Page 13 - Fujifilm Exposure_23 Wildlife_ok

THE DP VIEW
NINA KELLGREN BSC
Paul Morrison showed us selected paintings from the Matisse/Picasso Exhibition, paintings with colours that were full of Mediterranean light and life, as a reference for the feel of the film.
A key concept was the idea that the Jamaican family who move into the street bring colour and life into this drab grey English environment.
The interesting visual challenge on this film was to bring together the street on location and as a build in the period and with a level of poetic reality: David’s ‘world’ rather than realism per se.
We wanted a light touch for the film which is very warm hearted although dealing with serious themes, which for me meant a smoother, softer look and a clarity of colour when it appears in the film - the colours to float on, or lift out of this rather monochromatic back- ground, very much as in painting.
With the addition of CGI sequences, a digital grade was the way to go and we chose to work with Dubois in Paris who have a fabulous showreel and, importantly for us, an empathy with the intentions of the script. The other decision was to work on Super35mm in a 2:35 format with long lenses and shallow depth of field.
I was looking for a single stock to use throughout and the 250T turned out to have everything we needed. Having shot a significant number of films with black actors I was very conscious of needing the right tonal range for all our skin tones, enough speed to cover all situations and plenty of latitude and picture infor- mation for the digital grade.
Working in commercials as well as features I am fully aware of the
possibilities of a digital grade which really helped shoot the sched- ule, knowing what we can achieve in the grade.
‘Shooting the schedule’ is always of course also down to having a great and delightful team which I was very fortunate to have, in particular, gaffer Tom Gates and focus Mark Milsome. ■
On the set of Wondrous Oblivion, a tale of leather, willow... and racial tension
ally to make a choice which side they are on. Good stories come out of con- flict and the kind of conflicts I’m inter- ested in are around identity, race and religious belief.
“In fact it’s not so much the Jewishness here as the big 21st Century thing of how do we live together on this planet as nations who can respect one another’s differences.”
Wondrous Oblivion co-stars Emily Woof and Stanley Townsend as David’s parents as well as, in a considerable casting coup, Hollywood stalwart Delroy Lindo (Malcolm X, Heist, The Cider House Rules), as the cricket-lov- ing father of the new family-next-door. It turns about that Lindo, 50, was actu- ally born of Jamaican parents in South East London before later moving with his mother to North America.
Starting life some years back as a script called Outfielder, Wondrous Oblivion didn’t, explained Morrison, “really get its final shape until the end of last year. The original ending was more bittersweet and eventually became more ‘feelgood’ in a sense that all the characters have a more satisfying journey. We got some actors together – not the ones in the final film – and did a reading. People laughed a lot and cried in the right places but we felt there was a hole in it somewhere.”
Producer Jonny Persey, Morrison’s partner in APT Films, added how after the reading the director called him and suggested the current title: “You know there’s always a moment when suddenly it all becomes real. As soon as it got a new title the film became something you could imagine an audi- ence seeing. It was a crucial turning point for us. The characters began to develop their own stories which made it much more universal in its appeal.”
After a plan to finance the £4m film through a tax incentive collapsed – “the best thing that could have hap- pened to us as it turned out’, con- firmed Persey – there were suddenly a number of companies queuing up to make it. APT finally went with ex PolyGram chief Michael Kuhn’s new company, Kuhn & Co.
“We actually closed out the deal at Cannes which is the kind of thing you’re not supposed to be able to do,” Persey laughed. Before shooting start- ed, Momentum Pictures had secured UK distribution while Pathe International was also on board to handle international sales.
APT has a number of projects in development including another one particularly close to Morrison’s heart – a romantic thriller set in Palestine during the turbulent last years of the British mandate.
“One of the exciting things about switching from documentary to drama,” he noted, “is letting your characters grow and create your sto- ries for you. Obviously my passions and concerns are going to come into these stories but the idea was to come away from purely issue-based story- telling.”
Added Persey: “To make this film now the way we’re making it is the dream; it’s how all films should be made. We’ve got distribution in place and the backing of people who’ve been commercially successful in the marketplace. It feels like it’s on a really solid base.” ■ QUENTIN FALK
Wondrous Oblivion
was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative