Page 13 - Fujifilm Exposure_31 The White Countess_ok

TOTAL IMMERSION
AN INTERVIEW WITH SAM MCCURDY
S omething nasty has been There’s also a nastiness here within working at Pinewood on Batman, Since then, he has mixed features
albeit very humbly.
“When an opening came up as a
camera trainee and I found myself doing all kinds of basic jobs at the stu-
dio like prepping the gear for the mattes and the miniatures, green screens, special effects and the prosthetics.”
After a couple of years, he decided to head back to his native North-East, “to try to set myself up as a focus puller.” Luckily the
jobs followed.
Working for
local independ-
ent production
companies like Pilgrim Films and Ipso Facto, McCurdy progressed up to operator on various commercials
and promos. Then came that ‘graduation’ call for Killing Time.
“We shot it in about 22 days with very little money all around Newcastle. Being my first film I threw everything into it.”
stirring in the caves at Pinewood. If the result proves to be as effective as their last collaboration, then director Neil Marshall and cinematographer Sam
McCurdy will be having multiplex audiences jumping out of their seats all over again.
Four years ago, Dog Soldiers, set in the remote Scottish Highlands, involved some very close, and extremely bloody, encounters between a lost patrol of squaddies and some ravenous seven-foot-tall werewolves. The film proved to be a box-office and critical hit.
Now the filmmakers have re-united for another chiller, The Descent, in which a sextet of young women on what started out as an enjoyable cav- ing expedition discover mortal jeop- ardy way underground.
The third film from Celador Films (Dirty Pretty Things, Separate Lives), perhaps best known for the long-run- ning hit TV show, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, The Descent was shot in Scotland and the Home Counties fol- lowed by five weeks on elaborate sets at Pinewood.
McCurdy explained: “There are six girls from different walks of life but all interconnected in some way who every so often get together for differ- ent expeditions – like windsurfing or snowboarding.
“This time they get to go caving... which perhaps they shouldn’t have done,” he laughed. “They get deeper and deeper underground. Of course, there’s something down there waiting for them.
“Yes, the blood and guts are there – it wouldn’t be a Neil Marshall film oth- erwise – but I don’t think it feels quite as visceral as Dog Soldiers. There’s more blood in The Descent but there were more creatures in the first film.
Photo main: Sam McCurdy; above: a scene from The Descent
the characters whereas there was real solidarity between the squaddies.”
In their thirties and both big film buffs, long-time friends Marshall and
(Preaching To The Perverted, Nasty Neighbours, Revelation) with television (Metrosexuality, Fugee Girl, Teachers, 20 Things To Do Before You’re 30) in between the usual helping of commer- cials, promos and short films.
“I think,” McCurdy recalled, “I had the script for Dog Soldiers almost straight after we did Killing Time. It’s bizarre it took so long to get it made. When I first read it, I immediately
continued over
McCurdy were almost bound to become a double act one day having been brought up and schooled within miles of each other in Newcastle.
They first worked together in 1998 on the thriller, Killing Time, co-written and edited by Marshall with McCurdy making his feature debut as a DP for director Bharat Nalluri, who since those micro-budget days had moved on to respectable episodic TV like Spooks and Hustle.
The son of an electrician and music teacher, McCurdy, at 37, three years older than his pal, had already been around the industry for quite a while after freelancing
as a designer for local ad
agencies in Newcastle
following art college.
Then, pursuing an
interest in spe-
cial effects and
prosthetics,
he headed
South and
soon
found
himself
Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video • Exposure • 11
MOTION PICTURE & PRO-VIDEO behind the camera