Page 31 - Fujifilm Exposure_28 Michael Winner_ok

HIGHLIGHTING
THE EYELITE
Barry Ackroyd bsc on his new
whether we both understand the same thing by that phrase is another matter. Panavision were very good and pro- vided a lot of gear very economically.
“I decided I wanted to use swing and tilt lenses. We had those with us the whole time through the shot, so we could just put one on and do a dis- torted vision of the world. Or put the focus wherever we wanted it - for
instance, when the girl is in the shop where the two main characters work. We had a lot of depth to it, which was very cluttered with paints and wallpa- per, and we could concentrate our focus on the two of them over quite a long distance.”
Ackroyd’s career has, of course, become increasingly varied as the years have passed. He recently won acclaim for his work on Stephen Poliakoff’s BAFTA-winning The Lost Prince, and has just reunited with the writer-director once more for a pair of BBC- produced feature length dramas on the theme of 1980s yuppie excess.
But it is Ackroyd’s documentary background that remains a formative influence on the cinematographer, and the lessons still resound. A can-do sense of inventiveness is, he feels, a useful trait for any DP to have.
“Making documentaries forced you to do things with the film stocks which, if you played it by the book, you’d never find out about. Experimenting is what it’s all about, making a few mis-
takes so that you can find out what works and what doesn’t.
“And I’ve become clearer on this through my career: the best tool you have is the exposure you give the film. That makes all the difference. Darkness is about bringing the exposure in the right places, and having the contrast between light and dark, at the right ratio for the subject and the story.
“The latitudes change as times goes on. I like lower contrast stocks, but funnily enough the F-500 seems to do the best thing for me. What I like about it is it goes to a very solid black very quickly.
“When you’re shooting where 75% of the image is black it still holds up to a very good quality. There again, I shoot films that have a kind of earthi- ness and reality, and the grain is some- thing I like.
“Colour is the other crucial thing. On Northern Souls, the art department were encouraged to put a little bit of red in each frame, for instance in one scene we’d have a couple of red plas-
tic clothes pegs on the washing line. The reds and blacks seemed to work very strongly, and once there was something red and black in the picture it gave the skin tones a nicer feel.
“I’m hoping we get to digitise this film, but if we don’t then we have to rely on the stock to do the best for us, which is why I like Fuji. That’s when you can resort to these techniques, like throwing in a little bit of primary colour to give what would normally give a very grey scene a bit of life. That seems to work well for us.” ■ ANWAR BRETT
Northern Souls and Ae Fond Kiss, which will be released on September 10, were both originated on 35mm Fujicolor F-500 8572 and F-250D 8562 Motion Picture Negative
Photos main and top: The Eyelite in action; top centre: DP Barry Ackroyd BSC; above left: A scene from Northern Souls
Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video • Exposure • 29
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camera-mounted little helper