Andrew Jayamanne

Andrew Jayamanne ඇන්ඩෘ ජයමාන්න (alternative spelling Andrew Jayamanna, 9 November 1943 – 29 August 2014) was a Sri Lankan cinematographer, and film and television director and producer.

Jayamanne is the eldest of ten children born to Vincent Jayamanne and his wife Beatrice Perera.

He was raised in Periyamulla in Negombo, the town on the Western sea-coast where his father was born.

Jayamanne did his elementary studies at St. Anthony's boys' School, Dalupotha, Negombo.

In 1955 he joined the Archdiocesan College of St.Aloysius, Colombo, with the intention of becoming a Catholic priest.

But due to a health condition, on doctor's advice he had to abandon his studies and engage in manual labour.

While at college, Jayamanne's teachers recognised his love of photography and assigned him to handle the cinema and audio visual equipment in the college.

Later he joined the Radio & Electronics Laboratory at Kotahena.

In 1962, he joined Vijaya Film Studios and Laboratories of Cinemas Limited, at Hendala, Wattala.

In 1962 he started his career as an assistant cameraman at the Vijaya Studios.

As an assistant cameraman and camera-unit in-charge he worked on over 40 feature films, both domestic and international.

This gave him the opportunity to work under many cinematographers and to study film laboratory techniques, sound studio work, film editing, production designing and production management.

While working at Vijaya Studios, Jayamanne met Sri Lankan director Titus Thotawatta.

In 1970, he left Vijaya to join Thotawatta in the production of Haralaksaya, marking his debut as Director of Cinematography.

Jayamanne continued to work as Thotawatta's principle cinematographer through the latter's final film Handaya.

Jayamanne was employed by many other veteran directors, and became a favourite of new directors for their debut projects.

His contribution to the films of Dharmasiri Bandaranayake, Vasantha Obeysekera and Parakrama Niriella were highly acclaimed by cinema critics and Journalists of Sri Lanka.

In 1972, when the State Film Corporation called for registration of cinema technicians, Jayamanne registered as film director, script writer, cinematographer, film editor and production manager.

He is the only person in Sri Lanka to have been registered in five categories.

In 1972, Jayamanne was invited to conduct classes for beginners interested in cinema and television at the Paul VI center, Fort, Colombo, organised by the OCIC Sri Lanka.

He started training with Super 8 format and slide show programs.

Then as VHS came to industry it was introduced to beginners.

He held two short film festivals with his students at Sri Lanka Foundation Institute.

Married in 1972 To Bernadette Tissera.

After marriage they moved to Eattukala, Negombo.

They had 3 sons:

In 1983 Jayamanne had the opportunity to attend a professional video program training offered in Taipei by Santa Clara University.

Jayamanne was subsequently called up by the Television Training Institute, Sri Lanka to train video technicians for Rupavahini and ITN, the two national television channels.

The courses were later extended to train video teams of the Army, Navy, Police, Education, Agricultural, health, and many other government institutes.

In 1986 Andrew Jayamanne was commissioned to train the staff of ITN network studios.

During this course several practical programs were produced.

The long-running ITN serial Kopi Kade is an offshoot of these training classes.

"Kopi Kade" drama was designed to be a low cost a multi-camera production by shooting and editing on line within few hours.

Jayamanne organised another 6 months course for "Television Program Production Training Institute" for Media Centre at Deans Road, Colombo.

Six of these programs were conducted.

During 1992 and 1993, Jayamanne was retained as a visiting lecturer at Sri Jayawardanapura University and Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, Colombo.

He extended the video production training classes to remote areas like Trincomalee (three programs), Horuwpatana (one program) and Negombo (two programs).

These were conducted as one week full-time courses.

The students were trained to use available still or mobile phone cameras for creating short films.

In 2002 he was called up by the Vietnam Television channels workers forum to conduct a workshop in Saigon.