jungles of Guatemala, the mountains of New Zealand, and the Altiplano of Bolivia; from the North Pole to the Chesapeake. His work led to membership in The Explorers Club, the International Cinematographers Guild (ICG), the Directors Guild (DGA) and the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC).
He became a camera operator when Andrew Laszlo, ASC asked him if he could ski backwards with a camera. He did — as second unit camera operator on “Top of the Hill”, starring Wayne Rogers, Elke Sommer, Sonny Bono and Mel Ferer. However, the film was mainly about bobsledding and love, so he soon found himself handholding backwards in a bobsled at 80 miles an hour. Jon worked as a camera operator on many features for the next five years, and then began working as Director of Photography on features, television films, television series and commercials.
He was 2nd Unit Director of Photography on “All the Right Moves” and “Remo Williams”; Director of Photography on the series “Tales from the Darkside”, the title sequences for “Bonfire of the Vanities”, and “Angie”, and Director of Photography on many major campaigns for Coca Cola, Chrysler, Ralph Lauren, Ponds Institute, Johnson & Johnson, Mercedes, and GE.
As a Director-Cameraman on high technology and high fashion commercials, his work has won numerous awards, including Best Director and Best Cinematography. Recent commercials include campaigns for Neutrogena, Rhinocort, Porcelana, Pontiac, Buick, US Coast Guard, Snickers, Canon Cameras, Sears and Blistex.
He is author of many best-selling books on cinematography and digital imaging, published by ASC Press, ARRI and Focal Press. Over 110,000 copies of his books have been printed. The books began as a few pages of notes for camera assistants on the cameras Jon owned. The notes quickly grew into textbooks.
He recently completed the award-winning feature documentary “Cinematographer Style” www.cinematographerstyle.com and is currently publishing Film and Digital Times, a bimonthly newsletter www.fdtimes.com.