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ANELEMENTOFTRUTH
IT’S BACK TO THE SIXTIES FOR A PERIOD CAPER, THE HOT POTATO, SHOT IN ENGLAND AND BELGIUM
t has all the elements of a classic 1960s caper plot, but new British feature The Hot Potato can claim a curious twist in that it is also inspired by real events. Which
makes the story of a pair of chancers attempting to sell a stray lump of ura- nium found in an old MOD facility as dramatically intriguing as it is filled with comic potential.
“I met the guy that Ray Winstone’s lead character is based on,” explains writer and debutant director Tim Lewiston, “and he told me this story as it happened to him. I based the film on that though, of course, I had to invent some characters and conflate others, but generally the film hops along the top of the actual story.”
With a key cast including Winstone’s daughter, Lois, and Jack Huston as her boyfriend and Winstone senior’s partner in this precarious enterprise, the film shot briefly in London but primarily used locations in and around Belgium.
The film marks a radical depar- ture for Lewiston who until now was best known as an editor, and nephew of DP Dennis Lewiston BSC. But this current venture, produced under the banner of his company Wardour Pictures, is an ambitious statement of intent to move in a new direction.
Lewiston is a shrewd enough character to know he could not have undertaken this first feature alone, and took great care to surround himself withexperiencedpersonnel. Menlike Ashley Rowe BSC whom he first met on the set of his friend John Irvin’s film The Garden of Eden.
“He’s unflappable,” says Lewiston of his DP, “but at the same time he understands what we need to get. And he’s very quick. We were lucky, we were pretty much on the same wave- length in terms of what was required.
“We would both discuss the scene – as an ex-editor I’m very focused on how you get into a scene and how you
get out of it. I would explain to Ashley what I required and we would go through the various options.”
The quietly-spoken cinematogra- pher proved a willing collaborator, and was impressed by the speed in which Lewiston attuned himself to the nuances of his job.
“I know he relied on us a great deal,” Rowe explains, “but he came to understand shot construction very quickly, and as time went on Tim came up with really good ideas himself. Everyone was very impressed with him, and he was particularly good with the actors.
“He always gave them time, and I think he was able to do that because he could rely on me and my team to do what we needed to do. He was very laid back with us, he never once asked us to hurry up though we knew we had strict time limits to stick to. It was all highly collaborative, really.”
This collaborative effort meant that Lewiston was not shy of drawing upon the experience of key depart- ment heads and rely on First AD Stuart Renfrew to help bring his own take on this remarkable story to the screen. But time constraints made some decisions for him.
“We only had seven weeks to shoot the film,” Rowe continues, “so that really determined our style which had to be kept fairly simple. We didn’t have the time to start throwing the camera around, and that wouldn’t have suited this particular story anyway. It’s very character driven, and the fact that it’s set in the 60s meant that we shot it in a very traditional way.
“One thing that we did introduce into the film was a lot of camera moves. Very gently, but the camera is moving most of the time though I don’t know if you’ll ever really notice it. We boarded out a lot of the rooms so I could freewheel on the dolly, and as the characters moved we could adjust the camera slightly by just tracking
around.” Rowe chose to light the film in a very naturalistic way, working with a combination of Fujifilm stocks, 35mm ETERNA Vivid 160T and ETERNA Vivid 500T, and shooting in a widescreen 2.35 aspect ratio to use the picturesque European locations to their maximum potential.
“We would always try and place our actors within that environment so we were making the most of the
locations that we were filming in. We were trying to use the whole of the frame.
“Actually one thing that we did try and do was shoot the whole scene in one take, if we could. Some of the scenes actually work in one master shot, so we would design it like that and try, if we could, to get that scene in one go.”
Belgium was, as far as Rowe was concerned, a beautiful and versatile place to work and he speaks in glowing terms of the Belgian camera unit who worked under him. “They were fantas- tic,” he nods, “and they really enjoyed working with us.”
A happy result all round then, and for no-one more than Lewiston for whom this invigorating caper is a signal of more to come. “I love it,” he beams. “I was born for it and I can’t wait to get back and do another one.” ANWAR BRETT
The Hot Potato was originated on 35mm Fujicolor ETERNA Vivid 160T 8543 and ETERNA Vivid 500T 8547
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