Two of the finest cinematographers in the world join us onstage for this event, and represent, between them, three-fifths of the 2008 nomination list for the Best Cinematography Oscar®. Seamus McGarvey crowned a stratospheric recent rise with a nomination for his stunning work on Joe Wright’s Atonement. Roger Deakins got the double nod for Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and the Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men, and added these to an existing pile of five nominations.

Born in Torquay, Deakins cut his teeth on British films of the 1980s, including Nineteen Eighty Four, Sid and Nancy and Personal Services. The lush, lustrous style that he has since developed lends itself particularly well to the not-quite realist epic; hence, perhaps, his long affinity with the Coens, for whom he created the paranoid internal landscapes of Barton Fink, the snowy wastes of Fargo, and the gilded rural odyssey of O Brother Where Art Thou?, to name but three. Other triumphs include The Shawshank Redemption, Kundun, A Beautiful Mind, Jarhead and In the Valley of Elah. Deakins has become one of a select few cinematographers whose style is distinctly recognisable and whose name sometimes outweighs that of the director with whom he is working.

Armagh-born Edinburgh resident McGarvey, meanwhile, began his career with UK TV and short film work in the early 90s, before moving into feature work and shooting such significant British films as The Winter Guest, The War Zone (EIFF Michael Powell Award-winner, 1999) and Enigma (EIFF 2001). Stephen Frears’ High Fidelity raised his Hollywood profile: major titles like Stephen Daldry’s The Hours, Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center and Atonement followed. Most recently McGarvey shot The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, a hit for the BBC and – sadly – the swansong of both its director Anthony Minghella and its producer Sydney Pollack.