Page 13 - Fujifilm Exposure_5 The Wings Of The Dove_ok

SUE GIBSON
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Gibson found this experience invaluable: “You end up learning how people can help you, and that was really enormously useful to me.”
But becoming a part of that world proved a long and arduous process, as she waited seven years for her chance to be DP on a feature. Working on commercials, Gibson championed Fuji color stocks from the beginning of her career.
“I first shot on Fujicolor when I was at film school and really liked it,” she continues, “and it just got to the stage when I started lighting where I was happy to go out on a limb and go with what I wanted to use. At the time I was doing one job on fairly big sets and knew I was at the extreme capa- bility of the lights. Fuji had the fastest film stock available which was 500 ASA, so I used that.
“But the more I used it the more I liked it, and you develop a style and an intuition for certain stocks and it became the case that I preferred working with Fujicolor because it suited the way that I lit. I knew what colours and I knew what con- trasts it would give me. I know it keeps changing over the years, and it does affect the way every- thing looks, but as all film stocks are changing so the look of films and the way you light them changes with them.”
On Mrs Dalloway, a film centred around one day in the life of a 1920s English politician’s wife (played past and present by Vanessa Redgrave and Natascha McElhone) that features numerous flashbacks to her life 30 years before, Gibson set about meeting the challenge of recreating two dis- tinctly different time periods.
“The 1920s was designed with pastel colours, and had quite an airy feeling while the 1890s was obviously Victorian, with dark, more intense colours. In order to achieve this contrast, and purely as an experiment, I shot all the 1890s stuff on Kodak and the main bulk of the film on Fuji. That gave both sections a completely different look without having to be too manipulative. It actually got the best qualities out of each film stock. Fuji loves greens and is actually quite a soft- er stock than Kodak, which I like.”
The result, like any good cinematography is sublime, subtly affecting the tone and mood rather than jarring the audience into a recognition of what has been done. Adapted from a novella by Virginia Woolf, the film, directed by Dutch Oscar winner Marleen Gorris, is filled with such touches, and always looks wonderful in spite of an increas- ingly wayward story.
“The book is basically this stream-of-con- sciousness story,” she nods, “it’s Mrs Dalloway narrating her way through a day in her life and thinking about her past. In some respects it’s a very difficult thing to put onto film. And also to make a film where pretty much everything occurs on the same day. Matching everything was diffi- cult, and of course, true to style, it rained when we didn’t want it to. Add to that the difficulties of making a period film in London, and the headaches were multiplied further.
“Actually all the location work was very straightforward. The police were brilliant, they closed off Bedford Square on a Saturday so that we could drive our bus around and around, and we found a lovely original Robert Adams house on Fitzroy Square that provided us with exteriors and interiors. Luckily the square was pedestrianised so that made things much easier.
“The house had just been moved into by a young couple, they were rattling around in about 30 rooms, so I think they were quite happy that we
came in and gave them lots of money to film there. And, oddly enough, somebody told me that in fact Virginia Woolf had actually resided in the house directly opposite, which was an added incentive.”
In some ways Mrs Dalloway marks a milestone for Sue Gibson, the fulfilment of the early promise she showed on her debut film Hear My Song which, along with her work on Secret Friends, earned her an Evening Standard Film Award for Outstanding Technical Achievement. And justly so, although she looks back on the demands of a tricky shoot with a good-natured groan.
“Working with Peter Chelsom was great,” she smiles, “we’d worked on commercials quite a lot before that and knew each other quite well already. At one point he actually said: ‘we haven’t actually talked about how this will look - but I trust you!’ It’s very refreshing to work with that trust, the feeling that you’re working on the same pro- ject with like minded professionals.
“But I have to admit that the biggest night- mare of all was shooting day for night on a crucial cliff top scene in the film. There was obviously no way we could do the wide shots at night, so they were done at dusk, but the close ups were day for night. All that means is you’re turning the sun into the moon - so you need strong sunlight, and if you haven’t got it you need to make your own. It did- n’t help that we shot the whole thing three or four weeks apart, and the first time had been a bit of a disaster. It was a desperately dull day, terribly overcast and I said it wouldn’t work. I was over- ruled, but was proved right.
“Also we had to match scenes on the clifftops shot on the west coast of Ireland with close ups done in Dublin so I was constantly referring back and wondering what it looked like. Of course, the nicest thing is that people watched the film and didn’t realise any of this.”
After such a long struggle to achieve her ambi- tion, Hear My Song proved a wonderful vindica- tion. A hit that presaged the current revival in British cinema it marked Sue Gibson out as a tal- ent to watch, and it is a film that she looks back on with much affection and gratitude.
“It was wonderful, and of course winning the Standard award was just the boost I needed after waiting so long before doing my first feature. It was a lovely feeling.” ■ ANWAR BRETT
Hear My Song and sections of Mrs Dalloway were originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative.