Page 35 - Fujifilm Exposure_25 Jean Francois Robin_ok

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Based in North London, Archistudio is an all-purpose production office with impressive editing facilities and a large resource of equipment.
Shootout, currently in sound post- production, was filmed over four weeks at the Archistudio building though not in the company’s own offices. Frixos Constantine’s Poseidon Films is the dis- tributor and sales agent.
It’s the first completed feature from Hap who says that he has anoth- er four films “developing in parallel”. I don’t know which will go next; it depends on which one acquires the money first.” These include Oedipus King, an adaptation of the mythical story to be shot at the Akamas National Park in Cyprus, and Ten 2 Six which, adds Hap, “is an altogether big- ger scale project.”
Of Shootout, he enlarges on the col- laborative nature of the project: “It has been developed through improvisa- tion, therefore there is no clear author of the script.
“It has been developed with the full collaboration of the actors who have
been as much part of the pre-production and shooting process as the director. Full credit is due to their efforts which resulted in amazing performances.
“The crew have also been part of the creative process as all the lighting and framing was developed immediate- ly after the improvisation and rehears- al just before shooting. The editor was not only faced with the task of cutting the film but also with the task of build- ing the story from the fragments that developed during the shoot.
“The script story and authorship of the work should, therefore, be cred- ited to everyone that worked on the film,” Hap adds. ■ QUENTIN FALK
Shootout was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative
Photos main: Suzy Harvey in Shootout; opposite page top left: Maikl Hap directing Suzy Harvey; Stars and crew on the set of Shootout;
THE DP VIEW
DAN RACK
used the Fuji 500 tungsten because, although it was essen- tially a devised piece there were a lot of improvisation, not a lot of budget, so we really
needed the depth that the faster stock could give us.
The story is set on a film set, and one aspect of that was lighting the ‘crew’. It’s a very interesting opportu- nity – these characters are shooting a DV film – so there’s a contrast there and elements of pastiche going on as we tried to create something that was subtly over lit for their set.
Over the years, I’ve noticed some of the interesting sources of light you get on a film set, weird fill light that’s bounced back off gels and things like that. This was a real opportunity to seize on those peculiar light sources and incorporate them into our film.
The story itself was made up of devised scenes which we just tweaked in the staging, and tried to cover them in single takes in order to keep up the momentum.
The fact that I’d done documen- taries before was helpful, and I must say my focus puller Rob McGregor and gaffer Ricky Davies worked fantastical- ly hard. Our challenge was to make the film look good with what we had.
Ricky and I went to great lengths to make the cinematographer in the story stand out from the lighting environ- ment, and place her in such a way that there’s something a little odd about it. Just to play a little in-joke really.
But Caroline Cooke, who plays the DP, got her own back on me. Whenever she wasn’t in a scene she’d follow me round to see what I was doing, and by the second week it had gotten very scary; I could hear myself in her per- formance. From that point on I had to edit what I said to people. ■
DAN RACK was talking to ANWAR BRETT
Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video • Exposure • 33