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JADE: PORTRAITOFATEENAGEGIRL
A BERLIN FESTIVAL SILVER BEAR WINNER LAST YEAR,
DANIEL ELLIOTT’S 15-MINUTE LIVE-ACTION SHORT JADE
WAS NOMINATED FOR A BAFTA THIS YEAR AS WELL AS
BEING NOMINATED FOR FUJIFILM SHORTS 2010
SHORT FOCUS
he UK Film Council’s New TCinema Fund supported short
film Jade, co-starring Aisling Loftus, Jonathan Phillips and Michael Socha, tells the story
of a teenage girl facing up to a dilemma in her life with her much older boyfriend.
The Berlin jury had commented: “We were taken by the individual drama of a young woman and by the condensed form of the film. It is a subtle story which captured us from its innocent beginning until its open minded ending.”
Shot on location in and around Blyth, Northumberland, Jade was produced by Newcastle-based Third Films’ Samm Haillay and by Duane Hopkins, the producer and director, respectively, of the award-winning feature Better Things.
Photos above: Aisling Loftus as Jade
THE DP VIEW
LOL CRAWLEY
Jade was now my third happy collaboration with Daniel Elliott and from early on I knew
t“hat Dan’s very definite ideas about how he would finally edit the scenes would often dictate the coverage and framing within a scene.
Far from feeling prescriptive, this strong directorial approach set a great framework for me to work to and as I was operating and lighting meant that the cinematography could be a true collaboration.
One of my favourite scenes begins with an unusual framing of a
light fitting hanging from a bedroom ceiling. We cut to a shot of Jade lying on a bed to reveal that what we have just seen is her POV.
This location was a small bedroom in a terrace house and was scheduled for the last few hours of remaining daylight. Its second floor placement and lack of time and budget made it impossible to light through the only window and the light blue walls greatly lifted the fill light within the room.
My approach was to cover three of the four walls with large pieces of black drape and this use of negative fill increased the contrast whilst simply utilising the soft available daylight. No film lighting was needed to complete the scene.
Although we didn’t storyboard we spent time in the locations shooting framings on a digital stills camera. For filming, one of my choices was to use wider lenses closer to the subject, the 18mm in particular shot wide open, which allowed for a shallower depth of field but also a wide enough angle of
“I WAS VERY HAPPY
WITH THE ETERNA 400T’S
UNIQUE RENDERING OF
COLOUR AND LOWER
CONTRAST UNDER
A VARIETY OF
EVER-CHANGING
LIGHTING CONDITIONS.”
view to still give a sense of the central characters’ environment.
Resisting the use of hand held for this realist subject matter Dan stipulated that the camera should not move in some of the more intimate scenes but should instead let the action move within the frame resulting in unusual composition.
I chose to shoot on the 16mm Fujifilm ETERNA 400T for all scenes in the film because I wanted a consistency of look from scene to scene and I was very happy with its unique rendering of colour and lower contrast under a variety of ever-changing lighting conditions.
This stock was teamed with a comprehensive SR3 package from
Arri Media, a set of Zeiss T1.3 superspeed lenses and a basic
filter package consisting of ND,
ND Grad, CC and Pola filters. ”
Jade was originated on 16mm Fujicolor ETERNA 400T 8683
FUJIFILM MOTION PICTURE • THE MAGAZINE • EXPOSURE • 9