Robert Christopher Elswit, (born April 22, 1950) is an American cinematographer.
He is best known for his collaboration with director Paul Thomas Anderson from 1996 to 2014, winning the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for There Will Be Blood (2007).
Elswit has also collaborated with directors and screenwriters Tony and Dan Gilroy on all of the six films that either brother directed.
Elswit was born in Los Angeles. His brother is musician Rik Elswit.
He is a graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts and worked there as a teaching assistant.
Elswit has cited filmmaker John Cassavetes as a major influence.
His early work on was the 1982 television adaptation of Ray Bradbury's short story All Summer in a Day. He worked as a visual effects camera operator at John Dykstra's Apogee Productions Inc. and Industrial Light & Magic, including ', The Empire Strikes Back, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Return of the Jedi, before shooting made-for-television films and shows.
He shot his black and white, Oscar nominated film Good Night, and Good Luck. He first shot the film in color, and then converted the film into black and white in post production. According to Elswit, the technique preserved the subtlety of the colors (as complex shades of blacks and greys) and made the overall look much richer in the final film. His work on the film earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, but lost to Dion Beebe for Memoirs of a Geisha. Elswit later won the award for There Will Be Blood in 2008.
Elswit is a self-described traditionalist in shooting technique, and has been a fierce defender of shooting on film, and whenever possible avoids using digital cameras. Images shot digitally, he said, have "no texture, no grain", though he started shooting digitally with Nightcrawler.
Elswit is the godfather to the actor Jake Gyllenhaal, he worked with Jake's father Stephen Gyllenhaal early in his career.
TV movies
Short film