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“As far as the narrative mode of the film is concerned, you can no more turn your back on the cine- matography of your own era than if you were a composer trying to write in the style of Mozart. Then it just becomes pastiche which I certainly don’t want it to do. We should use the narratives of our own time in the way we use the camera and cut the film.”
Cinematographer Henry Braham BSC, whose recent work on the BAFTA- nominated Shackleton also won him an Emmy Award, added: “The thing throughout is trying to get scale into it. It’s a ‘movie’ not just a talking heads piece. The tough bit can be try- ing to make it look big. It’s hard work but fantastically enjoyable.
“Stephen is a complete natural. He does that wonderful thing that if you argue your case about something and he accepts that argument he’ll then repeat that argument to other people. That’s a great way of communicating. It’s re- assuring to you that all the points have been taken on board that everyone else understands the reason for a decision.
“On the other, you also rather hope that people who wouldn’t naturally go to a film because it reeks of ‘periodici- ty’ might be drawn to this one because it’s about the young, par- ties... and because it’s fast in the way the period was fast.
“I used to feel rather guilty in the early days of production telling the actors to ‘do it faster.’ It sounded a rather banal and cheap piece of direc- tion instead of squatting down and saying, ‘he feels this or she feels that.’
“But ‘fast’ is a kind of character in the film. Speed does something quite extraor- dinary to the way people perform. Just watch those great old screwball come- dies and the pace is breathtaking.
“Yes, I have taken a lot of liberties with the novel and added a complete dif- ferent ending. He ended it in a wasteland of despair and surreal black comedy. “My world view isn’t the same as Waugh’s. His was very bleak and pes- simistic. I’m more a comic spirit than him – by which I don’t mean funnier. He did- n’t believe people could be saved by lov- ing each other, or by kindness or by any
THE DP VIEW
HENRY BRAHAM BSC
s you can imagine, Stephen Fry is incredibly lucid and precise as well as being smart and insightful. Yes, he’s making a film set in the
Thirties but the point is he wants it to have energy and also be irrever- ent to the period.
A contemporary-looking period film? Exactly. Mind you, it’s quite a pressure to make it feel contemporary.
The final ‘look’ is probably less to do with the light and more to do with the editing.
My operator Philip Sindall – we worked together before on The Land Girls – has been doing the backbone of the story and I’ve been running my own camera as a kind of ‘muck- about’ camera in the corner of the set. Nine times out of ten it’s com- pletely in the wrong place, but just
occasionally you get something good. David Lean said that good photog- raphy is about good editing but given
that this is a comparatively small film, which by definition means limit- ed time, the material we’re shooting inevitably defines the choices the editor will have.
How do you make it look ‘mod- ern’? You make it look real. You build every source of light into the set. Wherever the light’s coming from, it’s coming from somewhere specific in the set that you see as the audience. My take on it is, you treat it in the same way as your eye sees it. The film needs to sparkle. Of course, with the night shots that’s easy. Incidentally, we’ve shot the whole film on the 500 Tungsten.
I’m lucky to have worked before on Shackleton with Michael Howells because we’re exactly on the same
wavelength. He’s absolutely brilliant at colour and he also completely understands about the source-of-light issue. You can discuss where the light’s going to come from and put all the sources of light in. After that, really, your work’s done. ■
“He’s also abided by that golden rule of ‘cast well’, by which I mean both the actors and the crew. If you get both things right, you can sit back, enjoy it and just keep pushing people.”
Finally, back to Fry as he reflected on his film-making debut: “Naturally you hope not to fall between two stools. On the one hand, you don’t want to alienate the people who would go to see, say, Gosford Park or the Merchant Ivory films.
natural human goodness. He believed in the malice of time and chance.
“The money people had legitimate questions about all this. Why should we care for these people? I made it clear I wanted to be shamelessly romantic. I’ve made sure there’s a love story at the heart of it, and I’m not embarrassed about that.” ■ QUENTIN FALK
Bright Young Things
was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative
If you don’t pull it off, you’re set- ting yourself up for a good kicking, and you never quite know if it’s going to work until it’s cut. You can’t be doing snazzy shots all the time because it’s annoying and, fundamentally, you’ve got to connect with the characters.
“IT’S ABOUT PARTIES, ABOUT FUN, ABOUT DRINK, DRUGS, FAST CARS, INCREDIBLY FAST MUSIC AND ABOUT BEING PHOTOGRAPHED IN THE NEWSPAPERS.”
Photos above l-r: Stephen Fry and DP Henry Braham BSC on location; A scene from Bright Young Things; Stephen Fry planning his next shot; Henry Braham behind the camera
20 • Exposure • Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video