Page 20 - Fujifilm Exposure_45 Ondine_ok

AFISHOUT
WORKING WITH WRITER-DIRECTOR NEIL JORDAN ON THE E MAY HAVE LANDED A MERMAID, BROUGHT DP CHRIS DOYLE
“I FELT THE ETERNA 400T HAD THE RIGHT TONE FOR THE IRISH LIGHT AND OUR PALETTE.”
Photo main: stars Colin Farrell and Alicja Bachleda-Curus; above and below right: Director Neil Jordan with DP Chris Doyle HKSC (photos courtesy LW Film Productions)
For Ondine, I stuck with the film stock I know best, the ETERNA 400T. I felt it had the right tone for the Irish
“light and our palette. I mostly pull processed it (except when we couldn’t get the aperture needed) to make the mostly day-for- night scenes more luminous and, I hope, ethereal.
In terms of our visual references going into it, the south of Ireland was more than enough: the nuances of verdure, the low-hanging clouds and shifting light, the rugged coastline, and the sea.
Neil asked me at the beginning of our collaboration, ‘ how come all your films have a different look?’ The films look the way they do because of where they’re shot more than how they’re shot. Ondine is the proof of that.
I was touched by Neil’s acuity and wryness - and pleased by the continuity of space and time that shooting such a story in such a contained space suggested. Having some Irish blood also made me wonder what I could make of Ireland from the inside looking out.
The two main challenges on this film were photographing the fishing
boat and the summer sky. About 40% of screen time is spent on the boat of the character played by Colin Farrell. It’s only about six metres long and built for one man to operate. So I was shooting hand held on a rough sea, being covered in fish most of the time, and trying to find angles to articulate the story and celebrate the emotional curve the two main characters pur- sue. That was a great challenge.
Then there were the summer nights. It was light until nearly 11pm, but Irish child employment laws meant that we couldn’t work after midnight. The trouble was there were at least 20 minutes of scripted night work, so I decided to shoot it day for night.
Many of the crew hadn’t done that much before, and Neil was hesitant but then he embraced the
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