Wally Pfister

Biography

Walter C. Pfister (born July 8, 1961) is an American director and former cinematographer, who is best known for his work with filmmaker Christopher Nolan. 

Some of his collaborations with Nolan include Memento (2000), The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2012), and Inception (2010). For his work on Inception, Pfister won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography and received a BAFTA Award nomination.

Pfister is also known for his work on director F. Gary Gray's The Italian Job and Bennett Miller's Moneyball. In 2014, Pfister made his directorial debut with Transcendence (2014), through Alcon Entertainment. In addition to feature films, he has also directed commercials and television, including episodes of Flaked and The Tick.

Pfister was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in the New York City suburb of Irvington-on-Hudson. He is the son of Patricia Ann (née Conway) and Walter J. Pfister, Jr. His grandfather was the city editor of a newspaper in Wisconsin. 

His father, also known as Wally, was a TV news producer, who began his career with CBS-TV in Chicago in 1955. Later, as an executive at ABC News, the elder Pfister worked with David Brinkley and Peter Jennings, covering political conventions, space flights, and the civil rights movement.

When Pfister was about 11, a film company shot scenes for Shamus (1973), featuring Burt Reynolds, in his Irvington neighborhood. The boy was fascinated by the crew setting up lights and cameras. 

Soon afterward, he began shooting 8 mm home movies and short films. Pfister also emulated his father by shooting slides on Kodachrome film and assembling them into shows for family and friends.

Pfister currently resides in Los Angeles, California, and has three children: Nick, actress Claire Julien, and Mia.

He is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) since 2002, and the British Society of Cinematographers (BSC) since 2011.