Page 30 - Fujifilm Exposure_31 The White Countess_ok

MOTION PICTURE & PRO-VIDEO short film focus
AT HER WIT’S END
Sunshine Sally sheds light on the work of The Samaritans
Don’t be deceived by the upbeat, cheery title. Sunshine Sally is a cinema short about The Samaritans that tells the story of a teenage girl who, feeling alienated and depressed
with her life, commits suicide. Conveying the need for tolerance and support of those suffer such anguish was the brief for director Andy Isaac and DP Roger Eaton.
Shot over a weekend in locations including a Ladbroke Grove funeral parlour and a flat in Willesden, the team used the new Fujifilm Eterna 500 stock to help shed light into one of the darker corners of human experience.
“The whole thing was lit in a very naturalistic way,” Eaton explains, “but I kept it quite stark at the same time. I felt we should show how it is, with a very window-lit feel to it. I balanced a lot of it to daylight and gave it a bluer feel, to give a slightly starker look and yet keep it very naturalistic too.
“There is some expression within the naturalism, the starkness to this reality. There’s a real texture within that. I think when you use a natural light look it does give great texture and has a great tonal range as well.
“I didn’t take any visual cues from other sources, this was something that had been developing over about 18 months, so I’d talked about it exten- sively in terms of what approaches we should take. We all felt that this very textural, naturalistic look was actually a more powerful way to deal with the subject. It wasn’t underlining things too much, but at the same time it had a real mood to it.”
Using the Eterna 500 stock for the first time, Eaton declares himself delighted with the results he achieved.
“This was my test basically,” he continues. “I’d seen the Fuji launch so I had some sort of idea of what we were dealing with, but I hadn’t actually seen it against the old 500 T.
“I listened to Roger Sapsford, whose opinion I trust, and he said the new stock had an extra half a stop in terms of sensitivity, was sharper with a smaller grain structure and slightly more detail in the blacks. I thought this was a good try out.”
Keeping the Sunshine Sally shoot simple, Eaton used Cooke S4 lenses on a Moviecam Compact for a more rounded look, and eschewed the use of filters.
“I really wanted a clean, pure look to it. I was dealing with fairly large contrast ratios, so there would be a big tonal difference within it, which I thought the film stock would really respond to in a way that High Def, for example, can’t come close to.”
The film was produced by Victoria J Wood under the auspices of The Film Exchange, a co-operative venture based in Notting Hill with the explicit aim of helping UK film talent get their work to the screen.
“It’s about making film accessible to people interested in production,” Eaton adds, “and above all trying to make it to a certain standard. I’ve been working with Andy over the years on different things, I’ve done quite a bit of stuff for him and favours are returned in all kinds of ways. It’s an exchange of skills and information, a real give and take situation.”
Another recent production, Tom Cat, was directed by Gary Miller and shot by DP Mattias Nyberg on the 16mm Eterna 500 8673 stock and Fuji Super 16. Along with Sunshine Sally, it will be screened at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
As for Roger Eaton, the last few years have seen him embark on a wide range of projects. These include documentaries like The Discovery Channel’s The Real Eve and Granada’s Dinosaur Hunters, short films, pop promos and features including The Toybox, Truck Of Dreams (using F-64D and F-500T) and The Killing (shot on F-500T for nights and interiors).
But it may well be that a short film for The Samaritans is the most impor- tant thing to which Eaton has applied his talents in 2005, an educational experience in more ways than one.
“I did very extensive tests on the old 500T against the other faster stocks on the market about 18 months ago,” Eaton adds. “To be honest the Fuji stock scored above all the others.
“It seemed to be sharper, with more latitude and what I describe as a better ‘personality’ to it. I’m looking forward to getting just as well acquainted with the Eterna 500.” ■ ANWAR BRETT
Sunshine Sally was originated on Fujifilm Eterna 500
Photo main: Sunshine Sally DP Roger Eaton (left) and director Andy Isaac; right: Tom Cat DP Mattias Nyberg
28 • Exposure • Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video