Page 24 - Fujifilm Exposure_30 Archangel_ok

continued from page 20
“That was five years ago, and since then I’ve been working solidly in com- mercials and music videos. The back- ground of short films helped a lot in terms of getting jobs. There were a lot of people who were looking for things with a more cinematic feel to them, especially in the commercials.”
Ryan has worked steadily over those years. High profile pop promos include Basement Jaxx’s Good Luck,
rience. “I learnt an awful lot,” he chuckles, knowingly.
More pleasurable was This Is Not A Love Song, shot digitally in just eleven days. Written by Simon Beaufoy and directed by Billie Eltringham (The Long Firm), this atmospheric tale of two men on the run can at least lay claim to a small piece of cinema history.
“It was the first film to be released on the internet,” Ryan explains. “They
“Mixing it around it was a bit dark and a bit weird. We had two cameras running most of the time, with a little pencil camera thrown into the mix. I felt like we had a lot of experiments on that, and it worked out.”
It seems like the motto for a career that is continuing to develop nicely.
A short film he shot last year called Wasp drew a positive reaction. And his current feature is an as-yet untitled
ROBBIE RYAN
“If I can experiment and try everything under the sun to make a different look and image, I’m all for it.”
which Ryan counts as a favourite. Shot on Fuji 64 daylight and 250 daylight, it epitomises the kind of creative free- dom in which he thrives.
“I prefer doing music videos because I feel that you’ve got a lot more scope putting my ideas across. It’s exhausting, but if you feel that you’ve touched on something you’ve never done before you feel great.”
His break into features was in the less than auspicious 2001 comedy, Large, a job he was presented with at short notice and took on for the expe-
got something like 100,000 hits and at three quid a hit that means it’s made a helluva lot more money than it could ever have dreamed of making on a normal theatrical release.”
For his part, Ryan – who counts mav- erick DP Chris Doyle and Harris Savides among his heroes – found the job satisfy- ing enough. “It was the middle of July but it was miserably wet, so that was inter- esting for the look. And at least a third of the story takes place at night, but this was Scotland in the summer where it doesn’t get dark until half ten at night.
horror movie for director Billy O’Brien, with whom he shot the award winning short, The Tale of the Rat That Wrote. So you can bet that this will as visually inventive as Ryan’s other work to date.
“If people hire me and want me to go crazier than last time then I’ll do that,” he adds “I just remember the story about the telecine guy who was asked what makes a good cameraman. His answer was: ‘if he gives good neg’. I’d like to think I do that.” ■ ANWAR BRETT
22 • Exposure • Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video