Page 17 - Fujifilm Exposure_20 Bend It Like Beckham_ok

FOR THE STARS
cover story
FOR THE STARS
for his distinguished work with direc- tor Ang Lee on a pair of Oscar-nomi- nated films, The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman.
If What’s Cooking? seemed to have a convoluted financing structure then Beckham is no less “complicated”, according to line producer Paul Ritchie,
who recently worked on films like Dead Babies, Large and Me Without You.
A multi-partnered co-production with elements ranging from the Film Council and BSkyB to the Hamburg Film Fund and Wim Wenders’ Road Movies, a German location “spend” was a vital ingredient of the £2.7 mil- lion “action comedy-drama.”
Said Ritchie: “We have had to dodge some fairly large bullets during shooting. There was a terrible first wet weekend, then we were in studios when temperatures regularly topped 100 degrees. Poor Parminder got a cold sore so we had to stop filming for three days.
“Gurinder was keen to make this as glossy as possible so we’ve shot scenes in Southall that make it look like LA. The idea was to take that kind of reality that’s typically British then raise it by about 30 per cent. Because the Fuji stock is so good for Asian skin tones and greens, that worked perfect- ly for us here.
Added Chadha: “There are all dif- ferent shades of brown, even within the same scene. Six Indian women can all be different shades and what was so great about Fuji on Bhaji was that it held those skin tones so beautifully.
The new stock is even better. If you add the green grass and the girls’ red shirts, it looks really superb.
Ritchie said: “In terms of the ‘look’, we took as our point of reference American Beauty because this is also suburban but Gurinder didn’t want to make it look like just a British kitchen sink drama. It had to be slick and fast.
“The last thing we want to do,” emphasised Ritchie, “is turn out another dreary British film – which we’ve been doing rather a lot lately. We hope this will break the mould.”
Although football is an integral part of the script, Chadha wanted to focus essentially on the girls and their family lives.
“Although I do believe it’s a very different time now for girls, in other ways this is my most autobiographical film to date. Not only is the film set in Southall where I grew up but the rela- tionship between Jess and her father is very similar to mine with my late father. I made this film as a tribute to him.” ■ QUENTIN FALK
Bend It Like Beckham, to be released in the UK in April, and Bhaji On The Beach were originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative
THE DP VIEW
JONG LIN
Ioften devise my own equipment and I used something called the Wego on Bend It Like Beckham for the first time. It is similar to a Steadicam device but it has to be operated by two people, so it means ‘We go together’. [Wego, get it?] The main benefit is that this rig can be used for very low angle moving shoots at extremely fast speeds.
Because the Wego is operated by two persons, it also reduces the weight and it can run just a few inches above the ground. We used it for things like the football POV shots, or other fast-moving shots at a low angle. The result is a sharp-looking steadi- ness rather than a floating sort of steadiness. Instead of the usual high angle shots, the Wego helped create a new ‘look’ for shooting soccer.
This was my first movie in the UK and I cannot understand why more major films aren’t made here because there is so much creative talent.
As for the famous weather, Gurinder and Paul [Mayeda Berges] had warned me about problems with British grey skies. In the end I found the only solution was to pray to God - and my gaffer Lou to pray to Stanley Kubrick. And Lou said they both heard us. So we actually got some great sunny days on film. ■
Photos main: Parminder Nagra as Jess in Bend It Like Beckham; above left: Keira Knightley and All Saints singing star Shaznay Lewis; above right: Writer-Director Gurinder Chadha