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LUKAS STREBEL SCS
“These stocks really helped me incredibly, because they’re so forgiving. They let me be creative, let me be exactly the cook I want to be.”
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love operating the second. I just want to be there on the face, on the emotion. You can’t see on the monitor what I see through the lens, the world reflected in the artist’s eye.”
The emotions glimpsed in his new production, See No Evil, will be hard for some to bear. For this is the factu- ally-based Granada film – written by Neil McKay and directed by Christopher Menaul (Prime Suspect) – that tells of the Moors Murders and their aftermath. Maxine Peake plays Myra Hindley, Sean Harris portrays Ian Brady while Joanne Froggatt plays Myra’s sister Maureen and Michael McNulty is her husband David Smith.
The lens of Strebel’s camera was, necessarily, unflinching. Shooting mostly on the Reala 500D 8692, he was surprised how well the stock stood up in the changeable weather in locations that included the grim venue of the murders themselves on Saddleworth Moor.
“We shot in the winter,” he recalls, “when sometimes it’s already getting dark at 3 o’clock. There were times when I even pushed it one stop, which was great, I was happy to have some grain, I wanted it to be gritty and real. I didn’t want it slick at all. We had such bad weather that at one point we had to stop, go home and then go back and pick up the scene. We had huge light changes in certain scenes with maybe four pages of dialogue, which can go over half a day.”
Strebel elected to shoot the studio day interiors on daylight, knowing that his HMI lights would offer suffi- cient colour contrast for other light sources in the scenes. “We shot a lot in the studio,” he continues, “includ- ing most of the interiors. That way, we had total control.”
As a long time Fuji user, in produc- tions in his native Switzerland and across Europe from 1982, Strebel is impressed at the faster stocks being produced that maintain a qualitative difference between film and the rapid- ly advancing digital formats.
“The Reala 500 Daylight and the new Eterna 500T stock has this incred- ible range and flexibility,” he contin-
ues. “I’m into creating a mood, an atmosphere, but I never over-light. These stocks really helped me incredi- bly, because they’re so forgiving. They let me be creative, let me be exactly the cook I want to be. I don’t like to overcook things, I like to keep the sim- plicity and goodness in things.
“It’s incredible that 10 years ago when people were saying it was all going to be HiDef and everything would be digital, that film got so cre- ative. People are always developing new solutions. And the Eterna stocks are a new thing; it’s different technolo- gy, which allows so much more and is so much more forgiving. You never, ever have that on digital.”
Having entered the film business relatively late, Strebel has wasted no time in building his reputation, with a number of features abroad and UK productions including The Scarlet Pimpernel, Murphy’s Law and Wall Of Silence.
His profile has risen even higher with the diversity of Blackpool, the Ray Winstone vehicle, Vincent, Planespotting, Funland and The Lazarus Child. See No Evil is another step in a career that continues to develop very nicely, even if there is some small irony in having him work so closely on such a harrowing episode in British criminal history.
“From my point of view, of the three scripts I’ve done with the writer Neil McKay – Planespotting, Wall Of Silence and See No Evil, the latest is the best of the lot.”
“Obviously there many stories I come across here where, as someone from the continent, I have a different approach,” he adds. “Maybe I can see things from a different perspective, because other people are so closely involved in it.” ■ ANWAR BRETT
See No Evil was originated on 16mm Fujicolor Eterna 500T 8673, Eterna 250D 8663 and Reala 500D 8692.
Photo top and above left: Lukas Strebel SCS on the set centre: a scene from Funland (photo courtesy BBC): Sean Harris as Ian Brady and Maxine Peake as Myra Hindley
of Opera Ball; in See No Evil
22 • Exposure • The Magazine • Fujifilm Motion Picture