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Plane crash in Dry Tortugas |
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Bruce Bennett - Aug 18,2004
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By Associated Press<br />Published August 17, 2004<br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />MIAMI - Neal Fredericks, the cinematographer of the low-budget but successful horror film The Blair Witch Project, was killed in a plane crash while filming a movie over the Dry Tortugas, his agent said. <br /><br />Mr. Fredericks, 35, was dragged down by the wreckage of a single-engine Cessna as the pilot and three other members of his film crew escaped to be later rescued, the Coast Guard said.<br /><br />A team of U.S. Army Special Forces divers recovered the body of Mr. Fredericks inside the submerged plane on Sunday, a day after the crash about 70 miles west of Key West.<br /><br />Mr. Fredericks collaborated with writers Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick on The Blair Witch Project, an intense, atmospheric horror movie about three student filmmakers who venture into the woods in search of a spooky legend.<br /><br />The 1999 film, shot with hand-held cameras for a realistic feel, was hailed as a low-budget-to-blockbuster success story, made for almost nothing while grossing more than $240-million worldwide at the box office. Mr. Fredericks worked on more than two dozens films in his career.<br /><br />Charles Lenhoff, Mr. Fredericks' agent, said Monday the veteran cinematographer was working on a new film when the crash took place.<br /><br />'He was an immensely talented, low key, unassuming, kind and gentle person,' Lenhoff told the Associated Press on Monday. 'He was right on the threshold of a creative breakthrough in terms of his career.'<br /><br />Sanchez said Monday he was stunned to hear about the death of his friend. Sanchez and Mr. Fredericks first met in 1987 when they were students at Montgomery College Rockville, Md. He described the slim, blond-haired Fredericks as a warm, funny, giving person.<br /><br />'He was part of everything I've shot since high school. It's going to be hard to get on the next set without him,' Sanchez said in a telephone interview. 'It was really tragic how he died, but at the same time he died doing what he loved.'<br /><br />Sanchez recalled how a younger Mr. Fredericks would wake up at 5 a.m. to drive an hour to operate a camera on a feature 'that was paying no one and treating the crew pretty bad, as I recall.'<br /><br />'He's just one of the most passionate people I've ever known when it comes to filmmaking,' Sanchez said.<br /><br />On his Web site, Sanchez wrote about how Mr. Fredericks handled the challenge of working on a project as unique as Blair Witch.<br /><br />'Blair Witch didn't need to be lit, so he didn't light it,' Sanchez wrote. 'It didn't need a camera operator, so he didn't operate. What he did do was make sure those actors knew everything they could and had everything they needed to keep shooting, to keep getting those images into the camera.'<br /><br />Park rangers took the four survivors of the crash on Sunday to nearby Fort Jefferson, a 19th century island fort in the remote Dry Tortugas National Park west of Key West. The privately owned, single-engine Cessna departed from the Florida Keys Marathon Airport.<br /><br />Mr. Fredericks was born in Newport Beach, Calif., and lived in Los Angeles. Funeral arrangements were being made, Lenhoff said.<br /><br />[Last modified August 17, 2004, 00:03:17]<br /><br /><br /><br /> JB<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
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Bruce Bennett - Aug 18,2004
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A different article said that Mr. Fredericks couldn't get out of his seat belt, and camera equipment was all over him. JB
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