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Thomas E. Ackerman (b. 1948)

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Alias:
Thomas Ackerman

Birthplace:
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA

Born:
September 14, 1948

Biography from TheMovieDB

Cinematographer Thomas Ackerman was born on 14 September, 1948 at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and enrolled in the University of Iowa, where he took a cinema course. He was hired by the university to shoot football games and training films for its School of Dentistry. In 1968 he went to work for Oscar-winning filmmaker Charles Guggenheim, who became his mentor. After a stint in the US Air Force he went back to work for Guggenheim in Washington, DC. He moved to Los Angeles in 1973, hooked up with his Air Force buddy Mike Robeand was hired as a camera operator on a succession of Hollywood films, includingFrancis Ford Coppola's One from the Heart (1981). He was director of photography onBeetlejuice (1988) for director Tim Burton (for whom Ackerman had previously shotFrankenweenie (1984)). In addition to cinematographer, he has also served as a second-unit director, notably onAlvin and the Chipmunks (2007) and Furry Vengeance (2010).

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Additional information:

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Film Production

Camera Operator:
1978  The Great Smokey Roadblock
1982  One from the Heart
1982  The Gift of Life

Cinematography:
1978  The Great Smokey Roadblock
1981  Talmage Farlow
1982  One from the Heart
1982  The Gift of Life
1984  Frankenweenie
2003  Los Zafiros: Music from the Edge of Time
2009  Fired Up!

Director of Photography:
1978  The Great Smokey Roadblock
1980  New Year's Evil
1981  Talmage Farlow
1982  Foxfire Light
1982  One from the Heart
1982  The Gift of Life
1984  Frankenweenie
1984  Roadhouse 66
1985  Girls Just Want to Have Fun
1986  Back to School
1988  Beetlejuice
1988  Moonwalker
1989  National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
1991  True Identity
1993  Dennis the Menace
1994  Baby's Day Out
1995  Jumanji
1997  George of the Jungle
1997  The Eighteenth Angel
1999  My Favorite Martian
1999  The Muse
2000  Beautiful Joe
2000  The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle
2001  Rat Race
2002  CinéMagique
2002  Snow Dogs
2003  Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star
2003  Los Zafiros: Music from the Edge of Time
2003  The Battle of Shaker Heights
2004  Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
2004  Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie
2005  Are We There Yet?
2006  Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
2006  Scary Movie 4
2006  The Benchwarmers
2007  Balls of Fury
2008  Superhero Movie
2009  Fired Up!
2009  Infestation
2011  Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
2011  Mardi Gras: Spring Break
2015  Night of the Living Deb

Producer:
1978  The Great Smokey Roadblock
1980  New Year's Evil
1981  Talmage Farlow
1982  Foxfire Light
1982  One from the Heart
1982  The Gift of Life
1984  Frankenweenie
1984  Roadhouse 66
1985  Girls Just Want to Have Fun
1986  Back to School
1988  Beetlejuice
1988  Moonwalker
1989  National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
1991  True Identity
1993  Dennis the Menace
1994  Baby's Day Out
1995  Jumanji
1997  George of the Jungle
1997  The Eighteenth Angel
1999  My Favorite Martian
1999  The Muse
2000  Beautiful Joe
2000  The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle
2001  Rat Race
2002  CinéMagique
2002  Snow Dogs
2003  Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star
2003  Los Zafiros: Music from the Edge of Time
2003  The Battle of Shaker Heights
2004  Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
2004  Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie
2005  Are We There Yet?
2006  Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
2006  Scary Movie 4
2006  The Benchwarmers
2007  Balls of Fury
2008  Superhero Movie
2009  Fired Up!
2009  Infestation
2011  Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
2011  Mardi Gras: Spring Break
2015  Night of the Living Deb

Second Unit Director:
1978  The Great Smokey Roadblock
1980  New Year's Evil
1981  Talmage Farlow
1982  Foxfire Light
1982  One from the Heart
1982  The Gift of Life
1984  Frankenweenie
1984  Roadhouse 66
1985  Girls Just Want to Have Fun
1986  Back to School
1988  Beetlejuice
1988  Moonwalker
1989  National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
1991  True Identity
1993  Dennis the Menace
1994  Baby's Day Out
1995  Jumanji
1997  George of the Jungle
1997  The Eighteenth Angel
1999  My Favorite Martian
1999  The Muse
2000  Beautiful Joe
2000  The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle
2001  Rat Race
2002  CinéMagique
2002  Snow Dogs
2003  Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star
2003  Los Zafiros: Music from the Edge of Time
2003  The Battle of Shaker Heights
2004  Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
2004  Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie
2005  Are We There Yet?
2006  Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
2006  Scary Movie 4
2006  The Benchwarmers
2007  Balls of Fury
2008  Superhero Movie
2009  Fired Up!
2009  Infestation
2011  Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
2011  Hop
2011  Mardi Gras: Spring Break
2015  Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
2015  Night of the Living Deb

Second Unit Director of Photography:
1978  The Great Smokey Roadblock
1980  New Year's Evil
1981  Talmage Farlow
1982  Foxfire Light
1982  One from the Heart
1982  The Gift of Life
1984  Frankenweenie
1984  Roadhouse 66
1985  Girls Just Want to Have Fun
1986  Back to School
1987  Inside Out
1988  Beetlejuice
1988  Moonwalker
1989  National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
1991  True Identity
1993  Dennis the Menace
1994  Baby's Day Out
1995  Jumanji
1997  George of the Jungle
1997  The Eighteenth Angel
1999  My Favorite Martian
1999  The Muse
2000  Beautiful Joe
2000  The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle
2001  Rat Race
2002  CinéMagique
2002  Snow Dogs
2003  Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star
2003  Los Zafiros: Music from the Edge of Time
2003  The Battle of Shaker Heights
2004  Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
2004  Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie
2005  Are We There Yet?
2006  Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
2006  Scary Movie 4
2006  The Benchwarmers
2007  Balls of Fury
2008  Superhero Movie
2009  Fired Up!
2009  Infestation
2011  Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
2011  Hop
2011  Mardi Gras: Spring Break
2015  Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
2015  Night of the Living Deb

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Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).

Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).

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Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)

While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:

  • I added "runners up" to Top 10 lists, treating them as ties where applicable and numbering them accordingly at the bottom of each list.
  • Regarding those polls wherein "franchise" movies were submitted as one project until BFI's policy changed to regard them separately, I treated them as ties and renumbered the affected lists accordingly (e.g. the Godfather films).

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