Dr Jim Frazier (1940 - 2022) Cinematographer & Inventor, OAM

Introduction

Jim Frazier (born James Frazier 26 November 1940) is an Australian inventor, naturalist and cinematographer who invented the Frazier lens. He has won many Australian and international awards for his work, including an Academy Award for Technical Achievement and an Emmy Award. He is well known for filming documentaries for David Attenborough together with his long-time collaborator Australian naturalist, photographer and writer Densey Clyne.

Clyne and Frazier formed a partnership known as Mantis Wildlife Films and their work including Webs of Intrigue, has won numerous international awards. David Attenborough asked the pair to work on his series Life on Earth and The Living Planet. Frazier and Clyne contributed 55 minutes of footage to Life on Earth.

Jim Frazier filming inside a weaver ants’ nest for The Trials of Life, using an endoscope. (Source: DailyTelegraph)

Frazier's career as a wildlife cinematographer has been spread over more than 40 years, with an Emmy, 3 Golden Tripods, a US Industrial Film & Video Gold Camera Award, an Honorary Doctorate and over 40 national and international awards for his work that include the acclaimed Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. 

He was winner of a Technical Oscar in 1997 for his invention of the Frazier Lens System, which has revolutionised the international film industry, an ingenious lens that provides an extended depth of field and an ability to have both the foreground and background in focus.

The lens has been used by leading filmmakers including Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and in television commercials. In October 1998, Jim was presented with the John Grierson International Gold Medal for pioneering work in micro/macro cinematography of invertebrate animals leading to the design of the Frazier Lens System.

(Source: ABC News 20 September 2022)

Frazier's latest invention is a new lens that promises to have a similar impact, being simpler and needing much less light. He has also recently designed and tested 3D capture using a single lens.

He also creates crystal artworks, that have been developed through the growth and manipulation of crystals on glass plates. The crystals are shaped with the use of sound tones, energy fields and heat to make brilliant compositions and captured by special photographic techniques. They are featured in private collections around the world including those of Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton. (Source: Wikipedia)

Education

A self confessed poor scholar, Jim learned to love nature and the many animals and bio-diversity of Australia’s outdoors through his father. His career almost never started, because as a child he was almost blinded when squirted in the eye by Tiger Snake venom. Later on, when filming, he had a similar problem – with Weaver Ants, which went up his nose and into his eyes.

“Most children played sport and did other things,” Jim said. “We, as a family, wandered through the bush and learned about the fantastic life of creatures with Dad. It was the basis of where I am today.” (Source: Focus)

Employment, Experiences & Opportunities:

Leaving school, Jim’s first job was in his home town in the Zoology Department at the local university. He progressed to the Australian Museum, to head the preparation department for displays. During his spare time he continued his love of Australia’s natural world, filming around the country.

During his time at the museum, he met Densey Clyne, well known Australian naturalist, photographer and writer, who is renowned for her documentation and studies of spiders and insects. At the time she was collecting frogs, and she asked Jim if he could assist in the study by filming some species.

This is where his long association with her began, with the making of 16 mm wildlife films from the outback of Australia and overseas in the early 1970s. It was at this time they became business partners and began contributing and then working full time on the David Attenborough documentaries.

After nearly 20 years of filming the documentaries, Jim, who had spent many decades pulling apart a camera lens, became frustrated with what he perceived as the limitations of the lenses available on the market.

In the late 1980s he began to develop a lens to cover everything from close up to distance shots and beyond, which was always completely in focus.

