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behind the camera
THE WELSH
CONNECTION An interview with David Bennett
I f patience is the pre-requisite of a good cinematographer,
then the omens for David Bennett are very good indeed. A 25-year BBC veteran who left the corporation in 1995 to go freelance, he struck paydirt
with his first feature, Human Traffic. The film went on to enjoy a success
that belied its meagre budget. It made its writer-director Justin Kerrigan a hot property, and rewarded Bennett with a BAFTA Cymru award earlier this year for best drama photography, as well as a similar award at the Dinard Film Festival. All of which was due reward for the craft and experience that Bennett brought to the project.
“I think every DP probably has ambitions to do a feature,” he says, “it’s the ultimate challenge really. Human Traffic was one of the best things that ever happened to me, with the friends I made, the contacts I made, and also for the enjoyable experience of working with a young director.”
Now 52, Bennett would not pro- fess to be the obvious choice for a hip young filmmaker trying to get his highly personal, vaguely controver- sial debut film - set in drug-fuelled clubland - made.
So when he met with 23 year old Kerrigan to discuss the possibility of working together they must have made an unlikely looking pair.
“His script was incredible,” Bennett enthuses, “one of the best things I’ve ever read. They had no money, and it was a typical low budget feature, but I listened to this guy and I was willing to do it for nothing, to be honest.
“I absolutely loved the guy. He had to see a lot of other cameramen, but when I left I said to him ‘the only advice I would give you is that you stick as closely to your script as you can, stay as true to it as you can and I truly wish you the best of luck. I think it’s just brilliant’.
“Later that afternoon I got a phone call asking if I’d go back and see him. Justin asked if I’d consider working on it, and I said it would be a pleasure. Then we spent three weeks together down in Cardiff going over 2000 story- boards. We did a twelve hour day, no telephones allowed, and thrashed the whole thing out. And off it went. The rest was a pleasure. And yes, I did feel like his brother, his father, his friend, and his DP.”
The affinity shared by the two men may have something to do with a com-
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