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IN PRODUCTION
WHERETHERE’SAWILL
OLIVER STAPLETON BSC
ON HIS TWO LATEST ASSIGNMENTS, WILL AND DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, WHICH TOOK HIM TO OPPOSITE
SIDES OF THE WORLD
he life of an itinerant, Tglobetrotting cinematographer
can offer as much contrast off screen as on. This is where the great pleasure lies, in moving
seamlessly between genres, countries and fellow filmmakers of varying experience.
In the last few years, Oliver Stapleton has shot international rom-com hit The Proposal and the thriller Unthinkable before making two films back-to-back that are quite different again: the psychological horror film Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark and the uplifting rite-of-passage Will, both originated on 35mm Fujicolor ETERNA VIVID 500T and ETERNA 500D.
Will is the story of a young football fanatic’s (newcomer Perry Eggelton) journey to the 2005 Champion’s League Final, the memorable night of Liverpool’s improbable victory over AC Milan.
But the climax of the film occurs before the first whistle; it’s the getting there that counts for the young protagonist at the heart of director Ellen Perry’s story. The journey of the film to the screen was, in some ways, no less a triumph of grit and perseverance.
“To make a film in three countries in eight weeks is a big logistical
challenge,” Stapleton confirms, “shooting in England for four weeks, Paris for one and Istanbul for three. I did have to get involved in the machinations of camera gear
and lighting and what came from where, and who came from where and what crew from where and who we were taking,
“So, of course, in prep an awful lot of our time was devoted to that and not going to look at some paintings in the National Gallery.”
Nevertheless key stylistic decisions had to be made between Stapleton and director Perry,
who also produced the film and co-wrote the script and comes from a documentary background in her native US.
“We just seemed to get on in a very natural way,” Stapleton adds.
“It was a really good collaboration from day one. On the artistic side I realised in reading the script that the film started in quite a bleak landscape of a Catholic school with all its attendant hollowness, and then it ended in a rush of red with Liverpool.
“I decided fairly early on that the basic colour of the film was going to start cool and end red, with Paris in the middle. I realised that would happen naturally, because the production designer had chosen a location for the school that was very suitable, with big rooms and lots of oak. Ellen was very keen on quite unnaturalistic lighting; she likes her beams of light.
“She’s also a great quoter: she loves to quote all the classic movies she admires. Of course, as a DP, you take that with a pinch of salt but you use it as a reference, and it stores away in your mind somewhere.
“It probably does have a little bit of influence on how you think but the more important thing is it opens up the channel of communication with the director so that you’re on the same page style wise. By the time we did the school we had a plan of how the look was going to be, and the lighting.
“We actually started the shoot with an almost in-camera trick shot.
Photo inset: DP Oliver Stapleton BSC on location outside Melbourne; main: ‘Tilt and shift’ lens test for ‘scary close-up’ on Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark with a stand-in
6 • EXPOSURE • THE MAGAZINE • FUJIFILM MOTION PICTURE
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