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Roger Simonsz is a director of photography and director who has worked across film and television after a career start as lighting designer in theatre.

Early Years
Roger Simonsz was born Rutger Simonsz to parents Elsje Marijke Simonsz - van Houten a Eurythmist and teacher and Adolf Dirk Herman (Dolf) Simonsz journalist and diplomat in Scheveningen, Netherlands on the 21st of December 1963. He attended the Vrije School in The Hague until late 1977 when his father, Dolf Simonsz, was posted to the Republic of South Africa as 1st secretary to the Netherlands Embassy. Roger attended the Constantia Waldorf School until his matric in late 1981. He joined his parents in London in 1982 where his father was now councillor and cultural attaché at the Netherlands Embassy.

Roger first studied video and electronic music at North East London Polytechnic (NELP) now University of East London) with additional courses at Goldsmiths College, London. After a year he moved to Middlesex Polytechnic adding acting to the curriculum. Upon graduating with a Dip H.E. from Middlesex Polytechnic (now Middlesex University) he entered the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama to study technical theatre arts from which he graduated in 1986.

Theatre Career
Roger's first job after graduating was as stage electrician on Kenneth Branagh's first Renaissance Theatre Company of Romeo and Juliet at the Lyric Studio, Hammersmith starring Kenneth Branagh as Romeo and Samantha Bond as Juliet. Shortly after he joined the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, under the artistic directorship of Glen Walford, as deputy chief electrician and resident sound engineer, a post he held until early 1988 whereupon he went free-lance. Notable productions at the Everyman were the all female version of Trevor Griffiths' Comedians, Bertholt Brecht's"The resistible rise of Arturo Ui" featuring the actress Fidelis Morgan as Arturo as well as "Hamlet", "The Taming of the Shrew" and "She Stoops to Conquer".

As a freelancer Roger concentrated mostly on lighting and lit over 50 productions for theatres across the UK and Ireland, often for Roland Jaquarello    as well as working as a technician for theatres, most notably the Royal Court Theatre in London. His last permanent position was as Chief Electrician for the Liverpool Playhouse, a job that was cut short by redundancy when the Playhouse went into administrative receivership in 1991.

Directing Career
Having bought his first super8 camera at the age of 13, Roger always wanted to direct. In parallel with his theatre work he looked for opportunities and found it through Messenger Television who proposed him to direct a pilot on the Isle of Man of a new series called "Boser" in 1988. The project was not a success, but Roger formed a production company on the Isle of Man as a result called R.S.V.P. and subsequently co-produced and directed "Alex Beaton - Going Home" for the direct sale video market in the US. He also co-wrote the next instalment "I Belong to Glasgow". In the same period he directed a commercial for Duke Video using early computer graphic techniques from Electric Image in London. He then directed Christopher Durang's "Laughing Wild" at the Liverpool Playhouse studio starring Andrew Schofield and Sheila McNaught which went on to win the "Best Fringe Play" category in the Liverpool Daily Post's Theatre awards of 1992. In the same year he was also associate director to Peter Oyston on "A Man for all Seasons" performed at the Liverpool Cathedral.

In 1994 Roger briefly moved back to the Netherlands to direct 5 episodes of "Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden" for Joop van den Ende TV, which became Endemol in the same period. Before his next drama production, he directed the live concert DVD "Billy Cobham Live at 60" as well as some viral campaigns for the Meteor mobile network in Ireland. He then formed Imagique Ltd. as a production entity with which he directed numerous corporate videos.

He directed and photographed the 2nd unit of feature films such as Brian De Palma's "Femme Fatale", Geoff Murphy's "Fortress 2" and Pascal Chaumeil's "Heartbreaker".

France 2 and Mascaret Films offered Roger the opportunity to direct the second half of the first season of Antigone 34, a new police series shot in Montpellier. This was followed by directing the middle block of season 2 of "Wolfblood" being produced by Foz Allen for CBBC and later on episodes 5 and 6 of season 5 of "Death In Paradise". produced by Red Planet for the BBC which starred regular cast Kris Marshall and Danny John-Jules as well as guest stars Wendy Craig, Tara Fitzgerald, Eddie Nestor, Keith Allen et al.

Camera career
In order to gain experience of big budget film making, in 1992 Roger had the opportunity to work as camera trainee for the NBC mini-series "Jewels" being photographed by Ronnie Taylor in the UK and Luxembourg. This led to more productions in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg where an emerging film industry was being encouraged through tax shelter agreements. Roger re-located and worked his way up through the ranks of the camera department to director of photography and operator. In 2000 he moved to Paris where he found work mostly through production companies working with US producers. As well as a stint working as cameraman for CNN, Roger worked on "Sex and the City", "The Devil Wears Prada". "Rush Hour 3", "Castle", "Gossip Girl" et al until he did his first Canal+ series "Spiral" or "Engrenages" for French production house Son et Lumière for which he was nominated for BSC award as well as the Knight of Illumination. He photographed the features "Nine Miles Down", shot in studios in Budapest and on location in Tunisia , as well as "Hero" on a shoestring budget entirely on location in Kosovo and "419" on location in Paris and Senegal.

Other work
Having trained in all aspects of film making, Roger has over the years also worked as editor and 1st assistant director. He enjoys writing and has written numerous articles for "Lighting and Sound International", "Focus", the magazine of the Association of Lighting Designers, and "Eyepiece". He also has given the keynote address for "Showlight 2005" in Munich and a further paper entitled "Svobodas from heaven, Dedos from hell" at "Showlight 2009"in Glasgow. He now also serves on the committee of Showlight.