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TINKERTAILORSOLDIERSPYHUNGARY-TURKEY-UK
COMING SOON
utch cinematographer Hoyte Dvan Hoytema’s first UK
assignment reunites him with
Swedish director Tomas Aldredson with whom he made the global hit chiller Let The Right One In, which to date has won more than 50 awards incuding six for van Hoytema himself.
His and Alfredson’s latest is a very different kind of assignment,
a big screen version of the famous Cold War thriller, Tinker Tailor Sol- dier Spy, by John Le Carré, which is probably best remembered as a clas- sic BBC teleseries from 1979.
The setting here is firmly the Seventies as Gary Oldman, playing wily George Smiley, leads a cast that also includes Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Graham,, Jared Harris, Ciaran Hinds, Roger Lloyd Pack and Mark Strong.
Van Hoytema NSC FSF (The Fighter) first saw the TV version after beginning production on the film, which shot in Budapest and Istanbul as well as London, and
explains the different mindset.
“To make it work for the cinema,
you can’t rely so much on dialogue or on tight close-ups all the time as they tend to do in TV.
“Also, I do think it’s very interesting to do something now about the Seventies. It’s as if you’re almost doing something historical. People tend to relate very differently to the past.
“The way films are made have changed so much between then and now. Now, it’s all about faster cuts and about trying to keep people
constantly entertained. We’d love this film to have some sort of an old-fashioned decency about it.
“The way Tomas and I were shooting it was part of an ongoing discussion everyday. Extremely long lenses at times; sometimes wider lenses.
“It’s not like we settled on just one idea about how we should
capture the whole film. We talked all the time on Let The Right One In relying a lot on instinct: that way, you end with what feels right.”
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was originated on 35mm Fujicolor REALA 500D 8592, ETERNA 500T 8573 and ETERNA 250T 8553
Photo above: Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
I AMSLAVE/THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP UK
abriel Range’s I Am Slave for GChannel 4 and BBC/HBO’s
The Special Relationship,
directed by Richard Loncraine, were nominated in the Single Drama category for this year’s British Academy Television Awards, presented on May 22.
Written by Jeremy Brock and photographed by Robbie Ryan BSC, I Am Slave tells the contemporary story of Malia (Wunmi Mosaku), a Sudanese woman brought to Britain as an unpaid chattel for a wealthy North African family.
Said Ryan: “Half of the film is set in Sudan and that’s obviously the breathing space of the film, whereas the claustrophobia of the house in London was something we tried to push further by making it dark, dingy and not very nice.”
The Special Relationship
completed the “Blair trilogy” that writer Peter Morgan began with The Deal followed by The Queen. Covering events ranging from Kosovo to the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, it co-starred Michael Sheen and Helen McCrory as the Blairs, along with Dennis Quaid and Hope Davis as President Clinton and his wife, Hillary.
“Our brief from HBO was to deliver a cinema version for world- wide distribution and a 16:9 version for boardcast in the US,” explained DP Barry Ackroyd BSC.
“Richard [Loncraine] and I both wanted to shoot a more cinematic film using wide screen format 1:2.35 For sake of economy we shot 3 perf super 35mm on ARRI LT cameras. To take a regular 16:9 image usually
would mean framing top and bottom of the 3 perf. But that leaves the large widescreen image with absolutely masses of headroom.
“So we decided we would shrink the 16:9 image from the centre of the 2.35 knowing we could ‘pan and scan’ the smaller image to produce a 16:9 TV image. We were able to do this because the scanning rate for rendering out the negative to HD is 3k providing masses of information and ensuring a great broadcast image as well as a 2.35 print for cinemas.”
I Am Slave was originated on 35mm Fujicolor ETERNA Vivid 500T 8547 and ETERNA Vivid 160T 8543; The Special Relationship was originated on 35mm Fujicolor ETERNA 500T 8573 and ETERNA 250D 8563
Photos left (from top): Wunmi Mosaku as Malia in I Am Slave; Director Gabrial Range;
Dennis Quaid as President Clinton and Michael Sheen as Tony Blair in The Special Relationship; DP Barry Ackroyd BSC
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