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THE LAD HIMSELF
AN INTERVIEW WITH
JAMES WELLAND
W hen lighting a feature, it’s not necessarily
enough that the cine- matographer does his job well. The film also needs to be seen in order for his work to
be recognised. In the crowded land- scape of British film distribution this is not always assured.
While he has amassed an impres- sively diverse list of screen credits over nearly 20 years,
James Welland is
well aware that good fortune and, like comedy, timing plays its part.
“The two films
with which I was hap-
piest as far as ‘the
look’ was concerned
were Stephen
Norrington’s The Last
Minute, which was
never released here,
and Beautiful
Creatures which came
and went,” he says.
Other films, such as David Caffrey’s Divorcing Jack, though not exactly a box-office biggie, certainly opened some doors and helped invite other offers.
“But there are other films like Palais Royal!,” he continues, “which were much more successful – though only in France admittedly – and no work came out of that at all. It’s inter- esting how projects you think will work for you, and perhaps set you off on a particular course, don’t necessar- ily turn out to do so.”
The vagaries of domestic film dis- tribution aside, Welland’s love for his
job is palpable, the peculiar chal- lenges it offers being key to its appeal. “One of the things I enjoy about it is the mixture of practicality and aesthet- ic,” he explains.
A graduate of the Royal College of Art, Welland began his career making low budget films such as North Of Vortex for Constantine Giannaris and Wittgenstein for Derek Jarman. After these there were jobs commissioned by the Arts Council, the BFI and Channel 4.
Television credits that followed include Armadillo, the 2002 BBC version of The Hound Of The Baskervilles and instalments of popu- lar cop dramas such as Touching Evil (which earned him an RTS nomination) and Trial & Retribution. So while he may be unable to pinpoint one particu- lar breakthrough production, Welland
is clearly enjoying fruits of a blossom- ing cinematographic career.
“James is incredibly versatile,” says director Richard Laxton, who worked with the DP on his most recent job, the BBC4 drama Hancock & Joan. “He got very excited about telling this story in a particular way. He really connected with what we were doing visually and rose to that challenge, on an extremely low budget.”
Based on Joan Le Mesurier’s mem- oir Lady Don’t Fall Backwards, and also drawing from Edward Joffe’s book Hancock’s Last Stand, it depicts the
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Fujifilm Motion Picture • The Magazine • Exposure • 29
Photo main: Ken Stott as Tony Hancock in Hancock & Joan (Photo: BBC); inset above: DP James Welland