Page 17 - Fujifilm Exposure_34 Curse Of The Were-Rabbit_ok

Said Jones: “It was beneficial he’d also written the screenplay. His previous work has been in a similar vein and so we knew he could handle narrative well. As he’d nailed the story on the page, it was a question of surrounding him with experienced people like DP Chris Seager BSC (Sex Traffic, Archangel, State Of Play) and production designer Simon Bowles (Foyle’s War, The Cry).
“Thematically, this is Straw Dogs territory which caused quite a stir in its day. We also hope to, but not, of course, in a gratuitous way,” Jones added.
A ‘crucial step,” said Reed, “was the involvement of Gillian Anderson, who took to the script immediately. She is uncannily well-suited to playing the main part – a powerful, capable woman who sets out to cleanse the harm done to her using violence to obtain redemption. The film is about the consequences of that path.”
It turned out that Chris Seager was the first DP Reed worked with on his first-ever professional job – “as Adam Curtis’s researcher on Pandora’s Box” – in the early 90s: “He must have made a very strong impression because when I heard, all these years later, he had become available to shoot Straightheads, I leapt at the chance and offered him the job immediately.”
Seager, who combines cutting-edge TV drama with regular features – recently Stormbreaker and, currently, Paul Schrader’s UK-based latest, The Walker, with Woody Harrelson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lauren Bacall and Lily Tomlin – said that Reed first approached his agent saying “I might remember him as the totally bald-head- ed researcher I’d filmed with many years ago on a documentary in Chicago.
“What struck me about Dan even from our first meeting was his natural ability to tell a story with immense passion and vision. Working with him was a pleasure. He questioned, he pushed, he asked and he delivered. He was formidable for a first time direc- tor. I was glad I’d met this young bald- headed guy those many years ago.”
The feeling was clearly mutual.
“I could not have had a more talented, experienced and dedicated DP, and
I will always be grateful to Chris for signing up to what became a very arduous shoot indeed – although, for a change, no-one was shooting at me,” Reed laughed.
“It was a five-week shoot, six days a week, with a very punishing schedule of night shoots. On several days, the scene count was in double figures, the record being 13 scenes in a single day.
“Under these conditions, Chris came into his own and marshalled his lighting and grip teams like the general of a guerrilla army – with the result the film has the look and feel of a movie 10 times its budget.” ■ QUENTIN FALK
Straightheads was originated on Super 16mm Fujicolor Eterna 500T 8673 and Eterna 250D 8663
traightheads is not an easy story to tell. It has passion, violence, revenge and surprise intermixed with bewilderment and beauty. Along with the
production designer Simon Bowles, Dan and I embarked on the low-budg- et film’s ‘prep’ with open minds.
We spent many an evening, often around at my house, probing the script, prompting ideas, looking at DVDs and sifting through the location photos. We evolved a plan, visited the locations, and then got down to final preparation.
What attracted me most to the story was its strong visual sense. It had an edgy feel, an uneasiness, a darkness with many of its locations in the depths of the forest shot at night.
Our collective vision was ambi- tious - so what’s new! In our film, a car travels from the city to the depths of the countryside from daylight to dusk and into night and it’s here that the adventure begins.
We’d devised shots from a helicop- ter, with steadicam shots, tracking shots and stunt shots of the car in major sequences ending up at night in the woods. This costs money and we found ourselves having to decide our priorities.
This is always a painful time as the ideas and the ambition get hacked into by cost-conscious producers. This they are entitled to do as there is a finite budget to adhere to and we, the visual players, have to come up with visuals that meet the budget constraints and yet still tell the story with panache.
Funnily enough, this can in fact be quite liberating because it hones the story-telling ideas into the most visu- al, vibrant, effective and direct. Out went the helicopter and steadicam shots and we put our ‘saved’ money into the lighting equipment for the night shoots in the woods.
One of our early decisions was to shoot on Super 16mm and go the DI route in post. This gave us a versatile camera system that was mobile and light that was used to our advantage in small farmhouse locations and inte- riors of cars.
Coupled with the new Fuji Eterna 500T and 250D stocks we had a vibrant new look to our film. ■
Fujifilm Motion Picture • The Magazine • Exposure • 15
THE DP VIEW
CHRIS SEAGER BSC
S