Page 28 - Fujifilm Exposure_38 As You Like It_ok

PART TWO: EXPOSURE 10TH ANNIVERSARY
very little money then be unable to stand by the product which may not get shown anyway.” Mattias Nyberg
“Everything with Peter [Kosminsky] is based on a very strong sense of docu- mented reality and this particular script [Warriors] was the result of some 80 interviews with squaddies and officers. So everything we shot actually happened, which made it dou- bly horrific, and we worked very hard to make it feel real. I was operating as well, running all over the place with a 16mm camera. Fortunately, I had a grip who was a very tall guy and he often used to just pick me up and carry me across holes. I guess about 90% was hand-held, with me not quite knowing what was going to happen next.” Richard Greatrex BSC
“What it [using film] taught me as a DP coming from video was that I didn’t have to rely on the monitor as much as I thought I would. What your eye tells you is an awful lot. With video, you’re looking at a pretty bland black- and-white picture. It kind of gives you a contrast but doesn’t really give you any emotion to the scene. I loved the ground glass in the camera which gives you a sense of the emotion in a scene as well as an idea of the depth and contrast.” Martin Hawkins
“Filmmaking is about illusion; why should it be any different creating the Caribbean in a hotel in London than it is creating a hospital out of a derelict site. It’s all part of that illusion, creat- ing a believable reality out of fiction.” Dominic Clemence
2004
“Like a lot of people I thought I knew how Ken [Loach] made a film, but when it actually came to it, I didn’t. The popular notion is that it’s some- how hand-held and ‘busked’. But it isn’t. As far as the actual shooting is concerned he has a very particular way and on the first day I remember suggesting a track or something. He humoured me for about three minutes and then told me what he wanted. It was a matter of falling in with his sys- tem, and after a while I began to won- der why everybody didn’t make films that way.” Mike Eley
“I would shoot everything in Cinemascope if I could, not because there is perhaps a perception that Cinemascope is grand or some kind of
artistic higher ground. It’s the fact that the human eye sees horizontally. We are not aware of the ceiling or the floor. It’s the way, by using the width of the frame, you should be able to render any story photographically because that’s the way life actually looks. It is so much more fulfilling than doing it in a square TV frame or even 1:85:1.” Daf Hobson BSC
“Someone once said that filmmaking is ‘a practical and logistical exercise aimed at getting an emotional response’. That’s true of both drama and documentaries on different scales. However, I sometimes feel it’s the part- ners at home, having to listen to the stories of heroic dealings with the var- ious logistics, who really have their emotions challenged.” Jerry Kelly
“We wanted to do the opposite of most period drama, going for the dirti- est, grungiest look that we could get. So we’ve got a lot of mud in there, a lot of smoke. Lord Rochester drank and shagged himself to death by the age of 30 and we wanted the film [The Libertine] to reflect that in its darkness and rawness.” Alex Melman
“There wasn’t any real difference [moving from TV to film]. From a light- ing point of view I don’t really do any- thing that different. It might be on a larger scale, you might have more money, but the approach is the same. You get less time on TV so I suppose you do have to compromise a little more. But it’s always the same criteria: if it’s a project I find interesting and I think there’s something I can add to it with my photography, then I’ll do it.” John Daly BSC
“When I first got there [Samuelsons], I remember seeing this Éclair NPR 16mm camera with a Cooke Varotal 5:1 lens, and it had a Perfectone crystal controlled motor – cutting edge at the time. I thought, ‘This is my machine’. I had a great time learning about all the pieces of equipment. The more I dis- covered about cameras, the more I was captivated by the magic of the machinery. I used to think cameramen were magicians. John Alcott, with whom I worked occasionally on com- mercials, even looked a bit like a wiz- ard with his eyebrows all twirled up.” David Johnson BSC
“I once recall sitting next to Tom Hanks and all I could think was that I wanted to tell him that I loved him in films like Splash and Big, but that I did-
