Ernest Dickerson
Ernest Dickerson is a cinematographer and film director who has been a part of some of the great film work of the last twenty years. Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1953, he was always interested in photography and movies but decided it was more practical to major in architecture at Howard University. After graduation he worked photographing surgical procedures for Howard's medical school. He decided to go back to school, this time to focus on photography and film at New York University. At NYU Dickerson met fellow student Spike Lee and embarked on a long professional collaboration with him. Dickerson worked the camera for Lee's 1980 student film, "Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads". Director John Sayles saw the film and decided to hire Dickerson as director of photography for the feature Brother From Another Planet. Throughout the 1980s and early 90s, Dickerson was the cinematographer for Spike Lee's movies including She's Gotta Have It (1986), Do the Right Thing (for which he won the New York Film Critics Award for best cinematography), Jungle Fever (1991) and Malcolm X (1992). Dickerson uses camera angles and movement, lighting and color, to frame the story. He also took on director duties when Lee was on the other side of the camera acting. Dickerson has worked on music videos for Bruce Springsteen and the Neville Brothers, among others. He shot Eddie Murphy's Raw and Eric Bogosian's Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll. Dickerson decided to stop taking cinematographer work so he could focus on directing. His first foray was Juice (1992), a drama about four young black men in Harlem. He also directed TV episodes of The Untouchables and Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knights. More recently, he has directed a number of episodes for The Wire, Weeds, and ER.
