Page 24 - Fujifilm Exposure_28 Michael Winner_ok

Photos previous page and far right: Jerry Kelly;
above l-r: scenes from American Cousins and Blinded;
main: Clarissa Dickinson and Johnny Scott in Clarissa And The Countryman (photo © BBC)
JERRY KELLY
“The camera and lighting are there to enhance the actors, not to distract them or interfere with their concentration.”
continued from page 20
“Don has the capacity to bring out the best in everyone and loves to work fast. When he moved into directing drama, we almost worked by telepathy on the set.”
Kelly recalls, though, a typical- ly hairy moment when shooting Rose: “Don wanted exaggerated colours, however the BBC weren’t willing to pay for a telecine grade. So we decided to shoot it on 16mm reversal, and put it through a neg bath. That was a bit scary because
of the lack of exposure latitude – but we egged each other on and got away with it. It’s great to work with directors who are experi- enced enough to take risks.”
During the filming of American Cousins, as Coutts would patiently listen to his American actors’ interminable script ‘input’, this is how he characterised his associa- tion with Kelly:
“We laughed when we got this feature because the way we usually work is just me, Jerry, a sound recordist and an assistant – if we’re lucky – with me or Jerry driving. It’s real documentary style and good fun cranking through a lot every day.”
Kelly wasn’t even born when acting intruded on the family rather closer to home. His mother, Pamela Bain, was an experienced theatre actress in Scotland and even got to kiss Kenneth More, as Richard Hannay, in the 1959 version of The 39 Steps. She stopped performing to raise her family which often trav-
elled far and wide because her hus- band was in the Navy. Years later, she returned to acting and Kelly has even photographed and direct- ed her in a 15-minute, 16mm short called Slide.
Kelly, who didn’t return to Scotland until his mid-teens, first went to school in the south of England and vividly remembers ‘bunking off’ to be part of a fren- zied young Portsmouth audience when Ken Russell filmed Elton
John’s ‘Pinball Wizard’ number in 1974’s Tommy.
By then, he’d already got a taste for filmmaking and “shot many short films with our family’s Standard-8 camera, including one, in order to practice shooting action scenes, where I put my younger brother in a cardboard box, set fire to it and filmed him escaping. He reminds me of it whenever he needs a favour!”
However, Kelly’s father was anx- ious he should train for “a decent career”. But the die was cast and after dropping out of a degree in accountancy, he “trolled round the Glasgow production companies and trainee schemes,” finally securing a berth on Bill Forsyth’s Comfort And Joy, “as a sweeper-upper for the construction crew.”
Equally lowly art department jobs followed on other Scotland- based 80s features like The Girl In The Picture, Every Picture Tells a Story and Restless Natives, but Kelly was hopelessly hooked.
22 • Exposure • Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video