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and Chick Anstiss, has taught me a lot not just in the way you do your job but also how you handle people and about the time to say things... and the time not to.” Jamie Harcourt
“I like to be very close to the director on set and to be involved with the mise-en-scene – the scenes and how they’ll be cut together. Our English way of working whereby the director talks directly to the operator can tend to exclude the DP, especially when time is at a premium and the DP is off in another place lighting the next scene. I need to know everything and even if I have a operator, I’ll still line the shot up.” Gavin Finney BSC
“In documentaries, you’re really record- ing what exists; you have outside sets lit by God. Now I had suddenly to depict on the screen that some scriptwriter had banged out on his typewriter. I had to use the lights to create various moods, but that was fascinating because as I’d never seen it done, I had to work out things for myself. It was really down to observation, going to the National Gallery, seeing the Old Masters and noting their lighting effects.” Douglas Slocombe BSC
“[The Sicilian] Perhaps the best work I’ve done. I loved the colours; it was choreographed so well and I truly thought it was going to be a great movie. In the end the press slaughtered it, Apparently Michael [Cimino] took the script to Gore Vidal hoping he might give it a polish. ‘It doesn’t need a polish, it needs a trip to Lourdes,’ Vidal told him. So obviously he knew some- thing we didn’t.” Alex Thomson BSC
“My philosophy is that I don’t want my work to intrude on the story. If the story works, everything should work. You can’t beautifully photograph a load of rubbish... well you can, but ultimate- ly it means nothing.” Tony Imi BSC (Tony Imi died in 2010 aged 72)
“I should think films as we know it will all be gone in the years to come. It will all simply be digital. But that takes away a lot of the creativity, I think.” Christopher Challis BSC
“This film [Ratcatcher] is being shot in a style which is a mixture of gritty documentary and drama which is one of the reasons I like it. You have to be able to react intuitively, especially
since you’re working with children and you’re not always certain where they are going to go. I’ve been using a lot of handheld shots and long lenses so that we get the sense of being more observational and less intrusive.” Alwin Küchler BSC
1999
“Passion is the most important thing. Don’t get involved unless you want it more than anything else in the world, then... and I wouldn’t want to shout this too loudly... go to America and get trained.” Freddie Francis BSC
(Freddie Francis died in 2007 aged 89)
“I love colour and sharpness of image but I also want to have the reputation of being able to change styles, to diversify and be quite experimental.” John de Borman BSC
“I think as a cameraman you’ve got to grab everything you can, hold on tight and not be cowardly at all. I want to really make it as dramatic and dynam- ic as I can, and if that means taking a few risks along the way, then so be it.” Adam Suschitzky
“Others worry a lot all the time. When I’m working I’m really switched on, but afterwards I don’t really think about it at all. Away from work there are things I’d much prefer to do like play the piano or listen to music.” David Watkin BSC
“I like being involved in the script and creating a mood and feel which is intangible but comes through in dis- cussion with a like-minded director. The other side is the photographic physical element, the encouragement of colours which comes more from [my] artistic background. The main thing for me is working with interest- ing directors with a strong interest in the visual side.” Mary Farbrother
“Whenever you start out, every job tends to be quite stressful. At the RCA, Paul Wheeler had said to me that the difference between things turning out really well once and turning out well all the time was the essential differ- ence between being an amateur and a professional. As a pro, you have to be able to do it every time; it doesn’t matter what the conditions are, you have to deliver. That’s your responsibility.” Jake Polonsky
“When I was in the camera department, everyone’s ambition was to be a light- ing cameraman. We all had that drive, and I was lucky enough to do it. Then later in my career, after I left David Lean, I began to wonder why I was doing all these set ups for other people when I might as well be doing it for myself. So I started directing.” Guy Green BSC (who died in 2005 aged 91)
“The assistant director announced they’d rehearse the scene once then shoot. Suddenly this nervous new clapper boy heard, ‘Board in!’ I raced in and knocked a lamp over. I knew what I then had to say but I just could- n’t get the words out. Norman [Warwick] called it and I clapped the board. I thought I’d failed at the very first hurdle.” Peter Allwork BSC
(who died in 2004 aged 78)
“One of the main reasons I was attracted to it [teaching] in the first place was that it forced me to analyse how I approached my work, When you’re actu- ally doing it, it seems instinctive, some- times almost automatic. We are, after all, in the communications business and it’s the job of the teacher to communicate to the students. That’s really very rewarding.” Billy Williams BSC
“To actually be able to function in... fast-thinking environments, you need to have a system... so that if there are mistakes you’re always covered. That backbone of structure and discipline that I learned at the BBC allows com- fort and freedom for creativity to flour- ish.” Richard Terry
“I’ve always admired cameramen who use a very realistic style of lighting. Some of my favourite films, like Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, are from the British new wave of the late Fifties and early Sixties. Other influences include Martin Scorsese and John Cassavetes.” John Ward
“The hardest thing still is turning on the firstlamponanyset.I’mstill scared. No shot’s easy. As soon as you think it’s easy, you just somehow know it’s going to be hard.” Peter Hannan BSC
“One of the more underestimated skills of being a good DP is reading a script. To recognise a good or bad script is, I believe, as important as doing a good job with your lighting because that’s how your career
advances. A lot of commercials’ DPs tend to take the wrong film simply because they’re desperate to do a fea- ture.” Alessandra Scherrillo
“Perhaps it’s to do with age, but as I get more experienced I begin to want to do less, less and less again. So I’m often stripping things away using less light, making it as simply as possible. And no, I’m certainly not frightened of using natural light.” Henry Braham BSC
2000
“You charge around, crash in and out of places, and that can be a hard habit to get out of. Now I have got to the point in my career where I’d really like to attempt some rather more considered work. I happened to watch The Big Country on TV recently and it looked so beautiful. How I would love to work on that sort of thing.” Alan Almond BSC
“You might have 2,000 extras and a $200m budget, but basically [filmmak- ing] is just about a small group of peo- ple trying to say something together, and actually trying to say something to each other. The rest is bull... “ Christopher Doyle HKSC
“I have never been very good at ideas. I would never make a director, but I was very happy and quite at ease, still am in fact, participating on someone’s else’s vision.” Peter Thornton
“My focus puller does a job I could never do. In fact, my loader does a job I really was very poor at. I play instead to my own strengths: lighting, exposing film, moving a camera and composing images. I have learned the hard way from my own mistakes – mistakes often made in public.” Oliver Curtis BSC
“I suddenly realised that people are generally interested in just looking at people, and you can learn so much from the human face. Take someone like Vinnie Jones, for instance. If you put a hard light on him from the top, or from really low, it can bring out so much character.” Tim Maurice-Jones
“My films come on TV now and they look great, because they were proper- ly exposed. They weren’t up and down like a fiddler’s elbow. Some of the films, like Dr Strangelove, went
THE THINGS THEY SAID
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