Page 6 - Fujifilm Exposure_36 Living The Dream_ok

SIMON KOSSOFF BSC
“For me, it’s [the Eterna 250D] the stock for all seasons... I love mixed light; it does too.”
continued from page 2
Highlands and islands, and, of course, all film in those days.”
However, chances of promotion were strictly limited. “Dead man’s shoes,” he notes, ruefully, so he returned to London where he started freelancing successfully. As well as Ulster, he often found himself in other global hotspots like Ethiopia and Poland.
“There was no fast film then. We were using super speed lenses and reversal film most of the time, and it was tremendous training. I was used to it from my stills photography days. Reversal imposes great disciplines because there’s no latitude and it could not be abused,” he says. “It was a great bonus when Fujifilm released the first high speed neg around 1980.”
To Thames Television, where he spent the next 10 years, especially lots of documentaries, including award- winning ones like Schindler and Images, before he began to move over into drama. “I’d always loved lighting. Even on earlier docos, I was able to win a client or two as a result of know- ing perhaps how to leave a shadow as well as the highlights.”
His first “significant” drama as a DP was a star-studded one – Ending Up, with John Mills, Wendy Hiller, Googie Withers, Michael Hordern and Lionel Jeffries. It was directed by Peter Sasdy, according to Kossoff, “an auto- crat of the old school. ‘You might have an opinion,’ he’d say, ‘but we do it my way’.” I learned a lot, though.”
The older members of the cast knew his name because of his father while the younger ones probably con- nected him, he thinks, with the late, great rock guitarist, Paul Kossoff of Free, his younger brother, who died so tragically of drug abuse in 1976.
Thames were beginning to go the tape route but Kossoff managed to stay with film. However, when the company pretty much imposed a moratorium on film, their drama went freelance and Kossoff followed. Which is how it’s remained for the past 16 or 17 years on a wide variety of episod- ics, miniseries and single TV dramas, including Capital City, Demob, Our Friends In the North (for which he shared a BAFTA nomination), The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Green Eyed Monster, Back Home, Dead Gorgeous and Angel Of Death.
There has, however, been just one feature film to date, clearly a cause of some regret. Then again, as he notes,
“there is perhaps a cachet about cine- ma films which sometimes, is woefully misplaced. The fact that they were shot on 35mm is thrown away. I believe that much of the great British film industry is alive and well and working in television. Just look at superb productions like Prime Suspect or See No Evil. The cachet comes with that 40ft screen. That’s the only difference. We’ve now got to the point with D/I and 16mm when the results are superb.
“Some years ago when I was at Thames, I was lucky to light some- thing called Young Charlie Chaplin; it was a very early outing on negative transfer. People round the network would ask me if I’d shot it on 35mm. I’ve always tried to bring cinematic values to my work in TV because that’s what I love doing best.”
Meanwhile, in 1994... Staggered was a raucous British comedy feature (which has enjoyed a healthy afterlife on DVD) starring Martin Clunes who, after working on Demob with Kossoff, invited him to shoot the film, which the actor, more by accident than design also ended up directing. “I lit and operated it for him and, yes, it was good to get out there on 35mm Moviecam. It was also a lot of fun. We shot in London and then for a week on a beach in the Outer Hebrides during which Martin had to spend much of the time without his clothes on [as the victim of a stag night prank]. He was very brave. and very cold.”
The film, like Young Charlie Chaplin earlier, was also a rare oppor- tunity for Kossoff to work with his father, who had a small role in each production. “He seemed pleased to share a set with his son. He’d always come to see me when I was working a) to check I had a real job which he could never quite believe, and b) because he loved to be back on a film set, where he always felt comfortable.”
Staggered was shot on Fujifilm (“I loved its sheer velvety quality”) and Kossoff has returned to the stock from time to time. “For instance, on Winter Solstice, a two-parter [based on Rosamunde Pilcher’s novel], it worked very well on the female cast – among them Jean Simmons, Geraldine Chaplin, Maureen Lipman, Sophie Schütt and Emma Streets - which is a great range of ages,.or should I say looks.”
He’d first discovered how it both complemented – and, for that matter, complimented – the female face on
Beck, a series with Amanda Redman. So when he had another range of female faces on his latest project, Flesh And Blood, returning to Fujifilm seemed natural.
“It’s a contemporary story about an affluent Irish family living in Dublin. There’s a depiction of that society for the first half but then there’s suddenly a rape so the whole story changes direction and the family is thrown into complete turmoil.
“I used the Eterna 250D and 250T as well as the Eterna 500T. I’ve always liked the 250D in particular. For me, it’s the stock for all seasons and I knew that I’d shoot about two-thirds of the film on it. I love mixed light; it does too. You go where you want to with the stock, combined with appro- priate lighting it’s a softer stock that retains as much contrast as the DP’s lighting chooses. It proved an excel- lent choice for a good-looking cast.”
Kossoff admits he prefers to work with an operator. “It’s been my privi- lege to work with some of the best, like Jeremy Gee, Mike Frift and Ian Jackson. When you sit and look at their rushes, it’s like looking at your own rushes.
“It can be a tough call for a focus puller ‘moving up’. Now they must make subjective framing and blocking deci- sions, help to interpret the director’s wishes and even get to exercise minor but significant responsibility for per- formance as they are getting the best first look, through the camera. Suddenly they are at the centre of the set, and it can be a steep learning experience.”
Across his long and varied career, he has, through that lens, encountered all kinds of material – from real-life rioting in Northern Ireland to recreat- ing sensitive sex scenes in Fingersmith.
Kossoff remains sanguine about it all. “It’s all about light and shade, communication, helping to serve the directors’ and writers’ vision. One of my jobs as a young freelance was as a medical cameraman filming operations. That was probably the hardest thing I had to do apart from Belfast but ,thankfully, sometimes looking through the lens can insu- late you.” ■ QUENTIN FALK
Flesh And Blood was originated on 16mm Eterna 250D 8663, Eterna 250T 8653 and Eterna 500T 8673
4 • Exposure • The Magazine• Fujifilm Motion Picture