Chris Maris(I)
- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Chris Maris was brought up by artist parents near Holmfirth, Yorkshire, England. He did his foundation in art &
design at the Huddersfield School of Art in 1980 and went on to North
Staffordshire Polytechnic to take a Bachelor of Arts degree the
following year. Here he specialised in audio visual design, which meant
he spent his second terms student grant on a Bolex super-8 camera and
stayed at home for the rest of the course making his own films, only
venturing into the department to use the sound mixing equipment and
transfer his exposed reversal film to tape, via a mirror. Whilst this
did not endear him to the college staff he was, however, the first
student from that course to ever get a place at the prestigious MA film
school at the Royal College of Art. Here he studied all aspects of
practical film making, specialising in cinematography and editing.
After graduating, Chris worked on shorts, music videos, corporate films
and documentaries as a DP and edited BBC Arena and Omnibus shows under
Michael Crozier. Whilst this was great fun, it took a documentary job
in Columbia in 1988 to convince him that being a full time DP was
better than sitting in a black room in Shepherds Bush, however he finds
the experience he learned whilst editing there invaluable. In 1990 he
shot his first feature film called Blackout, described by Variety
Magazine as having one redeeming quality; the 'Pro-lensed
cinematography'. A standard period of filming shorts, music videos and
average TV drama followed, along with three years of part-time guest
lecturing at the Guildhall University in London, until a postage stamp
sized newspaper advertisement for further film education at VGIK in
Moscow resulted in him spending a year there studying Russian film
technique and B&W cinematography. Here he met Anders Banke, a young
director, with whom he has gone on to forge a solid working
relationship resulting recently in the critically acclaimed vampire
movie 'Frostbite', the most successful Swedish movie since Bergmans
heyday in 1972. After Moscow Chris spent eight years based in Bristol
where he worked as a freelance DP for, amongst many other companies,
Aardman animations, specifically with their live action, animation
compositing, special effects and chroma-key work, culminating in the
award winning series of US ad's for Serta Mattresses. He now lives in a
farm house in the south of Sweden where, in his spare time, he is
building a 450 meter square special fx film studio. Current film
projects include a Russian retake on Breaking News (called Newsmakers),
set in Moscow and Hammer Films first cinema release in over 30 years,
the Wake Wood. Projects set for 2009 include a ghost film set in
Sweden, several genre films based in Kiev and his own moon based
animated television series "The Lunartics".