My mate Robin Browne, who has died aged 82, was a cinematographer specialising in aerial photography and special outcomes. His was not a name in lights, but he constantly excelled without the need of the razzmatazz of Hollywood. I doubt there is any person who has observed a person of his films and not marvelled at the competencies and dangers associated.
He commenced out as a clapper boy in the late 1950s, and labored on dozens of distinguished movies over the next five a long time, as camera assistant, operator and as director of photography major professional models. A handful of titles give a flavour: Struggle of Britain (1969) Capture 22 (1970) the tv sequence The Adventures of Black Natural beauty (1972-74), on which he was camera operator for all 52 episodes a few Bond movies in the 1970s A Bridge Much too Much (1977) Krull (1983) A Passage to India (1984) The Jewel of the Nile (1985) King Kong Life (1986) Gorillas in the Mist (1988) and Gifted Fingers: The Ben Carson Story (2009).
For me, the 1 that can take the breath absent, and is really described as an epic, is the award-successful biopic Gandhi (1982), made and directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Ben Kingsley, on which Robin was in demand of aerial images. Robin’s bywords – “go simple on the lights and not far too significantly camera movement” – imbued the group scenes usually shot from earlier mentioned with specific effect.
He and I were friends from boyhood. Robin was born, just a month right after me, in Aylesbury, and later on moved to north London, where we went to Highgate faculty and grew up collectively. In individuals times there were being additional open fields than residences and we joined with another buddy to variety the three musketeers. All our vacations were being preoccupied with adventures plotting the system of the Dollis brook by its a lot of manifestations till it achieved the Thames and setting issues for each other to conquer identified and imagined fears.
Robin’s mom, Diana (nee Mannering), was a nicely-recognized vogue design below the identify Diana Jones. His father was Bernard Browne, a director of photography who worked with Alexander Korda at Denham studios Robin was plainly proficient and destined for the film globe. He joined it as shortly as he could, at 16, with an apprenticeship at Merton Park Studios in south London prior to moving to get the job done at Shepperton. Unusually he experienced a small dim room at his residence and I was capable to witness the mysteries of images, growth, and editing at shut quarters. At faculty he ran the photography club.
He ended up settling in the US, moving in 1991 to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, with his wife Judy (nee Doetze), whom he experienced married in 1978. This meant that he and I would fulfill considerably less typically, but we hardly ever dropped touch. He was highly regarded and effectively recognized for his unassuming method, his caring generosity of spirit, his considerate and thoughtful mental tactic at work and at home.
Latterly he turned his hand to investigation into historic files in preparation for a guide about to be done relating to Shakespeare authorship and Francis Bacon. Definitely Robin would have had designs to flip it into a novel film.
He is survived by Judy, and their little ones, Justin and Debbie.
