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SPARKED INTO ACTION
AN INTERVIEW WITH DEREK SUTER BSC
I magine the scene on blustery Beachy Head. It was the very start of shooting on Franc Roddam’s Quadrophenia, and they were filming the climactic scene where the young mod
Jimmy (Phil Daniels) plunges over the cliff on his scooter. It was also Derek Suter’s first
day as a clapper loader having made the decision – prompted by cine- matographer Brian Tufano – to switch, in his mid-thirties, from elec- tricals to the camera department.
Spotting Suter on the famous
bluff, construction manager Jack
Carter approached him and said
cheerily, “Well, a bit different from
the old sparking days then?” Suter,
his hands deep in the film bag, nodded. “I’ve got something for you,” smiled Carter and proceeded to wipe a fresh cow pat across the hapless ‘prentice technician’s face.
“That,” laughed Suter, today still wincing slightly at the memory, “was my initiation.”
Years followed in film as a loader, focus puller and, final- ly, director of photography in commercials. Then, starting with Shrinks in 1990, he became a DP on some of Britain’s
most popular television dramas (ranging from Cadfael and Peak Practice to The Last Detective and William & Mary). Now, at 60 (but looking years younger), Suter has recently
enjoyed another kind of first. Albeit much less messy.
This was in Luxembourg at the sharp end on his first-ever feature film as a DP, lighting Save Angel Hope, a fast-moving comedy-adven- ture, co-starring Billy Boyd, Eva Birthistle, Alice Evans, Luke Mably and Bernard Hill. What starts as a simple swindle involving an invent- ed nun and a bogus charity begins to get wildly and dangerously out of control.
Yes, he admitted, there were, despite all his years in TV, first-day nerves. “More anxious
than anything else. That was as much to do with the fact that, apart from my operator Trevor Coop, I didn’t know the rest of the crew. I didn’t know how they were going to perform. Then you get to see the first couple of days’ rush- es; that’s when you feel better.”
Flanked by first-time director Lukas Erni, it was also a matter of diving in at the deep end. “We had an explosion, a
Photo main: Derek Suter, and inset above, with crew and cast on Cadfael
Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video • Exposure • 5
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MOTION PICTURE & PRO-VIDEO behind the camera