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year and we came to see there were a whole lot of circumstances which had drawn us together. We’re both from Liverpool, had been at the RCA and both won a Fuji award in
the same year.”
When Doyle came
to shoot his first feature, Going Off Big Time, he recruited Bromley as his DP. In the meantime things had picked up for the cameraman with work on a couple of 35mm shorts, Subterfuge for Tempo Films and Suckerfish for Teliesyn/HTV.
And then another, Love Story, directed by Nick Love and funded by British Screen, was select- ed for the First Film Foundation New Directions scheme. Under a sponsor- ship by Panavision, Bromley was among a group of film-makers who spent two weeks in the States where Love Story was given industry screen- ings in LA and New York.
The film had an
impressivecast -Jamie
Forman, David Thewlis,
Patsy Palmer, Ewen
Bremner, Kate Hardy and
Paul Nicholls - and, despite what the title might suggest was actually a story of homeless drug addicts in London. “I seem destined to do films about gangsters and lowlifes,” sighs Bromley.
Which brings us neatly back to Going Off Big Time, the Jim Doyle- directed Liverpool gangster movie scripted by stand-up comic Neil Fitzmaurice.
“When Jim said he was making this feature film and asked if I would be interested, I was really wary because I have had so many offers for features that never happened. You get
to the point, you just say, ‘Oh yes’ and forget about it.
“But the producer, Ian Brady, pulled out the stops and got the
(standing for producers Ian Brady, Jonny Boston and Elaine Granger), Doyle and Bromley teamed up again on Reinventing Eddie. A black comedy on
the delicate subject of child abuse and false accusation, star-
ring John Lynch, Geraldine Somerville and John Thomson, it was filmed around Runcorn and Warrington in January and February.
Hardly a glamorous-sound- ing location, but Bromley’s not complaining: “I always turn up on set and wish I was some- where else but you just have to start working with what you’ve
got,” he says.
“In terms of visuals, England is
pretty good. The problem is the weather. You shoot half a scene in sun- light and then the wind gets up and you’ve got to do the second half in the rain.” Plenty of problem-solving to keep him happy then. But does Damian Bromley feel he has a dis- cernible visual style?
“I think I do my own thing, though it may look like someone else’s”, he says. “It’s always nice when you get someone singling out the photogra- phy. I was really pleased that I got a mention in the review in Sight and Sound for Going Off Big Time - you hardly ever see the cinematographer mentioned in reviews unless it’s some- one really well known.
“At the end of the day, though, if you’ve done a good job and it’s a good film, that’s all you can hope for”, says Bromley. ■ IAN SOUTAR
Reinventing Eddie was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative
DAMIAN BROMLEY
“I seem destined to do films about gangsters and lowlifes.”
money and we
went more or less
straight away. It
all happened so
quickly, we hardly had time for any serious preparation. We all went up to Liverpool, got a crew together and started shooting. It was a case of ‘let’s just do it’, which, of course, suited me.
“And it didn’t stop there. It was out in the cinemas within a year of him getting the money together. It was such a local affair that a lot more peo- ple than usual went out to Cannes with the film to give it support. Of course, it was great for us. It’s a kind of reward for all the hard work. You stand in the
pissing rain for weeks on end, you have to try and recoup some reward and to see the film with an audience and see their reaction was just that.”
For the same company, BBG Films
Photos from top (l-r): Damian Bromley; scenes from Going Off Big Time; on the set, up on the crane and a scene from Reinventing Eddie
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