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THE ART OF SIMPLICITY
AN INTERVIEW WITH
DAVID ODD BSC
D
uring a brief respite from the torrents of manufac- tured rain, which helped recreate for David Odd a disconcertingly uncomfort- able first-hand experience of trench warfare, he had at
was No Man’s Land, scattered with explosives and eerily realistic pros- thetics of soldiers who hadn’t had the luck to make it back to safety.
If the recreation was an “amazing experience” for Radcliffe, then it was no less so for Odd, albeit in a rather more technologically challenging way as he was also trying to operate his camera - a new Arri 416 - under the severest and most arduous conditions.
watched the rushes later, it became clear it was indeed all worth it.”
Odd’s lighting technique - as hastily explained to Ms Cattrall – was the briefest resumé of various practi- cal ideas, which had been first handed on to him years ago by a trio of cine- matographer mentors during his novice years at Granada TV.
From Arthur Smith, he learned about “the magic stop. It’s T2.8, and
it’ll give you anything: when shooting an interior, wide shot or long shot, whatever angle, always keep the same exposure.” David Wood told him: “Every light is a prob- lem, so always keep your lighting as sim- ple as possible”. Then there was Ken Morgan BSC who said: “Always try to shoot towards the sun.”
To which Odd would also add a fourth piece of counsel cour- tesy of one of the Old
Masters, Leonardo Da Vinci: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
Complementing - as he sees it - his style, Odd also pays fulsome trib- ute to a very new ‘friend’ in his corner, Fujifilm, which he has now used on his last four TV dramas – the New Zealand produced The Man Who Lost His Head, Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story (with Julie Walters in the title role for BBC One, screening next year), My Boy Jack and, most recently, He Kills Coppers.
He explains his comparatively recent conversion to the stock: “I was beginning to feel that whatever
least the consolation of an amusing, not to say enlightening, exchange with one of the co-stars.
Kim Cattrall, perhaps better known for her slinky role in Sex And The City, was playing Carrie Kipling in ITV’s My Boy Jack, directed by Bryan Kirk, the touching story of Rudyard’s and her 18-year-old son who died tragically in World War One.
She came over to Odd and said: “I really love your light- ing.” The veteran, award-win- ning cinematographer who has worked with many great actresses down the years including Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, was, nevertheless, immensely flattered. He swiftly retorted: “I have this philoso- phy. It’s got to be simple and it’s got to be quick. Less is more.”
To which Cattrall, with a wit poignantly reminiscent of her US persona, replied even quicker: “You know, in America, we say more is more and less is s***!” Laughs Odd, recall- ing the moment: “I’d met my match.”
Meanwhile, back at The Front, Great War conditions were being recre- ated outside Dublin in County Wicklow as Daniel Radcliffe, playing teenager Jack in David Haig’s own adaptation of his hit play (which also co-stars the author as the great British writer), and others spent six days in trenches filled with mud, smoke and rats, lashed by powerful rain machines. Over the top
“I was right in the middle of it all with the grip trying to make sure I did- n’t fall down. I had as always my little [trademark] secretarial chair with me, which I often use to do lowdown, handheld shots, and the wheels kept dropping off in the mud so we had to keep digging them out. It was a terrific insight as to how it must really have been in the trenches.
“I was exhausted physically and mentally and, in fact, I think it actually unhinged me slightly so I became a bit ratty. You were not only wet and cold but also praying all the time the cam- era would just keep going. When we
TV
Photos main: DP David Odd BSC; inset: Daniel Radcliffe in My Boy Jack (ITV)
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