American Cinematographer - March 2016 - 64

Cool, Calm and in Control

Top: Peterson operating on the horror feature Tourist Trap in 1978. Bottom (from left): Cinematographer
Edward Brown, ASC; Peterson; and director George Schaefer on the set of the TV movie Children in the
Crossfire in 1984.

crowd, and we were off and running," he
recounts with a smile.
He also became a fan of Japanese
cinema, thanks to the five Japanese
movie houses operating in Los Angeles
at that time. "The 1960s in Japan were
kind of like the Forties in Hollywood,"
observes Peterson. "It was the end of the
studio system. But the artists who came
up with the system were at their peak,
especially the cinematographers. They
had been shooting black-and-white
films up to that time. When color
suddenly came in, they continued lighting as if they were still shooting blackand-white. It really added to the look.
64

March 2016

Russell Metty, ASC, who shot all those
wonderful Douglas Sirk melodramas in
the 1950s, did the same thing."
At UCLA, Peterson became
friends with fellow student Nicholas
von Sternberg, son of the famous director Josef von Sternberg. "We became a
team, and as soon as we graduated, we
started working on a string of ultra-lowbudget films - we're talking sub-Roger
Corman movies. Nick [was cinematographer, and] I operated." Among their
credits were The Human Tornado, Disco
9000, Petey Wheatstraw, Tourist Trap
and Gas Pump Girls.
Despite his passion for movies
American Cinematographer

and film history, Peterson gravitated
toward television after he got into the
camera guild in the late '70s. With a
laugh, he contends, "Actually, TV gravitated toward me! A lot of films and TV
shows were being shot, and I got a call
to be a second AC on Blind Ambition, a
miniseries based on John Dean's book. I
had never actually worked as a second,
so I went in early the next morning and
made sure I learned what was required
of me before the rest of the crew showed
up."
The director of photography on
Blind Ambition was Edward R. Brown,
ASC. "I kept bugging Ed to let me pull
focus on B-camera," recalls Peterson.
"Finally there was a night scene of Dean
[Martin Sheen] running on the beach
and suffering a heart attack. The Acamera was getting the wide shot. Bcamera was on an insert car and needed
a big close-up of Dean. How are you
going to get a close-up at night, from a
car, when you can't see to do focus? I ran
a rope out, with focus marks, along the
route where Sheen was running. The
shot turned out perfectly."
Brown was impressed with
Peterson's ingenuity, and on their next
job together, he offered Peterson the 1st
AC position. Jim Sater, who ran the
camera department at CBS Studios,
also recognized Peterson's potential and
recommended him for a succession of
shows, including the original Hawaii
Five-O, The White Shadow, St.
Elsewhere, Hill Street Blues and Lou
Grant.
In 1982, Peterson reunited with
Brown on the series Remington Steele,
but Brown was fired after one season.
"Ed never stayed with a show very
long," acknowledges Peterson. "He was
a great guy; I liked him, respected him
and learned a lot from him, but if something sparked him the wrong way and
he felt disrespected by a producer or
actor, the set was just awash in blood.
When that happened, his crew knew to
start packing up."
Despite this, Peterson stuck with
Brown, and together they worked on
several high-profile Movie of the Week

Tourist Trap photo by Robert Harmon.

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American Cinematographer - March 2016

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