Page 29 - Fujifilm Exposure_28 Michael Winner_ok

International feature in focus
MOTION PICTURE & PRO-VIDEO
BLACK & WHITE IN COLOUR
The perfect match in Milwaukee, Minnesota
T
he story as it unfolds on screen is an uplifting account of triumph over adversity. The same emo- tions might well have been felt by debutant director Allan Mindel, who came
close to having his cherished dream of directing a film dashed halfway through production.
A former producer with New Line and a talent agent of long standing, Mindel’s many years of experience in showbusiness would have helped him deal with this disappointment. And when the project was saved by a fresh injection of funds he reassembled key cast and crew a year later to pick up where they had left off.
Star of the piece Troy Garity returned to the role of Albert, an ice fisherman of – seemingly – modest intelligence, who turns out to be a can- nier soul than most give him credit for.
With German-born DP Bernd Heinl behind the camera, a crucial scene with Albert was required for the film’s climax, and had to match with another shot the year before.
“Bernd is so very precise,” Mindel explains, “he didn’t make the problem we had with having to come back to finish it all seem like it was anything. In fact he kind of made it magic. So for this shot we had to match, we actually didn’t have the house where the previ- ous scene was shot any more.
“Bernd just said: ‘Who cares, just put up the blue wall’. So we put up a
wall, painted it blue and had Troy in front of it. We moved a bed into shot, Bernd put the filters on and we shot it. He never thought it was a problem to match things, he didn’t really think of it as an encumbrance.”
Heinl’s own career spans 24 years in European and American cinema, coming to the notice of a wider audi- ence with Bagdad Café in 1987.
“I produced a number of films that Bernd shot,” the director contin- ues, “like Bodies Rest & Motion, Julian Po and a film called Pie In The Sky. So I had a shorthand with him. I trusted him and he was willing and able to do the kind of framing and the kind of lighting I needed.”
This shorthand helped the men come together on the look of Milwaukee, Minnesota, a contemporary fable set in an urban location seeming- ly untouched by modern life. Just as the look of the film harks back to an earlier age, the mood does to, recall- ing the ‘suspenseful drama’ style of storytelling that died out in the 1970s.
“The idea was to do a black & white film in colour,” Mindel adds enig- matically. “For instance, there was a
green gold colour in the filters which came about because of Albert’s world of ice fishing.
“When you look into the ice holes and you’re in these wooden shanties there’s this green gold flow. So the minute we meet Albert until the end of the movie we have this green glow cast going on in there.
“But then there was a textural decision also, to make the film feel a certain way. We were after something like Alfie or 10 Rillington Place, great British films of that period. So I used new camera bodies, with old scratched up lenses from the 70s, plus the filters.
“I tested Fuji stock, and found it was nice and and had the right grain structure as well as the right con- trast. Then when I pushed back a stop and a half and processed the film I found it gave me the feeling that I wanted.” ■ ANWAR BRETT
Milwaukee, Minnesota, to be released in the UK later this year, was originated on 35mm Fujicolor F-500 8572 Motion Picture Negative
Photo main: Alison Folland, who plays Tuey Stites in the film, a ruthless grifter who discovers
that when judging the seemingly simple minded Albert (Troy Garity), above right, things are not as (ahem) 'black and white' as they might seem
Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video • Exposure • 27