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locations, and the Scots accent of director David Blair (who reportedly asked for his name to be taken off the production because he claimed it had been re-edited beyond his control). “And the time,” he adds, “that was really an issue for me. I landed in Ireland three days after fin- ishing another job in Germany and I had two weeks of preparation and then I had to go for it.”
With this story more than most others, there is, at least, a resource that he could return to in order to ref-
erence the events that this drama depicted. “There were a few things we had to match with original news footage,” he continues. “There have been some references. We knew what certain scenes looked like because of the pictures, and of course we related to that. I chose the Fuji Eterna and was very, very happy with the non- grainy picture it gives. It’s very fine on the one hand, but on the other hand it has such latitude that it gives you a huge amount of freedom.”
Re-staging scenes that hold such significance to the Royal story, David Blair and his DP came up with a novel way of making the most economical use of the limited time they had.
“We ended up putting two cameras on the same dolly,” Szepel recalls,
“which was something I’d never done before. So we had two cameras with dif- ferent lenses, giving you different fram- ings, and when you came to edit, they matched perfectly because the actors are doing the same thing as the cam- eras move in harmony. I’m very grateful to my grip who made it possible for us.”
This lesson, you can be sure, will be filed away for use later on in Szepel’s gathering career. Having learned his trade at film school, in short films and documentaries he has really hit his stride in recent years. Conscious of the proud cinemato- graphic tradition of his homeland, Szepel cites Jerzy Wojcik, Witold Sobocinski, Slawomir Idziak, Pawel Edelman and Jolanta Dylewska as influences, as well as our own
Anthony Dod Mantle. But he is fast proving himself a worthy successor to their work.
“Coming from a relatively poor country where the film industry is not so huge this is a great opportuni- ty for me,” Szepel explains. “It would be much more difficult to stay in Poland and try and work my way up there. Now, though, there are so many fields I can work in to prove I can do this job.”
Watch this space for a career with- out borders, one that continues to devel- op very nicely indeed. ■ ANWAR BRETT
Hansel & Gretel and Whatever Love Means were both originated on 16mm Fujicolor Eterna 500T 8673
Photo main: Wojciech Szepel; left l-r: Peter Mullan and Ingeborga Dapkunaite in Kiss Of Life; Director David Blair and Szepel; Olivia Poulet as Camilla Shand and Michelle Duncan as Lady Diana Spencer; on the set of Whatever Love Means; Laurence Fox as Prince Charles with Poulet and Duncan
Fujifilm Motion Picture • The Magazine • Exposure • 21