American Cinematographer - February 2001 - 141

New ASC Members

The ASC has welcomed Donald

A.

Morgan and Mark Vargo into its
membership.
Donald A. Morgan studied the
printing process of color separation in
transparencies in the early 1970s and
graduated with an associate's degree in
graphic arts from Los Angeles Commu¬
nity College. He started out in the mail-

Improvement, which I
years," he notes.
His work

was

with for eight

the

top-rated comedy
Improvement earned him
seven Emmy Awards for outstanding
lighting direction for a nighttime series.
He also earned an Emmy for the pilot of
on

series Home

Mr. Belvedere in 1984.

He received

Emmy honors for
contributing to the Emmy Award-winning
achievement for outstanding technical
direction/electronic

became

a

visual-effects

credits such

camera

as

supervisor with

Turbulence, Outbreak and

Flight of the Intruder.
On Flight of the Intruder,
as

as

well

Ghostbusters II and Waterworld,

Vargo tested his technical and aesthetic
know-how by becoming the director of
effects photography. Continuing along
the cinematographer's path, he racked
up numerous credits as a second-unit

work and

video control for the 1984 series Benson

and the 1985

pilot for The Golden Girls.

In 1992, he was nominated for a daytime
series Emmy for Saved by the Bell.
His shelves
scores

are

crowded with

of other awards from American

Black Entertainment Television, Eastman
Kodak and Friends of the Black Emmys.

Some of Morgan's numerous TV
series credits in the Nineties included

The Jeffersons and Good Times, he stud¬

Baghdad Cafe, South Central, Oh Baby,
pilots for Holding the Baby, Line's,
Those Who Can't and My Wife & Kids,
and the series Grown-Ups, Girlfriends
and Daddyo.
After graduating from Montana
State University in 1977 with a degree in
motion-picture production, Mark
Vargo worked in the optical department
at Alpha Cine Lab in Seattle. Two years
later, he was hired by Industrial Light &
Magic as an optical cameraman for The
Empire Strikes Back. During his stay at
ILM, he composited numerous effects

ied black-and-white movies of the 1930s

shots

and AOs. The

style of those films in keep¬
ing the light off the walls was a major
influence on him, and he strove to bring
that type of depth to television.
During the early Nineties, he
recognized that mostly awards shows

Lost Ark,

and

was

the
room

at

Metromedia, where George and

Tommy Schamp mentored him. When
Tommy Schamp moved over to Universal,
he asked Morgan to join him. Morgan
has since enjoyed a stellar career in tele¬
vision as a lighting director.
Morgan's ability to integrate cine¬
matic techniques into a multi-camera
environment was a key to his success.
Early in his career, while working as a
lighting director for the hit comedy series

one-camera

using jib

film programs were

and Steadicam. "I
wanted to expand the visual aspects of
the storytelling by using these tools and
doing it cleanly, like on the show Home
cameras

on

films such

as

Baiders of the

Dragonslayer, Star Trek II: The
Poltergeist and Beturn of

Wrath of Khan,

the Jedi.
When Richard Edlund, ASC left
own effects company,
Boss Film Corporation, in 1983, Vargo
ILM to form his
hired

as

and worked

optical-effects supervisor
the Academy Award-

on

director of

photography. With the TV
pilot Glory, Glory, Vargo made the jump
up to first-unit cinematography. As a
first-unit director of photography, he has
since shot Another Day in Paradise,
Flay It to the Bone and Fighting Like
Cats and Dogs.
■

Some Oscar

fact-fixing...

In the December '00 Club¬
house News, it was mentioned that

Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC had won
three Academy Awards and ASC
fellows Joe

Ruttenberg and Harry
Stradling are the only cinematogra¬
phers to have won four. Actually, it
was Ruttenberg and Leon Shamroy,
ASC, not Stradling, who won four
Oscars. Stradling is right behind
Storaro with two Academy Awards.

nominated Ghostbusters, as well as
2010 and The Boy Who Could Fly. His
career

progressed, and he eventually
American

Cinematographer 135
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