Inducted into ACS Hall of Fame – 2002
Born in 1956, and with nearly two decades’ worth of time behind the camera in Australia and Hollywood, Andrew Lesnie has captured images that captivate audiences’ imaginations and bring the most impossible feats to life on the big screen.
Andrew won an Oscar for Best Cinematography in 2002 for Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, and a BAFTA award in 2004 for Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, as well as numerous film critic’s awards. Lesnie also collaborated with Peter Jackson on King Kong and The Lovely Bones.
He has received three BAFTA nominations, three American Society of Cinematographers nominations and twice held the Australian Cinematographers Society MILLI award. Doing Time for Patsy Cline achieved the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Cinematography, the Film Critics Circle of Australia Award and an A.C.S. Gold Award.
Lesnie also garnered ACS Golden Tripod Awards for Babe, Spider and Rose, and Temptation of a Monk, a Polygram film shot in China starring Joan Chen. Other feature credits include Babe: Pig In The City, The Sugar Factory, Two If By Sea, Dark Age, The Delinquents, Boys In The Island, Daydream Believers, Love’s Brother and Unfinished Business, as well as the live action sequences for Happy Feet. His most recent feature credits are the Will Smith starrer I Am Legend, the Australian independent film Bran Nue Dae starring Geoffrey Rush and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender.
His television credits include the three mini-series The Rainbow Warrior Conspiracy, Melba (A.C.S. Merit Award) and Cyclone Tracy (ACS Golden Tripod Award for best photographed mini-series).
With a colourful background in news, documentaries, current affairs and several hundred commercials and music videos, Lesnie has photographed such diverse projects as The Making of the Road Warrior, The Comeback (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger), Stages (Peter Brook and the Paris Theatre Company) and Inside Pine Gap (Australia-U.S. relations).
Andrew Lesnie studied film and television at TAFE and AFTRS before joining the ABC as a camera assistant. After going freelance, Andrew divided his time as a professional assistant and shooting low budget short films and music videos. He assisted on documentaries, several feature films and hundreds of commercials. He also spent 18 months on Wonder World, a children’s afternoon magazine style show where he was able to experiment and pioneer some new photographic techniques.