Did You Know? Jim Frazier's life read like the ultimate Australian success story. A heart-warming story of how a quiet country boy from Armidale with a love of beasts and bugs grows up to be a respected artist, naturalist, maker of wildlife documentaries and go-it-alone inventor who, as a grandfather of five, takes Hollywood by storm and wins an Oscar. Titanic, Tomorrow Never Dies, Mission Impossible, Amistad, Alien Resurrection and, more recently, Stuart Little 2: all these movies and more have been shot using the revolutionary camera lens system for which Frazier won an Academy Award in 1997. As early as the 1970s, Frazier, who with business partner Densey Clyne worked on David Attenborough documentaries, dreamed of devising a "clever" optical system that effectively held everything in the lens's view in complete focus: from the lens surface to the horizon. The system was immediately heralded as a major breakthrough and Frazier signed an exclusive licensing deal with Panavision Inc, the leading provider of cameras and lenses to Hollywood. Since then the Panavision/Frazier equipment has been used in thousands of movies and commercials worldwide. (Source: SMH)

Over several years and with many refusals of assistance (due to everyone believing his idea and pending invention was impossible), Jim went through exhaustive and frustrating times to develop a lens system giving exactly what he wanted to perfect – macro and micro 16 mm cinematography.

The new lens, with three revolutionary features, is a design we take for granted today, with a set and forget focus holding everything in focus from front to infinity. A swivel tip, so that without moving the camera, you can swivel the lens in any direction, completing a sphere, and a built-in image rotator, allowing the image to be rotated inside the lens without spinning the camera.

When patented and in partnership with Panavision, the lens was an instant winner. Today, most commercials, along with most feature films, use the lens with its reduced production costs. The success of the lens saw Jim awarded an Emmy and a Technical and Scientific Academy Award.

Global Bionics Optics through Jim’s lens is now marketed around the world and has been embraced by many industries.

“The lens provides better clarity and highlights all aspects of an image. The security industry use our lens, and it’s being used for biometric iris recognition.” (Source: Focus)


Symphony of the Earth was Jim's passion.

YouTube: Symphony of the Earth - Introduction from Jim Frazier

Death: 17 September 2022, age 81

ABC News 20 September 2022

He died on the NSW Mid North Coast after a short illness.

Pioneering and award-winning wildlife cinematographer Jim Frazier has died at age 81. Mr Frazier was known for his work on Sir David Attenborough documentaries and for inventing the ground-breaking Frazier Lens System that revolutionised the film industry.
  
It allowed the foreground and background of an image to be in focus at the same time and won him an Oscar in the late 1990s.
   
He also achieved at least 40 other national and international awards, including an Emmy, as well as an honorary doctorate, and an OAM.

To read more, click here Word doc images & information [10 pages].

Did You Know? “My father was a serious butterfly collector and amassed a major collection which is now housed in the National Museum in Canberra,” Jim explained. Jim’s work includes butterfly photography, much of it stemming from his book, "Butterflies on my Mind". (Source: Manning River Times)

YouTube: ABC Talking Heads: Jim Frazier, Naturalist, Inventor, Wildlife Cinematographer
https://youtu.be/YJrKtemU0h4 (26 mins)

Links

Cinematographer Jim Frazier shoots to thrill in some of the world's most famous Sir David Attenborough wildlife series	Guestroom - Behind the lens with Jim Frazier (Audio file)
Conversations with Richard Fidler (Audio file): How Jim Frazier revolutionised wildlife cinematography 51 mins 2009	Wingham Chronicle - 15 January 2016
Wingham Chronicle: Symphony of the Earth - a gigantic vision

Jim Frazier: Australian Cinematographer: "Fakebook his life"
(adapted from an idea by Lou Daniher, Teacher-Librarian, St Mary's West Wyalong)

You and your partner are to use the information from the websites above to create a new and exciting "Fakebook" site for Jim using one of the following templates from "3 Awesome Facebook Templates for your class"

2.

• What will you put on your Fakebook?
  
• What details will you provide about the Frazier Lens?
  
• Symphony for the Earth?
  
• His work with David Attenborough?

 Share with another pair. What interesting things/ideas did this other pair come up with?

National Geographic: The Aussie who baffled the world: Education Worksheet

OR, select one other task described in the worksheet [page 6 onwards].