Born in The Netherlands, he immigrated to the USA in 1963. After working as a freelance photojournalist and cameraman 1968 - 1972 in Vietnam, Camodia and Laos. South America (1973 - 1975). In 1975 he returned to the US and started working in Hollywood. The first big budget feature he worked on as a "Special Photographer" was A Star is Born, the ...
Chas used three Nikon F2 cameras and one Leica M4 during the filming of Apocalypse Now (1979). He didn't like using blimps (sound boxes) because it prevented him from immediately shooting an image when he saw it (as he'd learned as a photojournalist). He was given permission by Francis to shoot in between the actor's dialogue - to the great unhappiness of the sound-man who had to edit the clicking of the camera.
2
The three "black body Nikon F" cameras, with lenses, out of the four Dennis Hopper carried, had been used by Chas in Vietnam.
3
The character of the American photojournalist in "Apocalypse Now" was first suggested by Chas Gerretsen during a lunch with Francis Ford Coppola, regarding the scene where an American TV correspondent (played by Francis Ford Coppola) yells at some passing soldiers, "don't look at the camera," that if Francis wanted to portray the manic side of the press, he should use a photojournalist because,"we were all crazy."
4
1973 won the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award for "best published photographic reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage and enterprise", for his photographic coverage of the Chilean "Coup d'État".
Camera Department
Title
Year
Status
Character
Romancing the Stone
1984
special photographer
Apocalypse Now
1979
still photographer
Known for movies
Apocalypse Now 1979 as Camera and Electrical Department
Romancing the Stone 1984 as Camera and Electrical Department
$800,000
