Phil Gries

Philip Richard Gries was born in Jewish Hospital in Brooklyn, New York on February 2, 1943 to Nathan Gries (b.1902) and Lillian K. Gries (b.1905). His fraternal and maternal grandparents were Polish, Austrian-Hungarian, Jewish immigrants. In March 1947, Phil moved with his family, which now included his younger brother, Dr. Leonard Todd Gries (b.1945), from 716 Jefferson Avenue, Bedford - Stuyvesant, Brooklyn to 4105 Bedford Avenue, Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Phil attended P.S. 206 from grades K thru first grade & sixth grade, and Yeshiva Rambam from second grade thru fifth grade. Education continued at Shell Bank Junior High School, and James Madison High School, Farmingdale State College (Associate Degree in Agronomy), City College of New York (Bachelors Degree in Film Production), and University of California, Los Angeles (Masters degree in Fine Arts in Film and Television). At age 14 Phil's parents bought him an 8mm model 43 Wollensak film camera, which began a life-long passion and career as cinematographer from his first footage taken on July 4, 1957, of the Brooklyn Dodgers playing the Pittsburgh Pirates at Ebbets Field, to the present day...a professional career that has spanned 45 years shooting commercials, features, behind the scenes, adult (AVN Best Cinematography Award for Firestorm 2: The Angel Blade (1988), and primarily hundreds of television documentaries. A year after he married Jane B. King (b.1947), Phil began his freelance cinematography career in Los Angeles in the Fall of 1970, where he joined the N.A.B.E.T cameraman's union. After projecting his 54 minute documentary, Harlem School (1970) at the home of his former UCLA teacher, Haskell Wexler, and soliciting his advice, Phil eventually accepted a staff position as cinematographer / editor at the University of Wisconsin Green-Bay & WPNE, the Public Television Station affiliate, where he worked from 1974 to 1978. Phil returned to his native New York in the Spring of 1978 where he has worked and lived ever since with his wife Jane and his son, Ethan Marc (b.1990). A significant highlight of Phil's career has been his affiliation with the British Broadcasting Corporation, where he photographed 183 documentary productions over a period of twenty consecutive years. In 1980 Phil joined what is today I.A.T.S.E Local 600 cameraman's Union. In 1997 Phil was accepted into the Society of Operating Cameramen. Notable documentary productions on which he has worked include the PBS series The World of Ideas with Bill Moyers (1988), National Emmy Award nominated PBS Frontline documentary, 88 Seconds in Greensboro (1983), 13 part documentary series Mafia's Greatest Hits (2012), and the Emmy Award Winning documentary, Vermeer: Master of Light (2001).