Self-professed horror film geek, Neal L. Fredericks, director of photography on the surprise indie hit, The Blair Witch Project, died Saturday while shooting a film over Florida. He was 35. Filming aerial shots for Cross Bones, Fredericks was strapped into a single-engine Cessna 206 when it plunged 500 feet into the water around the Florida Keys. Though the film’s director (and plane’s pilot), Daniel Zirilli, and a camera assistant escaped unharmed, Fredericks couldn’t undo his safety harness in time to jump free. And they call it a safety harness?

“People really didn’t understand how integral Neal was to the visual design of that film,” says Stephen Pizzello, executive editor of American Cinematographer. “It was a huge movie based on the look, the lighting, the camera moves and the flashlights — all of which he designed.”