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BREAD OF HEAVEN
feature in focus
Into the Welsh heartland for
a report from the set of The Baker
M ilo (Damian Lewis) is a professional hit man
living on the edge. Failing to fulfil a contract for the first time, Milo escapes the city to avoid the wrath of his
employers. Hiding out in a remote rural Welsh village, the locals mistake him for the new baker.
He adopts this role as his new cover and sets about baking bread and cakes for the village. When sparks fly with the local vet Rhiannon (Kate Ashfield) he decides to start a new life as the village baker, but his past – in the person of creepy professional killer Bjorn (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) - is about to catch up with him.
Shot in the Monmouthshire village of Grosmont. The Baker, also starring Michael Gambon, marks the feature debut of writer-director Gareth Lewis. The younger brother of his leading man, he developed the script for seven years before finally getting it into production.
“There was always this romantic notion that we would make a film together,” explained Damian, who is also a producer on the film, “so I was always attached to it emotionally. Gareth would run drafts by me and I would give him notes. It was really in the last two or three years when we became a bit more cohesively a part- nership, when our production compa- ny Picture Farm came into being, that we really focused on trying to get it
made. The script changed for the bet- ter, and then it was ready.”
Another fan was DP Sean Bobbitt BSC, who is painstaking in picking projects that he really believes in on a story level.
“I specifically chose the Fujifilm stocks in relation to the digital inter- mediate route we would go on later,” he explained. “I wanted to contrast the early days of Milo with the transforma- tion he undergoes as he falls in love and discovers his love of baking, as he tries to find a new life away from inter- national murder.”
With the opening scenes detailing Milo’s murderous former life, Bobbitt and his director took the unexpected choice of shooting this conventionally, with his subsequent conversion cap- tured by a hand-held camera.
“All of the early stuff with the assassin is done with track and dolly,” Bobbitt adds, “only when we get into the village itself does the camera get to be free. That’s the key word, it’s freed from its restrictions in the same way that Milo is freed from his.”
Operating as well as lighting, Bobbitt admitted that the extra respon- sibility freed him too from constantly thinking about the lights, while also giv- ing himself an ideal view of the frame. Gareth Lewis also saw an advantage in having his DP double up his duties.
“The great thing with Sean is that you get two shots for the price of one,” he added, “you don’t have to cut and reset the camera. It’s on his shoul- der, so if he just moves with the action you don’t necessarily move with the action you’re just in a new place.”
Taking visual inspiration from vari- ous sources such as the Coen Brothers’ Raising Arizona, Bobbitt noted the styling of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil was also a key influence. “There are elements of that in terms of com- position and wide angle lenses that we found very interesting. And also Amélie which – because that was one of the early digital intermediate processes – has elements that we have also referenced and incorporated into our colour palette.”
Having worked with both Lewis brothers before, Bobbitt was a straightforward choice to light Gareth’s first feature, and he was in an ideal place to judge how well the brothers work together.
“I think they were really cute together actually; they are brothers in a really sweet sort of way. There’s a lot of unspoken vocabulary between them. They collaborated absolutely with each other. Damian is a producer as well, so there was a potential for conflict, but we saw none of that.” ■ ANWAR BRETT
The Baker, just released on DVD after a limited UK theatrical release, was originated on 35mm Fujicolor ETERNA 500T 8573, ETERNA 250D 8563 and Super F-64D 8522
Photo main: Brothers Gareth and Damian Lewis; above l-r: Michael Gambon, Kate Ashfield, Damian Lewis, and DP Sean Bobbitt with director Gareth Lewis (Photos: courtesy Steve Stills)
Fujifilm Motion Picture • The Magazine • Exposure • 21