In Remembrance: Neal Fredericks

     Neal Fredericks, the cinematographer best known for shooting The Blair Witch Project, has died Saturday August 14, 2004, the result of a plane crash in an area of ocean 70 miles of Key West, Florida near the Dry Tortugas islands. He was 35.

     Born on July 24, 1969 in Newport Beach California, Fredericks attended Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland where he met friends Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick. The three collaborated on The Blair Witch Project, the 1999 independent horror film shot for $22,000.00 that became a box office phenomenon grossing over $240 million worldwide.

     Blair Witch was shot in a pseudo-documentary style, primarily by its three lead actors. Although a novel approach, it did lead some to question Fredericks role in the film. “His basic answer was that he did what needed to be done on the film just like he did on all his other films,” explained Sanchez on the website for Haxan Films, the company that produced Blair Witch. “Blair Witch didn’t need to be lit, so he didn’t light it. It didn’t need a camera operator, so he didn’t operate. What he did do was make sure those actors knew everything they could and had everything they needed to keep shooting, to keep getting those images into the camera. And really, that’s what the DP [Director of Photography] job is all about.”

     “Neal was a very rare breed,” stated Myrick on Haxan’s website. “He always gave you more than you asked for.”

     Fredericks early jobs consisted of mostly second unit work on such films as Visicous Kiss (1995) and Carjack (1996). His first cinematographer's credit was on the 1998 film Laughing Dead. Following Blair Witch, and two television specials about the film The Burkittsville 7 and Shadow of the Blair Witch, he worked on such independent films as Dreamers (1999) and Killer Me (2001). More recently he had completed work on the horror films El Intermedio and Abominable.