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Day For Light
An interview with Ernest Day BSC
Day For Light
O ver the course of a long and happy career Ernie Day has enjoyed a wide
range of filmmaking experi- ences. As one of British cin- ema’s finest camera opera- tors, he contributed to
some of the biggest and best movies ever made. Yet he also worked as a cin- ematographer and then went on to direct for film and television.
But he is shrewd enough to understand that the films he will be most closely associated with in the minds of film buffs and industry insiders are four that he made for David Lean. Three – Lawrence of Arabia, Dr Zhivago and Ryan’s Daughter – operating for the great Freddie Young, and on A Passage to India as a full blown DP in his own right, earning him Oscar and BAFTA nominations in the process.
Even before meeting Lean in the early 1960s, Day had built up consid- erable experience that stretched back to his first job at the Warner Brothers’ studios in Teddington, shooting ‘quota quickies’.
“I was 15, and I started as a run- ner and then learned a little bit about loading. In those days you learned from the ground up, which is often the best way,” the 73 year old recalls. “Soon it took over my life, and became the only thing I ever wanted to do. Basil Emmott was the camera- man, and I got to watch other people work too, like Otto Heller, who was there for a while.”
In those distant days the idea of changing course and becoming, say, a director was all but unthinkable for the likes of Ernie Day. So he immersed himself in the business of the camera department. “There came a point when everyone was going for colour
and I was a black and white man. Geoff Unsworth was my saviour because he came to Warners to finish off a picture there. I asked him if there was a chance of me learning something at Technicolor. Geoff said he’d talk to someone, and sure enough he did.”
A steady, increasingly impressive list of credits helped Day to achieve many of his ambitions within the indus- try. One job he remembers as especially pleasurable was Exodus, working for the fearsome Otto Preminger.
“I loved working on that because it was shot at the pace you would have shot black and white films. And working with Preminger was an experience, he was such a kind man underneath that tough facade.”
In all sorts of ways, this was ideal preparation for the working relationship that remains at the very heart of Day’s career. David Lean was a respected director with a reputation for fastidious attention to detail, and he also made quite wonderful movies like the multi Oscar winning Bridge On The River Kwai. Since Kwai, Lean had been work- ing on an even more ambitious effort, a film recounting the life of T. E. Lawrence.
“I was on a picture called The Roman Spring Of Mrs Stone at Elstree,” Ernie recalls, “and I got a call asking if I’d go and meet David, I think because I’d done 70 mm on Exodus. I went up to meet him at Horizon Films in Wardour Street. We chatted a bit, and I got a call later from Sam Spiegel’s office saying the job was mine if I wanted to do it. Did I?” he laughs.
At that point Freddie Young was not assigned to the film as DP, but when he eventually was a firm friend- ship was established between him and his trusty operator.
“I think we worked very well togeth- er, but Freddie was very rigid in his ideas. They were mellowed by David.
Photo: Earnest Day and David Lean taking a break from hard work
EXPOSURE • 20 & 21