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BEHIND THE CAMERA
WELCOMETO THEHILLSIDE
ANINTERVIEWWITH
JOHNPARDUE
uck, someone said, is when opportunity meets Lpreparation. It’s an axiom that hard working
cinematographer John Pardue would acknowledge as his lighting career continues with his latest film Resistance.
This comes on the back of a wealth of experience gained shooting documentaries,
short films (Lucky amd A Fever In The Blood among them), countless pop promos and commercials. Previous drama highlights include feature films The Bunker and Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel and well regarded television productions When I’m 64 – which won the Prix Europa – for the BBC, and Channel 4’s satire A Very Social Secretary. It’s a head-spinning 20 year journey for Pardue, who graduated from Manchester University with a degree in English and art history in the 1990s and found his first professional work as a freelance camera assistant and focus puller at Granada.
“I started off on documentaries,” he explains. “Granada were still shooting docs on 16mm film then, and it was a really great experience working with cam- eramen and directors who really knew their craft. From that moment I was hooked and knew I wanted to work with the camera.”
Learning his craft on the shooting floor, Pardue came to London intent on building upon this early education. After working as a camera assistant on scores of pop promos, he dedicated himself to becoming a cinematographer shooting
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music videos, commercials and short films. Commercials proved particularly valuable as a week in- week out opportunity to shoot a variety of studio sets, different locations and a range of budgets, which really helped to consolidate his knowledge and experience.
“I tend to like films that are quite naturalistic in their lighting,” he adds, citing the French New Wave and 70s American cinema as inspiration. “If the pho- tography builds the story up then I tend to like it. If you’re thinking ‘doesn’t this look great,’ then you’re outside of the story. So for me, it’s an emotional thing. You do what you need to do from a technical point of view to bring the scene alive and make it right for the story.”
Resistance, originated on 35mm ETERNA 400T, is case in point. Shot in just 30 days, Amit Gupta’s film of Owen Sheers’ novel takes us into an alternate his- tory where the Nazi invasion of WWII has succeeded.
A Welsh community in the Olchon Valley is bereft of menfolk who have gone to fight, leaving the women to tend the farms under German occupation. Before long, differences are set aside as the pressing concerns of harsh, everyday life take hold.
“A period film on a budget is difficult,” Pardue affirms, “but you just dive in. I kept the lighting very simple on this one; my gaffer Ian Barwick found the smallest lighting truck available at Panalux and we just drove it down to Wales. This film is very much about that kind of soft, beautiful, overcast light, and the story’s very gentle.
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