Ron Fricke

Ron Fricke (born February 24, 1953) is an American film director and cinematographer, specializing in time-lapse photography and large-format cinematography. He is best known for his non-narrative feature films Baraka, Chronos, and Samsara, and for his cinematography in Koyaanisqatsi. Career Fricke served as the director of photography for Koyaanisqatsi (1982). A decade later, he directed the purely cinematic non-verbal non-narrative feature Baraka (1992). He designed and used his own 65 mm camera equipment for Baraka and his later projects. Fricke also directed the IMAX films Chronos (1985) and Sacred Site (1986), and he worked as a cinematographer for parts of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, where he was hired to shoot the eruption of Mount Etna in Sicily for use in scenes of the volcanic planet Mustafar. The sequel to Baraka, Samsara, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2011, and had its U.S. premiere on August 24, 2012.