Willy Hameister was born on December 3, 1889 in Kranzfeld, Landkreis Greifenhagen, Pomerania, he soon started to work for the "Deutsche Bioscop" from 1904 and filmed actual topics - a kind of news.

He switched to the film business in 1912 where he was active as a cinematographer for numerous movies. At the beginning of his film career he often worked together with the director Otto Rippert, anduring the 20s he worked besides many average movies also for some great classics, first of all "Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari" (1920). In 1938 he died at the age of only 48 after a long illness.