December 1, 2025

Dedo Weigert (1938-2025)

The British Society of Cinematographers (BSC) mourns the loss of Dedo Weigert, who has passed away at the age of 87.

Dedo began his career as a production manager for a small production company specialising in industrial features for companies such as Mercedes and German Railways. "Then I took a job as a camera assistant," Weigert says. "I loved it very much and had a wonderful teacher, a British cameraman called Johnny Peters.

As his career grew it became the technology side that took his interest, he built his own teleprompter in 1961 and then in 1966 introduced the first European-made fluid head. His company (Weigert Film) became one of the leading distributors of equipment in Europe, handing distribution for Tiffen, Aaton, Photo-sonics and Kino-Flo. In addition Dedo became a "fix-it" man, helping Cinematographers solve specific problems by building custom pieces of equipment. 

Dedo's work building film equipment led to a thought - Initially a low-voltage, dual-lens system, augmented with a special focusing system and involved three separate movements operated from a single knob.. this design would become the Dedolight. 

Dedolights become one of the most used lights in our industry, widely complimented for their compact size, precision quality and versatility. Famously Conrad L. Hall individually lit each rose on American Beauty with a Dedolight.  

In 1990 Dedo was honored by the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences with a Technical Achievement Award. This was followed by an Emmy Award in 2003 and in 2021 the BSC honored Dedo with the Bert Easey Technical Achievement Award for his extraordinary contribution to filmmaking. 

At his BSC awards presentation he reflected that he had always been like a little kid in a sandbox. Filming was never work for him.

Our thoughts go out to his family and friends at this time.

Dedo's 2021 BSC Bert Easey Award.