Page 17 - Fujifilm Exposure_16 Bob The Builder_ok

j
r ‘ I
f
Juliet Stevenson and Alan Howard in Life Story; Dunn with Monkeybone director Henry Selick; on the set of Hush; Anthony Hopkins in Across The Lake; Nicole Kidman, Goran Visnjic and Sandra Bullock in Practical Magic; with operator Mitch Dubin and the girls on Monkeybone; Bob Peck and Joe Don Baker in Edge Of Darkness; Nigel Hawthorne and Helen Mirren in The Madness Of King George; Colin Firth in Tumbledown - (Photos courtesy Moviestore and BBC TV prods are copyright © BBC)
caution won the day. “I still wanted to make sure I had enough ‘form’. I tend to think of everything in terms of run- ners and riders and I wanted to make sure that having waited to get where I was I didn’t then stumble at the first hurdle. I was on a ‘roll’ and, yes, I was still cautious.” The ‘roll’ rolled on through other treats like the
DNA docu-drama Life Story and Across The Lake, recreating the last days of Donald Campbell.
This amazing, multi-award- winning, body of work “taught me a lot about what film could and couldn’t do, how far you could push, how little light you sometimes needed. It was often about learning what you don’t need to produce an image in terms of telling a story effectively.
“The cameraman is in a very difficult position. You want and, in a way, need people to look for your credit, yet if they do it’s almost as if you haven’t done your job properly. You must try and subdue your ego because everything should serve the text.”
But at the BBC you’re still, ultimately a staff member and
have to do what you’re told. So when he was, for the third time, about to miss out on a preferred assignment, that was, to continue the equestrian analogy, the final hurdle and he quit for pastures freelance and his first fea- ture, David Hare’s Strapless.
Since then there’s been no looking back. Re-uniting with director Mick Jackson, with whom he’d made Threads and Life Story, resulted in his first American feature (Chattahoochee) then his first in Hollywood (L.A. Story) and finally his first authentic blockbuster, The Bodyguard, with Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner, which “made me bankable.”
Determined never to become “typecast” as a DP - and after the suc- cess of The Madness Of King George “it might have been easy to get pigeon- holed in period” - Dunn maintains an enviable career balance these days
typified by his recent credits. These span the megadollar live-action/anima- tion of Henry (The Nightmare Before Christmas) Selick’s Monkeybone, star- ring Brendan Fraser, and a lavish Disney remake of The Count Of Monte Cristo with the bargain-basement Liam, Stephen Frears’ award-winning
stock for the look we wanted.
Liam, on which he also operated,
was a rare chance to flex all his old cinematographic muscles: “It was the same after things like The Bodyguard
“I remember reading about Nestor Almendros who after some big Hollywood films did Pauline At The Beach, which was basically him, a tri- pod, a 2CV for tracking shots, some
reflectors and a camera assistant. That’s someone I admired. He was always ready to chop and change.”
Dunn, who hinted that he might ust try directing one day, says his main dictum is Picasso-inspired: ‘I ead something he’d written about
the secret is knowing when to stop.’ t’s so easy when lighting to use up hours and hours, which takes time
away from the director and actors. “You’re never going to get per-
ection. It’s all about knowing the essence of what you’re trying to cre- ate, do it quickly and efficiently... and then stop.” ■ QUENTIN FALK
Liam was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative
working class drama set in 30s Liverpool.
Written by Jimmy McGovern, Liam teamed Dunn with Stephen Frears for the first time: “We had a lot of acquaintances in common and, of course, knew of each other. I love Jimmy’s work and this story had been around for about 10 years before Jimmy became well known. Shooting on Super16 entirely on location in Liverpool and a local studio, known as ‘the producer’s shed’, we had limited time and resources.
“Not long before Liam I was work- ing with director Andy Tennant on a TV pilot film in New York called The Mysteries Of 71st Street. We were obliged to use Fuji stock and I was blown away by it. So when I came to Liam I decided to use the 500 and was very comfortable with it and it blew up very well to 35mm. It was the right
when I did a C4 documentary about a Nottinghamshire mine closing down. It’s very valuable between the megabuck movies to go back and see what you can get away with, to discov- er what you don’t need.