Leigh Lisbão Underwood is an award-winning director of photography with Brazilian and American roots. His work has been seen at festivals including Cannes, Tribeca, and Palm Springs, as well as television networks internationally – and he has been honored with awards for best cinematography at Palm Springs International... Read More

Leigh Lisbão Underwood is an award-winning director of photography with Brazilian and American roots. His work has been seen at festivals including Cannes, Tribeca, and Palm Springs, as well as television networks internationally – and he has been honored with awards for best cinematography at Palm Springs International Festival and the European Cinematography Awards. His recent credits include theatrical films, television features, and series episodes and pilots. His commercial work as a DoP includes clients such as Mercedes-Benz, Kia, Seat, Nike, Adidas, Universal Music and Riot Games.

Leigh’s work shines in its versatility and emotionality: he is fluent in a wide variety of expressive styles and shooting approaches, balancing artistic visual storytelling and production constraints, while always striving for an intangible emotional connection with the subjects of his work.

A graduate of UCLA's prestigious Master’s Program in Cinematography, a program that accepts only three students per year, he studied under seasoned cinematographers including Vilmos Zsigmond ASC, John Simmons ASC, John Bailey ASC, and Richard Crudo ASC. Since then he has regularly taught cinematography himself, also at UCLA, in courses on lighting, image composition, and camera operating.

Leigh grew up in a New Jersey suburb of New York City, traveling frequently to São Paulo, Brazil. He holds dual citizenship in the US and Brazil, as well as a resident working visa in Germany. His travels have driven his passion for telling socially aware, human stories through a cinematic eye. He is based in Los Angeles and Berlin, Germany. Read Less