n’t really like Forrest Gump. I’m glad I didn’t. At the end of Band Of Brothers, I stole Hanks’ metal Starbucks cup that used to live by the monitors. I just needed to get that off my chest!” Nick Matthews
“Because of my long experience, what I suppose I can offer is the ability to help produce quality product quickly. Of course, it helps to have a director who’s on the same wavelength and a First AD who asks your advice. And if I’ve got a gaffer who knows the way I think, that can save a lot of time too. It’s all about teamwork.” Nigel Walters BSC
2005
“I detest storyboards. It makes every- thing scholarly and stilted. It ruins any possibility of spontaneity or originality. You become prisoner to these draw- ings and it crushes any new ideas you might have. Except for a special effects film, I believe it is a mistake to use sto- ryboards. You have to be free to create on the spot.” Eric Gautier AFC
“If people hire me and want me to go crazier than last time then I’ll do that. I just remember the story about the telecine guy who was asked what makes a good cameraman. His answer was: ‘If he gives good neg’. I’d like to think I do that.” Robbie Ryan
“You know, I think my saving grace was the fact I came up the way I did, for the simply reason I know lenses inside out. That has been a great asset to me as a result of going through the mill. I wish more technicians could get the chance to go through that same mill. I’m sure it would benefit them.” Derek Suter BSC
“Anyone who aspires to being as mem- ber of the camera department needs basic training. For me, it was Pinewood, be it fetching teas or load- ing a hundred and one different kinds of camera. The toughest training of all is to get film set time, and you can tell straightaway who’s been around sets. Or not. For a cameraman to step straight from film school on to a set to light a movie is such a difficult task. Whether you’re good at it or not is often neither here nor there. You need to be able to deal with people – be they stroppy sparks or those props boys who’ve been doing it since they were about 12.” Sam McCurdy
“Our attitude... always was, ‘Can we do
it for real?, then “Can we do it with a model?’ If we couldn’t do it with a model, then we’d let the computer do it – but that was, for us, always the last choice. The way we did it meant you could see it tomorrow. If it didn’t work, or you didn’t like it, then you could do it again straight away just a day later. One snag, as I see it, about computer technology is that films are beginning to look alike – not so much what’s going on on-screen but more as to the way it’s done. There’s a sameness about it, and it seems to lack the reality of the human touch.” Paul Wilson BSC FBKS
“After doing medium-budget Australian movies and some of Ken’s [Branagh] lower-budget films, to walk on a set [The Matrix Re-Loaded] where you could have anything you wanted was extraordinary. I’d never been on a film where you possibly spent all day doing just one shot.” Roger Lanser
“It’s interesting to see how much of a comfort zone a film set is for me. I real- ly believe the DP’s job is all about visual narrative rather than machinery. You use all those things at your disposal, and the choices you make about stocks, lenses and production processes inform the visual element.” Nic Morris BSC
“We do tend to work in as highly natu- ralistic style. We eschew the standard animation lighting, the sort of thing you might see in Trumpton or Postman Pat. We light as if we’re lighting the real world. It’s a very realistic look, except when it needs to be completely surreal.” Aardman’s Tristan Oliver
“You can’t rely on [films] because they often seem to fall at the final hurdle, so it must be difficult financially. I don’t see how anyone can make a liv- ing doing those low-budget ones.” James Aspinall
“I’m not interested in making things look beautiful for the sake of it. You have to catch a mood, and a beautiful lighting job might not be the right thing for a certain commercial or film. I think you have to be open and accept that you have to find the right way to service the whole thing. And that doesn’t necessarily mean spend- ing a lot of time making it look lovely. A lot of the time you’re trying to cap- ture an energy and mood of a piece. I think you can destroy the mood by overlighting it.” Tat Ratcliffe
“With first-time directors, I always sit down and chat through the script very
The Things They Said... 2002 - 2007
26 • Exposure • The Magazine • Fujifilm Motion Picture