Page 6 - Fujifilm Exposure_3 Michael Winner_ok

ROBIN VIDGEON
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A couple of years later and with a request for a pound-a-week rise denied, Vidgeon quit to go freelance and at Beaconsfield Studios, in the unlikely shadow of monstrous ring master Anton Diffring on the gorily colourful Circus Of Horrors, a remarkable collaboration was formed.
Cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, his operator Chick Waterson and Vidgeon as, first, a very lowly clapper loader - “looking after Dougie’s pulley and getting his tea on time” - then focus puller, worked on and off together for the next 25 years on films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Julia, Rollerball, The Great Gatsby, Never Say Never Again and Jesus Christ Superstar.
“We just seemed to go from film to film,” Vidgeon recalls, “and I know we were a very good team. I haven’t worked with Dougie now for a number of years but I know he’s still one of the finest cameramen there’s ever been. He has such a wonderfully perfect eye. I know I learned a great deal from him.
“I always loved the way he photographed women. I said to him once, ‘what is it with you, whatever the age, whether she’s nine or ninety, you make them look good.’ He replied, ‘if they’re nice people, there’s beauty in all ages. When you’re looking through that cam- era, placing your lights and so on, you tend to fall in love with them a bit. The more you fall in love with them, the harder you try and the better the results you end up with.’”
It was during their best years together that the team were in many ways responsible for Steven Spielberg beginning his long and extremely fruitful association with both British studios and their superb technicians.
Almost as an afterthought, because of one line in the script, a camera crew had hastily to be assembled in Europe to be sent out to India on a key sequence for Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Slocombe and his crew got the job and they and the young American director talked movies all the way to Bombay and back, almost non stop!
Spielberg who believed the old saw that all British workers merely “sat around drink- ing tea and went on strike at a whim” was happily and swiftly disabused. He enthusias- tically told the crew, “I’ve got to tell you, guys, I’ve never seen people work like you ever. I want to make films in Britain now.” The result was Raiders followed by Indiana Jones And The Temple of Doom and, five years fur- ther on, Last Crusade, by which time Vidgeon had quit the team and graduated to lighting cameraman in his own right.
Since then, there’ve been horror movies (Hellraiser, Nightbreed, The Fly II etc), fanta- sy (NeverEnding Story III) and some very classy costume dramas (August, Mr North, Lady Chatterley), to name just a few of Vidgeon’s many and varied credits for TV and
cinema.
At least two of those were for first-time
feature directors rather better known in other capacities. Vidgeon had first worked with Anthony Hopkins nearly 30
years earlier on the actor’s first-
ever film, The Lion In Winter. Now, with August on location in windswept and wet North Wales, the DP was enormously impressed by the amount of preparation undertaken by the debutant director.
“Tony had worked out many
shots and sequences for the film
and in the many meetings we
had before filming started, ideas
continued to pour out of him like
a waterfall. One of the problems,
though, was that he still seemed
to be seeing it from the other
side of the camera. So in order to
make complete sense of it, I had
to learn quickly too. I also dis-
covered that he hated close-ups
on himself and would also tend to cut away from himself a little too quickly at times. ‘Just let it run on a bit,’ I would occasionally say to him.
Another first-timer was horror novelist Clive Barker who’d adapted his own novel for Hellraiser which became a cult hit and also spawned a small industry in its own right. According to Vidgeon: “It was really exciting working with someone who had such a bright mind even if it is, to some, really rather warped. He allowed me my own head because horror only really works when you don’t see too much. That’s why one can go overboard on mood, that’s what the sets said and that’s what we did on Hellraiser. It must have worked for him because we did the next two with him as well.”
His work over the years for Ken Russell, in particular, has run the gamut of big and small screen from the days Vidgeon was focus puller on the flamboyant director’s first-ever feature, French Dressing, in 1964. More recently, there’s been Chatterley of course as well as TV specials about com- posers Bax, Bruckner and Martinu.
The Cooksons are again both period pieces - the latest is set between 1952 and the mid 60s - and Vidgeon makes a point of trying to play down the difference between shoot- ing for cinema and TV.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s no differ- erent. I light the same way, I use the same lamps. I direct light, don’t bounce it while try- ing to create mood. The shows come in at around £700,000 per episode, so at three one- hours that’s quite a lot of money - a feature film, in fact. That’s how I see it.
“I’ve used Fuji stock for ages now
because I like the fresh tones and because the speeds are exactly what they say they are. Some of the other motion picture manu- facturers put a film speed on the can but that
often seems to be just for guidance. The true speed is what I absolutely rely on.”
Asked if there is such as thing as a “Robin Vidgeon style”, he’ll tell you that it “all comes down to a little word ‘discipline.’ However much the stock manufacturers tell you about film’s latititude, scientists designed it to be used at one particular point that is its optimum performance. That should always be your guideline.
“You shouldn’t be able to walk on a set and say, ‘I’ll do this but it’s not quite right so I’ll fix it later in post-production. In rushes or digital tape I expect to see what I pho- tographed, not altered, not changed by a grader or telecine operator. I’d like to be able to say, “right, print it all on one light.’ That’s what I want and that’s the goal everyone strives for.” ■ QUENTIN FALK
Colour Blind, Hellraiser, Nightbreed,
Photos:main-AnthonyHopkinswithKateBurton,andinset:withGawnGraingerinAugust -CliveBarker’sHellraiser
EXPOSURE • 6 & 7