Term
Billy Bitzer
G. W. “Billy” Bitzer was a pioneering American cinematographer whose long collaboration with D. W. Griffith helped develop early film lighting, close-ups, mattes, tracking shots, and continuity techniques.
In practice
Bitzer began at the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company when camera crews also handled mechanical, electrical, laboratory, and projection work. His achievements should be taught alongside the racist content and historical harm of The Birth of a Nation, one of the films he photographed.
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Related entries
Sources
- Billy Bitzer and the Biograph — Library of Congress