Page 15 - Fujifilm Exposure_36 Living The Dream_ok

BURSTS OF COLOUR
DP Steve Annis on the music promo challenges of Jenny Again, London, London and A Brighter Beat.
music promos
The day England succumbed to the inevitable and limped out of the World Cup in July 2006 may be a grim memory for many. But, footballing matters aside, it could stand as a watershed in the career of tyro DP Steve Annis, for it coincided with the shooting of a pop promo by experimental folk band Tunng.
Despite being low-budget, Annis and his director Tom Haines have cre- ated a quite striking visual accompa- niment to Jenny Again, a brooding vocal, the tale of rival lovers and a bit- ter falling-out.
This is not your average bub- blegum pop song, and yet the bleak- ness of the story contrasts with bursts of vivid colour in landscapes that would make an Impressionist smile in appreciation.
“We actually shot it over three days in Epping Forest,” Annis recalls. “I spent a day on my own with the camera and tripod doing the wide, plate shots. Then we had a day with the crew, and then I did another day on my own just running around with the camera.”
He shot on the 16mm Eterna 250D 8663 and Reala 500D 8692, and along with Haines approached the task in hand as if setting out to make a drama rather than a simple accompaniment to a song.
“Tom doesn’t do things by halves,” Annis adds, noting his associ- ation with the director goes back a decade to their days at film school. “We spent a whole week storyboard- ing, going over the shots and looking at references. He likes to shoot all his
videos in the style of a short film. So, essentially, we’re doing a three or four minute film in a day.
“That’s very good practice for me, because if my showreel was just full of performance pieces I don’t think it’d have much clout when it came to showing it around. With these narra- tive elements, I hope producers and other directors look at it with favour.”
Annis only moved up to Director of Photography this year, having been a focus puller for six years before that. The films he worked in that time include Fakers, It’s All Gone Pete Tong and The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael [which was originated by Yorgos Arvinintis AFC on 35mm Super F-500T 8572 and Reala 500D 8592].
A graduate of the Surrey Institute of Art & Design, he forged a fruitful professional association with DP Gary Clarke at the NFTS, and found some- thing of a mentor in Hungarian cine- matographer Balazs Bolygo. But now his ambition is to light features, and in that regard pop promos are a means to an end.
Another he recently shot with Tom Haines was for a song called London, London by folk artiste Devendra Banhart and Brazilian singing star Cibelle. Quite different from the pas- toral beauty of Jenny Again, this was set amid the urban sprawl of London and shot on 16mm Eterna 500T 8673 and Eterna 250D 8663.
“We shot in a market and had people looking at the camera or look- ing at Cibelle, who is dressed in a Victorian costume. Then there’s anoth- er I’ve just shot for Malcolm Middleton, A Brighter Beat, and that was very tough. It was shot in a day, a mixture of daytime exteriors, daytime interiors and also some night interi- ors. The whole gamut, really. I shot that on 16mm Reala 500D 8692.”
Annis cites David Gordon Green’s George Washington, informed by the work of his DP Tim Orr, as a key influence upon him and indeed the fine-looking but dramatically downbeat work of that American indie favourite certainly has echoes of Jenny Again.
“Cinematographically, that film had a real effect on me,” he agrees, “the slow motion, the lush colours. The warmth of it was just incredible.”
Jenny Again attests to his own taste and talents, but he confirms that it would not have been possible with- out the qualities offered by the film stocks, or the staunch support he received during the grade at The Mill.
“We were lucky to get a grade off the neg,” he continues, “and it meant we could spend a lot of time on each separate shot. The film stocks gave us that organic look.
“If we’d shot that on tape or HD or whatever there’s no way it would have looked so rich, so vibrant. We didn’t want to make it too stylistic; we just tweaked the colours very subtly. We had ND grads [neutral density graduat- ed filters] to bring out the clouds, and polarised filters to add contrast.
“If you’re shooting a very wide landscape and the top half is the sky, with clouds, you’ve got to think of your exposures. The trees that you see and the green bushes at the bot- tom of the frame are going to be one exposure, but the sky could be blown out so you have to bring that down.
“We just tweaked the colours a lit- tle and the contrast. The results speak wonders.” Pity the same could not be said for England’s adventures in Germany. ■ ANWAR BRETT
Jenny Again was originated on 16mm Eterna 250D 8663 and Reala 500D 8692; London, London on 16mm Eterna 500T 8673 and Eterna 250D 8663; A Brighter Beat on 16mm Reala 500D 8692
Camera equipment supplied by One8Six
Photo top: DP Steve Annis; above l-r: scenes from Jenny Again with Tung; London, London with Cibelle & Devandra Banhart and A Brighter Beat with Malcolm Middleton
Fujifilm Motion Picture • The Magazine • Exposure • 13