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SEEING IN THE DARK
SEEING IN THE DARK
An interview with Fred Tammes BSC
If only reel life were always an autumn afternoon in a Tuscan villa. That would be the ideal for a veteran cameraman who has often had to shed light in many of cinema and televi- sion’s darker corners.
Tammes, 63, has worked prolifical- ly here for nearly 20 years ever
since quitting his native Holland
at the turn of the eighties, com- bining features (The Shooting
Party, The Whistleblower etc) with acclaimed TV including The Man Who Cried and, most recently, his own BAFTA-winning Wives And Daughters.
This gorgeous adaptation of the 19th Century Mrs Gaskell novel, his first big costume ser- ial for the small screen, was not just a welcome change of subject matter – “I’d got a bit tired of all the gritty business,” Tammes admits – but also a chance to collaborate again with director Nick Renton. They’d first worked together on A Landing On The Sun fol- lowed by eleven episodes of Hamish Macbeth.
Renton’s brief was “a sort of reality, not the glossy stuff. It was a major challenge for me. In those days, for example, if people weren’t rich they’d blow out candles if they didn’t need them. In other words, there was no reason to have lots of candlelight just for the sake of it. Instead, we’d try and use natural light where possible. I kept thinking about that Terry Pratchett line, ‘To make the darkness visible, you need light’. It seemed particularly appro- priate here.”
Tammes sets great store by regu- lar collaboration – for that reason he actively dislikes commercials because, he says, they are usually dictated by too many opinionated chiefs – which accounts for his often remarkable ongoing work with direc- tor Antonia Bird.
They first met on an ITV series Tecx before combining again on no fewer than, to date, five other pro- jects such as A Masculine Ending, Safe, Face, Priest and Mad Love, co- starring American teen pair Chris O’Donnell and Drew Barrymore. The last, shot out of Hollywood, would
“However, she stood up for me, and eventually the Hollywood ‘suits’ had another film to think about so the atten- tion moved off me. After that we enjoyed ourselves much more on the film.”
For Tammes, Bird “always comes up with the unexpected, that ability to surprise – which I find remarkable
How do you shoot “intense”? “Perhaps the most intense of our films together has been Priest which I lit and operated; this makes you even more focused on what you’re doing. I knew what she was after and could ‘translate’ that. Sometimes you must even be prepared to give up
certain ‘qualities’ with the light- ing and just go for it.”
It’s also about shooting faces, “but not the usual TV way where close-shots are very overdone. Faces should always be against a setting. I’m espe- cially proud of one shot in Wives & Daughters where, in the far distance on a wide land- scape, there was a girl in a red dress riding a horse across the screen. That wouldn’t normally be done on TV, but it worked. In this new digital age, directors shouldn’t ever be scared of going wide.”
Mad Love was Tammes’ sec- ond trip to Tinseltown, not
counting the odd commer- cial and documentary. The first was intended to be on back-to-back assignments
but, in the great tradition, the projects suddenly fell through. However he was persuaded to stay on in California and join some
stuntmen-turned-produc- ers on Best Of The Best
II which, for those in
the street-fighting know, was actually an action-packed
improvement on the original from four years earlier.
Tammes’ operator had worked on the first film and so knew how to han- dle the fights: “It was a good team. I stayed on for the rough cut then left. At this point, the editor said, ‘Let’s cut out the acting bits...’”
Born in a small village just outside Amsterdam, Tammes studied geology at university before being steered by a friend’s helpful suggestion towards
have ideally contained Bird’s trade- mark grittiness if it hadn’t been for constant studio interference.
“You were aware,” says Tammes, “that there was this studio commit- tee telephoning from some room complaining that ‘it was too dark... O’Donnell’s not clean shaven... Drew’s mascara shouldn’t run...’ We’d been shooting for four weeks in the desert, yet Chris and Drew had to look beautiful all the time. There was no reality.”
It also seemed as if the politics might also curtail the cinematograph- er’s West Coast stay altogether: “There were these little games going on and it got to July the Fourth and Antonia told me that they planned to fire me over the holiday weekend which would give her a chance to introduce the new guy.
when you are working with that director every day.” Bird’s recipro- cal testimonial is even more flatter- ing: “He’s quite brilliant, keeps grow- ing, is excitedly challenged by the new technology and always game to be experimental.”
Their work together is charac- terised by an almost tangible intensity – not just of the subject matter but of its visual presentation.
Photos opposite page: Fred Tammes BSC on the set of Best Of The Best ll; above main: The cast of The Shooting Party and inset, with James Mason on location
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