Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), with Graham Chapman (center) as King Arthur, and other Pythonites.

Batman (1989), with Michael Keaton as the Dark Knight.

Shadowlands (1993), with Debra Winger and Sir Anthony Hopkins.

12 Monkeys (1996), with Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt.

Chocolat (2000), with Juliette Binoche.

Iris (2001), with Jim Broadbent and Dame Judi Dench.

ROGER PRATT, BSC (Director of Photography, Chamber of Secrets)

With production of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the second of the films about the English boy wizard, a new cinematographer joined the crew.

Roger Pratt signed on with the production in 2001, replacing Australian John Seale, who moved on to two other projects for 2002. (Seale will work on two more book adaptations: Cold Mountain, based on Charles Frazier's Civil War novel, with director Anthony Minghella, and Dreamcatcher, by Stephen King, directed by Lawrence Kasdan.)

Pratt is noted for his work in British film and his versatility in different genres, such as comedies, historic dramas and fantasies. His vision ranges from the dark streets of Gotham City in Batman to the cold industrial world of Brazil, to a twilight future world ravaged by disease in 12 Monkeys to a 1950s French village discovering the joy of life in Chocolat.

Pratt has worked with a number of Great Britain's famous directors, including Mike Leigh, Sir Richard Attenborough, Neil Jordan and Kenneth Branagh. He also has teamed with Swedish filmmaker Lasse Hallstrom and Terry Gilliam, an American who is a former Monty Python performer and longtime UK resident.

Pratt grew up in Leicester County, in the British Midlands, and was the son of a minister. He first became interested in movies while sitting next to the projector in his father's church during the showing of religious films. He enrolled in and graduated from the London Film School.

Pratt began work on television commercials and documentaries. His first movie job was as assistant cameraman on My Childhood (1972), directed by Bill Douglas. He also served as a lighting designer and camera operator before serving as cinematographer on Roger Christian's The Dollar Bottom (1981), which won an Oscar for Best Short Subject. When Christian made his feature film directorial debut, he hired Pratt again as director of photography.

Pratt met Gilliam, the actor, graphic artist and director, while working as assistant cameraman on Monty Python and the Holy Grail in 1975. He also worked as focus puller on Gilliam's Jabberwocky (1977). (This crew member adjusts the camera's focus during filming.) Pratt eventually worked with Gilliam on most of his movies.

Gilliam's career began with the Monty Python movies, including Holy Grail, The Life of Brian (1979) and the "Crimson Permanent Assurance" segment of The Meaning of Life (1983). Pratt helped Gilliam establish his highly artistic, moody, unique vision, best embodied in non-Python films, such as Brazil (1985), The Fisher King (1991) and 12 Monkeys (1995).

With Attenborough, Pratt worked on Shadowlands (1993), with Anthony Hopkins as author C.S. Lewis, who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia (a favorite of J.K. Rowling), and Grey Owl (1999). He was nominated for Best Cinematography by the British Society of Cinematographers (BSC) for Shadowlands. With Leigh, he was cinematographer on Meantime, a TV movie, and Paris By Night. When Kenneth Branagh (Gilderoy Lockhart in Chamber of Secrets) took over Mary Shelley's Frankenstein from Martin Scorsese, Pratt served as cinematographer. He earned another BSC nomination for this 1994 film.

Director Neil Jordan, who worked with Pratt on Mona Lisa in 1985, turned to him recently to oversee photography on The End of the Affair (1999), with Ralph Fiennes, Stephen Rea and Julianne Moore. For this movie, Pratt received Best Cinematography nominations from the U.S. Academy Awards and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).

In the 1980s, Gilliam introduced Pratt to Tim Burton, who was working as a draftsman for Warner Bros. (A draftsman creates movie set construction plans.) Burton later was a young director with two movies under his belt and was hired for Batman, with Michael Keaton. He hired Pratt as his director of photography. Pratt, working with Burton, the production designer, lighting crew and others, helped establish the murky vision of Gotham City that continued into the second and third Batman movies (though he did not work on them).

Pratt worked with Harry Potter production designer Stuart Craig and art director Andrew Ackland-Snow on The Avengers (1998), directed by Jeremiah Chechik and starring Fiennes as John Steed.

Lasse Hallstrom, a Swede who achieved international recognition for My Life as a Dog, used Pratt on Chocolat (2000), starring Juliette Binoche, Dame Judi Dench and Johnny Depp. Most recently, Pratt was runited with Richard Eyre for Iris, with Dench again, appearing as British author Iris Murdoch, who is slowly dying of Alzheimer's disease. He and Eyre had collaborated on a production of Shakespeare's King Lear for English TV.

Pratt is a member of the British Society of Cinematographers (BSC).