In Memoriam: Rexford L. Metz, ASC (1937-2025)
The cinematographer was born on Dec. 26, 1937 in Los Angeles and passed away on January 15, 2025 at the age of 88.
Rexford L. Metz fell in love with movies at a young age, with director Victor Fleming’s 1948 film Joan of Arc making an early impression. “I was 11, and I watched Ingrid Bergman in a Long Beach theater twice a weekend for a month,” he told American Cinematographer in a 2014 profile. “I also loved Buck Rogers serials.”
Part of a big family, Metz soon started to learn the basics of still photography, thanks in part to his parents, Glen and Mildred. “I always seemed to have a camera in my hand,” he said. “I had 9 aunts and uncles and 25 cousins in Los Angeles, and I was designated the family photographer.”
His father, a mechanic and race car builder, also taught his son the basics of automotive work and engineering.
In 1956, after graduating from Fairfax High School, Metz studied fine-art photography at Los Angeles City College, and then cinema at USC, with a final year of college spent in UCLA’s theater-arts program. “Ralph Woolsey [ASC] was my main cinematography teacher at USC, and Robert Surtees [ASC] kept me on the straight path as my mentor while he was training his son, Bruce.”
Metz was selected as the first student to be sponsored into membership in International Photographers Local 659 (which later became ICG Local 600).
Key artistic influences included “Raphael’s natural-light paintings, Edward Weston’s black-and-white prints, and the work of Charis Wilson, Weston’s wife, muse and printer.”
Metz’s break into the business happened soon after college: “I shot a documentary short about Craig Breedlove’s attempt at the land-speed record, The Spirit of America [1963], which was nominated for an Academy Award. I met Nelson Tyler and other great pilots like Dave Jones, James Gavin and John D. Sarviss. I was typed as ‘a jock cinematographer’ and was picked to shoot second unit for Micky Moore, the greatest second-unit director; we made 30 action films together over 35 years. Sarviss and I worked together for more than 35 years.”
Working in the 1960s and ’70s as a camera assistant, operator and then second-unit cinematographer, Metz learned on the job from some of the finest cinematographers in the world, including ASC members William A. Fraker (on Bullitt), Charles F. Wheeler (Tora! Tora! Tora!), Bill Butler (Hickey & Boggs) and Harry Stradling Jr. (Rooster Cogburn).
On the classic crime drama Bullitt, Metz was originally hired as a background extra thanks to a motorcycle racing buddy, stuntman Bud Ekins, who introduced him to star Steve McQueen. They clicked. On the set, Metz soon struck up a conversation with Fraker about cameras and was quickly drafted to help crew the film’s intricate central chase scene through the streets of San Francisco.
After Metz earned his scuba certification in 1974, Butler hired him for what became one of his most satisfying early career moments, when he was asked to shoot a brief second-unit insert for Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, on which Butler was director of photography. In a harrowing underwater sequence, marine biologist Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) investigates a wrecked fishing boat, searching for clues as to what happened. Just days before the film was to be released, Spielberg believed the scene needed a jump scare to amp up the tension, requiring a quick shoot to get the footage he and editor Verna Fields needed. Metz got the job.
During a screening, he remembered the “entire audience jumped out of its chairs when the dead fisherman’s head appeared in the hole in the side of the sunken boat. I was the underwater cinematographer, and we shot that in Verna’s swimming pool in Encino after the answer print was finished!”
Metz again worked for Spielberg while shooting second unit on Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941 and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. He also did underwater cinematography throughout the rest of his career.
Metz’s other feature credits include second-unit work on Damnation Alley, Corvette Summer, Foul Play, The River, Little Nikita, Ghostbusters II, The Rocketeer, I Love Trouble, Body Snatchers, Flubber, Small Soldiers, U-571 and I Spy. He also contributed aerial camerawork for films including On Golden Pond, Night Crossing, Doctor Detroit, Nightmare at Noon, Men Don’t Leave, Honeymoon in Vegas, Courage Under Fire, Kiss the Girls, S.W.A.T. and Left Behind.
Metz was recommended to join the ASC by members Vilmos Zsigmond and Owen Roizman, and was added to the Society’s roster in 1982.
Later in life, Metz shared his filmmaking experience and knowledge as an instructor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts.
Outside of the motion-picture business, he owned Metz Racing with his son, Johnathan S. Metz, who had occasionally worked for his father on camera crews, serving as a loader and assistant. Based in Ventura, California, they specialized in high-performance drag cars and custom motorcycles.
Metz is survived by his son Johnathan and close friend Nancy Bemis.
