Mauro Fiore

{{short description|Italian-American cinematographer (born 1964)}}

{{Infobox person

| image =

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1964|11|15}}

| birth_place = Marzi, Calabria, Italy

| years_active = 1986–present

| spouse = {{marriage|Christine Vollmer
|2000|}}

| children = 3

| awards = Academy Award for Best Cinematography
2010 Avatar

| alma_mater = Columbia College Chicago (B.A., 1987)
AFI Conservatory

| occupation = Cinematographer

}}

Mauro Fiore (born November 15, 1964) is an Italian-American cinematographer. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Avatar (2009).

Early life

Fiore was born in Marzi, Calabria and moved to the US with his family in 1971.{{cite web | url=http://www.cinematographers.nl/PaginasDoPh/fiore.htm | title=Mauro Fiore | work=www.cinematographers.nl | access-date=March 9, 2010}} He attended Palatine High School in Palatine, Illinois, and graduated in 1982. He started out pursuing a career in sociology but was captivated by photography and art. He went on to receive his B.A. from Columbia College Chicago in 1987 and moved to Los Angeles to jumpstart his career.{{cite web | url=http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=364270 | title=Daily Herald | work=www.dailyherald.com | access-date=April 2, 2010 }}{{Cite web |last=Turnbaugh |first=Kristi |title=Mauro Fiore ’87 |url=https://www.colum.edu/academics/alumni/mauro-fiore |access-date=2024-08-28 |website=www.colum.edu |language=en-US}} He graduated from the AFI Conservatory, where he met cinematographers Janusz Kamiński and Phedon Papamichael.{{Cite web |title=Explore the history of Mauro Fiore and their career |url=https://www.independentmediainc.com/directors/mauro-fiore |access-date=2024-08-28 |website=www.independentmediainc.com |language=en}}

Career

Early in his career, he worked with fellow Columbia College and AFI graduate Janusz Kamiński, initially on B movies before the two gradually worked their way up into higher-profile projects. He was Kamiński's grip, his camera operator, and eventually his second unit photographer on The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Amistad (both 1997). He was the director of photography on Kamiński's directorial debut, Lost Souls (2000).{{Cite web |title=The Devil Made Flesh - page 1 |url=https://theasc.com/magazine/new00/flesh/pg1.htm |access-date=2024-08-28 |website=theasc.com}}

Fiore shot 17 episodes of the television series Tracey Takes On.... His first major motion picture credit as cinematographer was the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Get Carter (2000). He established a partnership with director Antoine Fuqua, beginning with Training Day (2001), and has shot six more of the director's films since.

His other feature film credits during this time included Wayne Wang's The Center of the World (2001), Michael Bay's The Island (2005), and Joe Carnahan's Smokin' Aces (2006) and The A-Team (2010).

Fiore shot James Cameron's Avatar (2009), where he and the director utilized a variety of cutting-edge techniques to combine a live-action shoot with computer-generated characters and environments. Fiore and Cameron utilized a unique camera referred to as a "simulcam," which recorded the live-action footage with virtual camera CGI footage in real-time. For his work on the film, Fiore won Best Cinematography at the Academy Awards.

Subsequent films Fiore has worked on include Real Steel (2011), Dark Phoenix (2019), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), A Good Person (2023), and The Killer (2024). In 2021, he shot his first film produced in his native Italy, Security.

Fiore is set to re-team with James Cameron for the fourth and fifth installments of the Avatar series, after being replaced by Russell Carpenter on the second and third films.

Personal life

Fiore married Christine Vollmer in 2000. They have three children.{{cn|date=October 2021}}

Filmography

=Feature film=

class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
Year

! Title

! Director

1986

| Automaton

| David Bazant
Jeff Economy

rowspan=2|1995

| Dominion

| Michael G. Kehoe

Soldier Boyz

| Louis Mourneau

1996

| An Occasional Hell

| Salomé Breziner

1997

| Breaking Up

| Robert Greenwald

1998

| Love from Ground Zero

| Stephen Grynberg

1998

| Billboard Dad

| Alan Metter

rowspan=2|2000

| Get Carter

| Stephen Kay

Lost Souls

| Janusz Kamiński

rowspan=3|2001

| Driven

| Renny Harlin

The Center of the World

| Wayne Wang

Training Day

| Antoine Fuqua

2002

| Highway

| James Cox

2003

| Tears of the Sun

| Antoine Fuqua

2005

| The Island

| Michael Bay

2006

| Smokin' Aces

| Joe Carnahan

2007

| The Kingdom

| Peter Berg

2009

| Avatar

| James Cameron

2010

| The A-Team

| Joe Carnahan

2011

| Real Steel

| Shawn Levy

2013

| Runner Runner

| Brad Furman

2014

| The Equalizer

|rowspan=3|Antoine Fuqua

2015

| Southpaw

2016

| The Magnificent Seven

rowspan=2|2019

| Dark Phoenix

| Simon Kinberg

Mosul

| Matthew Michael Carnahan

rowspan=3|2021

| Infinite

| Antoine Fuqua

Spider-Man: No Way Home

| Jon Watts

Security

| Peter Chelsom

2023

| A Good Person

| Zach Braff

rowspan=2|2024

| Madame Web

| S. J. Clarkson

The Killer

| John Woo

2026

| Heart of the Beast

| David Ayer

Direct-to-video

class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
Year

! Title

! Director

1998

| Billboard Dad

| Alan Metter

=Television=

class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
Year

! Title

! Director

! Notes

1997–98

| Tracey Takes On...

| Don Scardino
Thomas Schlamme
Michael McKean
Michael Lange

| 17 episodes

2006

| Faceless

| Joe Carnahan

| TV movie

2011

| Inside

| D. J. Caruso

| Social film

2015

| Chris Tucker – Live

| Phil Joanou

| Stand-up special

Awards and nominations

References

{{reflist}}