Page 30 - Fujifilm Exposure_20 Bend It Like Beckham_ok

The Heart
The Heart
of the Matter
of the Matter
An interview with David Higgs
W hile high standards have been upper-
most in our minds, at the same time we are working within prac- tical restraints.” That’s cinematogra-
pher David Higgs summarising the old familiar story in a glossily
enjoyable Making Of brochure produced to accompany a
1994 Channel 4 Schools pro- duction of Romeo And Juliet. This Tetra Films version
of Shakespeare’s play – directed by Alan Horrox at Jacob Street Studios by Tower Bridge with a cast including John Nettles, Jonathan Firth, Geraldine Somerville and Jenny Agutter – was soon followed by The Merchant Of Venice, starring the late Bob Peck.
For Higgs, then in his early thirties, they marked his first “grown-up” drama following his breakthrough working with mostly much younger actors on 25 episodes of The Tomorrow People, a revival of the cult children’s TV series from the 70s.
Eight years on, Higgs is very much one of today’s people, an admired
cameraman who has worked on some of the more intriguing small-screen films of the past few years. There have been back-to-back RTS Best Cinematography nominations for Nature Boy and The Russian Bride, while his latest, Night Flight, recently premiered on the BBC.
in terms of very legitimate concerns about health and safety – and the con- tinuing desire to realise big produc- tion values.
“Everything seems to be done backwards. It all seems to start with a fixed amount of time rather than someone breaking down the script
and then scheduling to what that script actually demands in terms of proper time. That’s the way it ought to work.”
Higgs has certainly had plenty of time to ponder variations on that particular dichotomy having been a freelance cameraman since the age of 21. He was, in fact, still in his teens when he first determined on his future career course even though he had no useful fam- ily connections and was for-
ever being told it was, effectively, a “closed shop.”
As a corrective to his first job “in timber, which I didn’t enjoy”, he con- tinued to pursue his “own thing” on super8 and then after buying a second hand 16mm camera helped make a film of a student friend’s fashion show. That in turn led to more part-time film
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Referring back to his brief analysis of the time-honoured issue about rec- onciling style and speed, Higgs, who recently completed a new series of the Inspector Lynley Mysteries for the Beeb, carefully develops the theme:
“The time we are allowed to shoot hasn’t changed as much as things like the actual complexity of filming – say,
Photos above: Director Nick Renton and DP David Higgs; main: David Higgs (centre) at work on Night Flight
EXPOSURE • 28 & 29