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SPREADING THE WORD An interview with Billy Williams BSC
A fter a distinguished career shooting films in every
corner of the globe - from Northern Iraq and India to Morocco and New England via points even further East and West - a couple of
summer weeks in Hungary might seem just a bit commonplace...
But for Oscar-winning British cine- matographer Billy Williams, his late August date in Budapest is just as valid (if perhaps not quite as profitable) as rather higher-profile past assignments like Gandhi, On Golden Pond, The Exorcist and The Wind And The Lion. It will mark his fourth appearance at a prestigious biennial workshop for the pick of cinematography students from film schools all over the world. He and fellow DP Vilmos Zsigmond, will run movies, supervise filmed exercises in the studio... and just talk. It is, says Williams, “a marvellous opportunity to share one’s knowledge with a broad range of people.”
Williams first caught the teaching bug some 20 years ago when he got a call from the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield ask- ing if he’d be prepared to conduct a training course for lighting students: “I’d never been there before and now I’ve been going back ever since doing workshops, seminars and even helping on occasion to select the new intake.” Among the newer generation who have clearly benefited from his wisdom are Gabriel Beristain, Andy Collins, Gavin Finney and David Tattersall, who lit the new Star Wars prequel.
As well as Beaconsfield, which also includes stints there for the Government-sponsored Skillset pro- gramme, he has been regularly involved in courses in Rockport, Maine not to mention Munich, Berlin and, closer to home again, in Dublin at an ambitious European Union- funded training programme set up in collaboration with UCLA.
It’s easy to understand why Williams, 70 earlier this year, should be such a magnet for aspiring camera-
men. After all, his 50-year-plus career encompasses everything from documentaries and commercials to TV and award-winning features. He’s articulate, witty and, as a clincher, can boast the sort of background which has to be a showstopper.
You might not actually heard of Billie Williams, Billy’s father, but he was probably one of this country’s great pioneering cameramen. Born in 1895, he was 15 when he went to work for the Gobbett Brothers in
When junior left school during World War Two at 14 he was offered a choice of jobs: working in a city brokerage for one of his mother’s in- laws or as an assistant to his father. No prizes for guessing which way he decided to jump. After all he’d been steeped in cinematography all his life which frequently meant finding Billie’s own camera on the dining room table being taken apart and maintained. Williams worked with his father on documentaries and training
sort of second division and it was diffi- cult to move between the two.
“I had started with my father and then gone straight from assistant to being a cameraman mainly shooting non-sync sound. But I always had ambitions to get into features but my attempts had been unsuccessful. Then, of course, commercial televi- sion arrived and in 1957 I went along to do a day’s work as a camera opera- tor at a commercials company in Wardour Street. It was one of the biggest in the field and I stayed there seven years. After a few months I got on to lighting in a simple way, but at least it was experience - if mostly trial and error. I suppose I was very lucky getting into commercials at that time because it proved a coming-together of directors from all kinds of back- grounds including documentaries, TV and features. For me it meant working with people like John Schlesinger, Ken Russell and Ted Kotcheff.”
Which, as Williams admits, would pay handsome dividends later. After his feature break shooting a little black and white musical, though wordless, comedy called San Fer r y Ann and a handful of other lowish budget films, Williams suddenly got a call from Ken Russell who was about to film the second Harry Palmer sequel, The Billion Dollar Brain, for producer Harry Saltzman.
Williams recalls: “Otto Heller was going to shoot it and went on the recce to Finland. When he came back the production manager suggested that as it was going to be a very ardu- ous shoot Otto [who’d turned 70] should have a medical. Otto [who’d lit both The Ipcress File and Funeral In Berlin] wouldn’t have it so he was off the picture. Harry then suggested Bob Krasker [of Third Man fame] but for some reason Ken turned him down. ‘So who do you want? Harry asked. Ken said he wanted me. ‘What’s he done?’ Harry said. I’d just done Red And Blue for Tony Richardson. It was a short musical with Vanessa Redgrave intended to be
newly-built, glass covered studio Whipps Cross, North London. As apprentice, he learned the whole process - which, in those days, meant shooting, developing, printing and even perforating the stock. During the Great War, Williams Sr was in the navy and on hand to photograph the surrender of the German fleet at Scapa Flow. Apart from the odd fea- ture - including a Ceylon-set Nils Asther thriller, Tea Leaves In The Wind, Billie’s subsequent career was mostly rooted in documentaries and newsreels. Widely travelled and end- lessly adventurous, he covered the legendary Cape Town-to-Cairo expedi- tion and was the first man to film from the incredible heights of the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.
films up till 1947 when he had to go and do his National Service.
After that he was determined to become more independent and fol- lowing five good years as an assistant cameraman at British Transport Films - alongside the likes of David Watkin and Bob Paynter - Williams felt ready to take the big plunge.
“I spent my entire savings and bought an Arriflex 2A with the motor in the handle. There were no camera rental places in those days. You either worked for a studio, which had its own equipment, or as a freelance in which case you had to have your own cam- era. There was effectively a big divi- sion then between features and docu- mentaries; features were kind of pre- mier league while documentaries were
their
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continued over Photos main: Billy Williams with Ben Kingsley on the set of Gandhi; above: the best in the business - Vittorio Storaro, Vilmos Zsigmond, Mark Rydell (Director), Billy Williams and Lazlo Kovacs.