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CROSSING
CONTINENTS An interview with Paul Englefield
Had things worked out a little differently for cinematographer Paul Englefield, he might have found himself working his way up the industry in America rather than here.
Armed with a degree in Fine Art from Portsmouth Polytechnic, Englefield head- ed for America’s West Coast after being accepted for an MA course at the California Institute Of The Arts.
“I wouldn’t have had to pay fees, but that was the extent of the offer they made,” the 45-year-old now recalls.
But in one of those life
changing moments, a cross-
roads at which you might go
in one of two quite different directions, he decided to turn
his back on the land of
opportunity and return to sunny Soho to pursue his career in the UK.
“I always wonder in retrospect whether I should have stuck it out,” Englefield says, with a wry smile. “But I would have been a very poor stu- dent, financially, in comparison to everybody else.”
“From having been a student in Portsmouth to standing in this mas- sive car park in LA filled with expen- sive convertibles was a real eye opener. But my contacts were in London, people who’d been at Portsmouth with me were out work- ing with clapper loaders so I had
somewhere to start and a few doors I knew I could knock on.
“I still had to work my way up and realised I had a lot to learn. I started out as loader and then became a focus puller, taking the opportunity to start shooting some stuff of my own while I was still doing that.”
some films with Roger as well and I was learning all the time.
“I was also fortunate to work with a couple of American DPs, like Haskell Wexler on an IMAX film of a Rolling Stones tour. As you progress you’re inevitably going to imitate what you’ve seen done successfully.
Until you find your own feet, and your own vocab- ulary, you’re going to learn from your peers and take the opportunity to work with people like that.”
Working on the camera crew of a variety of second unit features, Englefield also began to cut his cine- matographic teeth on com- mercials, documentaries and short films. Notable successes include A Bill Called William (shot on a combination of Super 16 and Super 8) which result-
ed in Englefield’s nomination for a Royal Television Society award. Secret Loves was part of the Cutting Edge strand, Easy was a Channel 4/Anglia TV co-production while the acclaimed Slave Nation was shown over three episodes on Channel 4.
All were directed by longtime friend and collaborator Alex Harvey, with whom Englefield also worked on the recent drama The Lives of Animals.
Add to that a pair of BAFTA nomi- nated short films, The Fiancé (also for Harvey) and Cabbage (for director David Stewart), the as yet unreleased feature The Van Boys and a clutch of
continued over
An academic grounding is one thing, on-the-job experience is quite another. Hardened industry veterans typically favour the latter over the former any- way and Englefield admits that his entry into the profession was more of a start than an end to his education in film.
“I went off and did a variety of things,” Englefield adds. “I worked with Dick Pope as a focus puller at that time just as he was moving from documentaries to TV dramas and fea- tures. And Roger Deakins was a part- ner in a company with him so there were a lot of opportunities to work with him too. I did second unit on
Photos main: Paul Englefield; inset above: the BAFTA nominated short film The Fiancé
EXPOSURE • 20 & 21