American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 84

In Memoriam
Frederic Goodich, ASC was equal parts
cinematographer and director, student and
educator, and an ever-engaged advocate for
directors of photography all around the world.
His enthusiasm for the art and craft of motionpicture making and his devotion to his family,
friends and the ASC were equally boundless.
Goodich died on Aug. 30 at age 76.
Goodich was born on Sept. 10, 1939,
in the Bronx, New York. Growing up, he
demonstrated an early affinity for the arts,
particularly drawing and painting, and in
elementary school he took first prize in an allBronx competition for a "Keep Your Subway
Clean" poster campaign. He developed an
interest in still photography after borrowing a
friend's Leica camera in junior high school, but
at his family's encouragement, he turned his
academic focus toward engineering. He graduated from Bronx High School of Science and
went on to attend City College of New York.
At CCNY, his passion for the visual arts
resurfaced, and he came to realize that filmmaking - and specifically cinematography -
combined that love with his interests in science
and technology. "Cinematography is part of
my personal journey to understand the world,"
Goodich told AC for the magazine's erstwhile
"Member Portrait" series (May '12). "Movies
crystalized my childhood experience and
taught me the ways of the human heart;
they've influenced my creative vision and
heightened my sensibility to wonderfully inventive ways of telling stories that resonate within
our lives."
Complementing his time in the classroom, Goodich took a part-time job as a film
handler at New York's Museum of Modern Art,
where he nurtured an appreciation for avantgarde and documentary films that would
inform his work and his tastes throughout the
years to come.
After graduating from CCNY, Goodich
was recommended for a camera job in Washington, D.C., for a magazine-style show, after
which he shot travelogues aboard a four-mast
windjammer. Then, in the mid-'60s, a chance
meeting in Los Angeles opened the door for
Goodich to join the tight-knit team at Ency84

November 2016

clopædia Britannica Films in Hollywood, where
future ASC member Isidore Mankofsky was
the on-staff cinematographer, shooting educational pieces. "He was hired as my assistant,"
Mankofsky recalls. "Plus, since there were only
four of us on the staff, he did all sorts of
things. I left in 1969 and he left around 1973,
and we maintained our friendship through the
years."
As a staff director-cinematographer for
Britannica, Goodich hired future ASC member
John Bailey as an assistant. "Although I had
very few credits to justify his hiring me, Fred
talked to me, understood our common love of
cinema, and quickly offered me work," Bailey
recalls. "It was the best jumpstart to a career
any young film student could ever hope for.
"Fred's ongoing commitment to
mentoring young cinematographers was
evident through his entire career," Bailey
continues. "Eventually, I was lucky to get into
the union and move up through the ranks.
Along the way, Fred and I often crossed paths;
we always talked, not about lenses and film
stocks, but about 'cinema,' especially foreign
movies. Many years later I was able to ask Fred
to do some second-unit cinematography for
me on For Love of the Game, where he seamAmerican Cinematographer

lessly blended his work with our main unit."
In conversation, Goodich often referenced a metaphysical sense of the interplay of
light and shadow in the natural world. "Why I
became a cinematographer has much to do
with my relationship to Light and Dark," Goodich told AC. "It's a spiritual thing, the ghost that
surrounds and reveals. Light and its absence
define objects and people and initiate feelings.
The dramas of Light and Shadow have
comforted, frightened, thrilled, challenged and
elated me."
"He looked at things a little bit differently than other people did," says Peter Anderson, ASC. "The conversations with Fred, in
person or on the phone, were often long, and
were often graciously convoluted. But you
could always feel it was building to an understanding of the art that he loved. And his questions were incredibly insightful."
Anderson met Goodich in 1983, after
sitting next to Goodich's son, Nikolai, on a
cross-country flight. "A day or two later,"
Anderson says, "Fred called me up and we got
to talking. Fred specialized in commercials, and
he loved technology. Over the decades, we
stayed in touch, and oftentimes he would call
me up about, 'How do I shoot a bluescreen?
How do I shoot a greenscreen?' He usually
knew the answer, but he was doing a doublecheck - and he was just keeping a friendship
going."
Goodich's commercial career - both as
a cinematographer and a director - flourished, and he ultimately notched more than
900 credits. In addition, he photographed
numerous narrative projects, including the
Oscar-winning short film Board and Care; the
camp horror movie Fear No Evil; and two early
entrants in the then-nascent 24p HD field, The
Affair and Surviving Eden. His feature credits
also included The Lay of the Land and G.I.
Jesus.
When he wasn't shooting, Goodich
regularly participated in film festivals and other
events where he could promote the importance of his fellow directors of photography.
He became closely associated with Cinematographer's Day, an event that was conceived by

Portrait by Owen Roizman, ASC. Bucharest photo by Tudor Lucaciu, RSC. All photos courtesy of the ASC archives.

Frederic Goodich, ASC, 1939-2016

American Cinematographer - November 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - November 2016