Sherwood Omens to Lead American Society of Cinematographers
Photo by Irene Fertik
"My goals are to complete the work of my predecessors, and to develop educational initiatives designed to help keep our members and other filmmakers on the cutting edge of the convergence of film and digital technologies," Omens said.
Omens began his career shooting documentaries, one of which, Somebody Waiting, received an Oscar nomination in 1972. His narrative feature credits include History of the World: Part I (1981), Coming to America (1988) and Harlem Nights (1989).
During the mid-1970s, he began shooting and then directing TV commercials. Omens also filmed 22 movies of the week during a 10-year span beginning in 1979. He earned six Emmy nominations and won three consecutive times, beginning in 1986 with An Early Frost, followed by Heart of the City and I Saw What You Did.
Omens is a native of Chicago who followed through on a childhood dream of becoming an artist. He began taking Saturday classes at the Art Institute in Chicago at the age of 16, and later earned a degree with a major in painting.
During the 1960s, when Omens was teaching art and painting, he was asked to submit photographs of his work to a juried exhibit. That motivated him to begin taking still pictures. He soon segued into motion picture photography using his father's 16mm Key- stone camera. Omens began teaching full time at USC in 1990 at the peak of his film career, then took one year off to shoot Boomerang (1992). He also was producer for the ASC on the American Film Institute's documentary about cinematography, Visions of Light (1992).
"I love teaching future filmmakers, and seeing them grow and make contributions," he said. "That doesn't mean I'll never shoot a film again, but it would take a script which really motivates me and uses visuals to tell a meaningful story."
In a 1987 magazine article, Omens expressed his thoughts about cinematography:
"There are times when an image communicates something that words can't. Even if you are Charles Dickens, it is very hard to write words which describe the quality of a beam of sunlight penetrating a window. ...
"Ultimately when we make a movie, we are talking about communicating ideas, feelings and human experience, and words alone are a very limited way of trying to do this. The best scripts think in terms of images."
ASC, founded in 1919 to advance the art and craft of cinematography and the cinema, is the oldest organization of its type in the industry. Membership is by invitation based on an individual's body of work.
The organization has 205 active members around the world, and 104 associates in allied professions.
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The Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned USC’s $6 billion fundraising campaign. The story noted that USC had already raised $1 billion in a “quiet phase,” including the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College.
The Guardian (U.K.) highlighted two major gifts to USC in a list of the 10 biggest philanthropic benefactors in America. The list included the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College, and the $110 million gift from USC Trustee and USC Viterbi School alumnus John Mork and wife Julie to create the USC Mork Family Scholars Program.
The New York Times featured the USC U.S.-China Institute documentary “Assignment: China — The Week that Changed the World.” The documentary, part of a series, examines media coverage of the 1972 Nixon trip that reshaped U.S.-China relations after a quarter century of isolation and hostility. “People look back now and take it for granted that the outcome was preordained,” said the institute’s Mike Chinoy, who produced the documentary. Voice of America also featured the story.
Los Angeles Times featured the Oscar Senti-meter, a tool developed by the USC Annenberg School, Los Angeles Times and IBM that analyzes thousands of tweets about the Academy Awards nominees. The story noted that Mexican actor Demian Bechir received an enormous boost on Twitter the day of the nominations, with a total of 6,893 tweets mentioning him, a 47-fold increase from the day before. The story noted the tool uses language-recognition technology developed in collaboration with USC Viterbi School’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab.
The Times of India (India) featured a three-day medical emergency training workshop organized in association with USC. At the workshop, held at GCS Medical College in India, 50 doctors and more than 100 paramedics learned how to improve emergency support systems. William Mallon of the Keck School of USC said that discussion topics included the use of portable ultrasonic devices to scan patients. “The ultrasound applications help physicians make accurate and timely decisions,” he noted. Daily News & Analysis (India) also featured the workshop.
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