Biography
Oscar nominee Garry Waller is an American cinematographer with nearly twenty-five years of distinguished work in Hollywood. Raised in Palmdale, California, he often visited the local two-screen drive-in theater. His mother, Wilma, worked in civil service at the Army base, while his father, James, was employed at Edwards Air Force Base’s Department of Flight Research (DFRC), studying heat and stress analysis on the 'Flying Bathtub,' now known as the Space Shuttle. At 16, after receiving the family’s hand-me-down Oldsmobile, he frequently made what he thought were secret trips down Highway 14 to Westwood, Los Angeles, to watch films on superior screens. He attended the Hamilton School of Photography in Santa Monica before successfully challenging for admission into the second-year curriculum at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. After just two months, he landed a career breakthrough working at Lucasfilm in Marin County, California. His first film there was 'Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back,' where he created hundreds of motion blur 'flak' bursts for visual effects. Following four years at Lucasfilm, he joined Boss Films in Marina Del Rey, contributing to several more movies and earning an Oscar nomination for his work on 'Poltergeist II: The Other Side.' Garry has also won both an Emmy Award and an MTV Music Video Award for Best Cinematography in a Music Video, awarded by the Rolling Stones for the song "Love Is Strong." He has collaborated with renowned directors including David Fincher, Olivier Megaton, Joseph Kosinski, Antoine Fuqua, Dustin Nguyen, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Tim Burton, among others. His international work includes recent theatrical projects filmed in Poland for 'Persona Non Grata' and in Vietnam for the movie 'I'll Wait.
