Bill Pope
Biography
Biography
Director of photography Bill Pope is best known for his collaborations with director Sam Raimi and with the Wachowski siblings, most prominently on the "Matrix" franchise. One of Pope's earliest projects was as cinematographer on Barry Sonnenfeld's thesis film at NYU. Pope began his career directing music videos before moving to feature film projects. His first notable work was Raimi's 1990 superhero homage "Darkman," which starred Liam Neeson in the title role. Pope continued to work with Raimi numerous times, lensing multiple films in the "Spider-Man" trilogy and the cult movie "Army of Darkness" in 1992. In 1999 he worked on one episode of the short-lived series high-school series "Freaks and Geeks," the same year he began work on the high-flying international hit "The Matrix." He would later photograph the sci-fi film's two sequels, "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions." Continuing his penchant for big-budget action movies with the feel of comic books, Pope landed a job as director of photography on 2008's "The Spirit," based on the golden-age superhero created by Will Eisner.