Christopher Manley

Christopher Manley made the transition from DP to director on the award-winning series Mad Men. His debut as a director was the pivotal episode, “Commissions and Fees”, in which partner Lane Pryce commits suicide at the ad agency. Chris’ confident helming on his ambitious debut was rewarded with three more episodes — “The Flood”, “Field Trip”, and “The Runaways.”

Most recently, Chris directed episodes of DC’s Doom Patrol for HBO, Stargirl for mega-producer Greg Berlanti and the CW and the critically-acclaimed Masters of Sex starring Michael Sheen for Showtime. Berlanti and HBO liked Chris’s work so much that they hired him to supervise and direct episodes on Season Two of Doom Patrol.

As a cinematographer, Manley has kept busy shooting the mini-series The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe for director Laurie Collyer, the FOX pilot The Frankenstein Code for Michael Cuesta, as well as the completion of Mad Men. He has received four Emmy and two ASC nominations for his work on the show.

Manley’s extensive television credits include the pilots for Homeland and Revenge, as well as the hit series Prison Break. He has also shot several television movies and mini-series including The Phantom Eye for AMC which earned him an Emmy. In addition to his Mad Men nominations, Manley was also nominated by the ASC for his work on Threat Matrix and CSI: NY.

Chris has shot over a dozen independent movies including The Big Empty with Jon Favreau, the critically-acclaimed Dahmer with Jeremy Renner, as well as the film Gracie for Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth). He also lensed Mathew Weiner’s Are You Here with Owen Wilson, Zack Galifianakis, and Amy Pohler.

Manley studied filmmaking at Temple University in Philadelphia before earning his MFA in cinematography from the American Film Institute, where he was awarded the Eastman-Kodak Scholarship Award. His AFI thesis, My Mother Dreams the Satan’s Disciples in New York (1999), won the Academy Award for best live-action short film. He was inducted into the American Society of Cinematographers in 2007 and lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.