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THE WIND OF
THE WIND OF
CHANGE
CHANGE
An interview with Andy Collins
In some ways it doesn’t seem like a job for a grown man. Charged with cinematographi- cally representing the power- ful flatulent forces of a young boy destined for greatness, Andy Collins may well have asked himself this question.
Utilising a technique that his operator, Chris Plevin, had picked up while shooting Spielberg’s World War Two-set Band Of Brothers, Collins and his team managed to convey the full force of hero Patrick Smash’s fart power for the colourfully titled
T h u n d e r p an t s .
“We constructed a device called the thunderplate,” says Collins, “and put the camera on top of it, so that whenever he lets one go the camera just shakes in that Star Trek fashion. But it really depended on the scale of fart required. If it was a little ‘parp’ we would wobble the camera by hand, but if it was a full on blast we’d give it plenty.
“It was fairly comical. We had a couple of days in these theatres where Patrick Smash (newcomer Bruce Cook) is providing the high notes for an operatic tenor. So everyone turns up, we’re recording away, and on cue, Patrick lets one go.
“And without anyone saying any- thing, as soon as he farted, both the cameras we had running started shak- ing really violently. For people who didn’t know what was going on, it must have looked really bizarre.”
In the film, directed by Peter Hewitt, Patrick Smash feels like an out- sider due to this very peculiar talent. He has one true friend, Alan A. Allen
(played by Harry Potter co-star Rupert Grint) and a dream of one day achieving greatness. This he does, rather improbably, when he is recruit- ed by NASA and finds his gift being put to use in the field of rocket tech-
Fuji stocks, as well as an ‘antique suede’ filter for most of the scenes, he was also constantly aware of the limi- tations of a £5 million budget.
“There are time constraints on locations when it might not be quite
ever said ‘let’s blow ass!’ on Apollo 13.” There is a pleasing symmetry to
Collins’ career. The 40 year old gradu- ate of the National Film School has maintained productive relationships with his peers from those days when he was just starting out. He worked with Peter Hewitt on his award win- ning student film The Candy Show.
And going back even further, to his time at Leeds Polytechnic, Collins befriended fellow student Mark Herman who later gave him his feature break when he hired him to shoot Brassed Off.
“I’d come from an art and photog- raphy background,” he continues, “and had a degree in graphic design already. So I was always interested in the visual side of things. I’ve actually got a school report from when I was 12, where my photography teacher says ‘maybe he should consider a career in films’.
“I can remember watching Clapperboard with Chris Kelly, where he had a behind-the-scenes report from The Spy Who Loved Me. They were all running about and all the pyros were going off, and I thought it looked like a good laugh. It was from about then that I knew I wanted to be involved in films.”
Upon getting his degree from Leeds Poly, and after his subsequent graduation from the National Film School, Collins was asked to travel to Africa, to shoot footage at the Africa Nations Cup for the soccer fanzine show Standing Room Only. After com- ing home, he shot and some of the BBC 2 series of Rough Guides, the kind of job that offers a solid grounding for
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nology.
For Collins the challenge did not
end with the output from Patrick’s nether regions. In a similar way to Hewitt’s previous film, The Borrowers, Thunderpants occupies a strangely familiar yet oddly unspecific time and place, something Collins describes as a ‘Beano style England’. Using various
right. You can’t help thinking that on Apollo 13 they built their control room and had weeks to light it.
“We were at the National Grid in St Albans, and we had two days to do exactly the same amount of work and the same amount of shots. It was a very similar sequence in lots of ways. The only difference is, I don’t think anyone
Photos inset: Bruce Cook in Thunderpants and main: Andy Collins at work
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