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HEIDI
“WHAT MAKES THE STORY SO MOVING AND ENDURING IS THE LIFE THAT THE LITTLE GIRL GOES TO AND COMES FROM...”
continued from previous page
I never stopped thinking of myself as a director. Producing taught me an ines- timable amount and I make no apology for having had that experience.
“It gave me a proper overview of how the mechanism works best, how to get the best out of the axis of time and money, and use whatever skills and experience I might have to serve that collective end.
“Too often directors can will them- selves into a state of creative adoles- cence where they’re not encouraged to take responsibility for the scale of film- ing they are working to. I don’t believe in that kind of adversarial relationship with the producer. It has to be a genuine collaboration, a constant discussion about how best to use the resources that you have at your disposal.”
That kind of philosophy must have been music to ears of ‘line producer’ CF1’s David Ball, one of the best and most widely-travelled nuts- and-bolts men in the business across the last 20 years.
Ball, whose CF1 company is based in Cardiff, was called in by producers Martyn Auty and Christopher Figg “when they were close to getting the ‘green’. It’s set, of course, in Switzerland and Frankfurt. We did all the exteriors in Slovenia then came back to do the interiors of the Frankfurt house (where Heidi is a vir- tual slave) at Stradey Castle. There’s also a train journey sequence, which we did on the little Gwilli steam line.
“The production was madness. We started shooting on October 25, the day after the clocks went back and there were the obvious problems of a nine-year-old playing opposite a 75-year-old (Von Sydow as Grandfather Alp). We also could only stay a certain time in Slovenia to get our percentage spend correct for the UK. It was one of those jigsaws that never looked as though it would fit, but somehow we delivered on time and on budget. It was a nightmare that turned into a lovely family film.”
Ball explained how there were a couple of pieces of great good fortune:
“The first was the unscheduled arrival of four feet of snow. I adopted the role of 2nd Unit director and between me and Paul, on the main unit, we got excellent footage of real snow.”
Then there was an important ‘stunt’ sequence required where Heidi slips over the edge of the mountain and is saved by her devoted grandfather.
Recalled Ball: “It was one of those gut instinct things. We were doing Alp’s hut on a location about 20 minutes from the hotel and I said to Paul, ‘I just feel we’ve got to go up the hill... right now. We’re not going to be lucky with the weather for ever.’
“He finally agreed and we went up to a place called Vrsic where we had the most brilliant sunshine from dawn to dusk and shot the hell out of our stunt sequence. We moved back down the hill the following day and thereupon the weather turned. I just somehow knew at the time that we had to go with it.”
Ball also paid tribute to Fuji’s Roger Sapsford who came to the last- minute rescue when cast and crew were ready to go in Slovenia suddenly without any film to shoot on.
“I rang Roger,” said Ball, “and told him that I was in trouble. I gave him a list of stocks and emulsion numbers and said I needed the stuff tomorrow. ‘OK’ said Roger. He didn’t even ques- tion it. Who comes up trumps? Roger Sapsford, every time.”
This provided an intriguing ‘first’ for director of photography Peter Sinclair, a 30-year industry veteran, who had never used Fujifilm before.
“I particularly loved the F-250 day- light stock and used that primarily for my exteriors because it wasn’t always sunny; we were in big valleys and the sun came and went quickly. It worked very well and I’d recommend it to any- body. I used the F-500 tungsten for most of the interiors of Alp’s hut and also the majority of Frankfurt, which was the bit shot in Wales.”
While the stock may have come as a surprise, there was a pleasant famil- iarity about teaming up again with the
director for whom Sinclair has, he reckoned, worked on about eight pro- ductions including Murder Rooms, Dalziel & Pascoe and In Deep.
Marcus described it as a “very pre- cious relationship – long may it contin- ue. From the start I was impressed with his work which had an immense reality to it and lack of display but at the same time a very clear aesthetic.
“What I love about working with him is I feel we have an intuitive, almost identical, way of looking at scenes through a camera. I don’t ever have to explain to him what my ver- sion of a stack two-shot might be or why I might want to come off a mis- match eyeline in exchanging singles.
“It’s a seamless trusting relation- ship in that we don’t ever have to question each other’s sense of where the camera should be. In all the time we’ve worked together I can’t remem- ber even a handful of times when I’ve walked back on to the set and said, ‘this doesn’t feel right’.”
Sinclair put it more simply: “I get along very well photographically with him. We have a kind of short- hand by now.”
Marcus acknowledged the various potential problems the production had posed. “Yes, it was a shootable sched- ule but with elements that were very volatile and to a certain extent going to be beyond our control.
“However, David is a brilliant ‘line producer’ and planned it all assidu- ously with Bill Kirk, the First AD. So we had a sense of strategy, but it was still a strategy that depended on a degree of good fortune and making positive rather than negative discover- ies about the capacities of some of the individuals involved.
“Happily, it worked out magically well and I think I can honestly say that I shot it without compromise,” Marcus added. ■ QUENTIN FALK
Heidi, which is released in August, was originated on 35mm Super F-250D 8562 and Super F-500 8572
Photo main: Max von Sydow in Heidi; above l-r: Diana Rigg, Emma Bolger and Director Paul Marcus (left) on the set of Heidi
26 • Exposure • The Magazine • Fujifilm Motion Picture