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TV CRAFT AWARD NOMINATIONS
The following nominations
for the Television Craft Awards demonstrate the breadth of quality in UK productions, with honours spread amongst
24 programmes. The Awards will be held at BAFTA on 30 April and televised on the Granada network on 7 May.
The Academy is very grateful to our six sponsors who are supporting individual categories.
BEST COSTUME DESIGN SPONSORED BY ANGELS THE COSTUMIERS
ALL THE KING’S MEN - HOWARD BURDEN GREAT EXPECTATIONS - ODILE DICKS-MIREAUX THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN - YVES BARRE OLIVER TWIST - ROSALIND EBBUTT
BEST DESIGN
GREAT EXPECTATIONS - ALICE NORMINGTON HORNBLOWER - ROB HARRIS WARRIORS - PHIL ROBERSON
WIVES & DAUGHTERS - GERRY SCOTT
BEST EDITING FACTUAL
INSIDE STORY: CHILD OF THE DEATH CAMPS
MALCOLM DANIEL
MALCOLM AND BARBARA – A LOVE STORY
KIM HORTON
THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN COLOUR
STEVE MOORE
SHANGHAI VICE
NIKKI OLDROYD / DAVID DICKIE
BEST EDITING FICTION/ENTERTAINMENT SPONSORED BY NATS POST PRODUCTION
COLD FEET - TIM WADDELL DAVID COPPERFIELD - PHILIP KLOSS QUEER AS FOLK - TONY CRANSTOUN THE ROYLE FAMILY - TONY CRANSTOUN
BEST GRAPHIC DESIGN
2000 TODAY - LIZ FRIEDMAN / KEVIN HILL COLD FEET - MATT HOWARTH PETER TERRY / SUE VOUDOURIS
EYE OF THE STORM - PETER PHILLIPS THE VICE - PHILIP DUPEE
BEST MAKE UP/HAIR
FRENCH AND SAUNDERS - JAN SEWELL GREAT EXPECTATIONS - FRAN NEEDHAM OLIVER TWIST - LESLEY LAMONT-FISHER WIVES & DAUGHTERS - LISA WESTCOTT
BEST ORIGINAL TELEVISION MUSIC
COLD FEET - MARK RUSSELL OLIVER TWIST
PAUL PRITCHARD / ELVIS COSTELLO QUEER AS FOLK - MURRAY GOLD WALKING WITH DINOSAURS - BEN BARTLETT
BEST PHOTOGRAPHY FACTUAL SPONSORED BY ARRI (GB) LIMITED
LOST ON EVEREST: THE SEARCH FOR MALLORY AND IRVINE - NED JOHNSTON MICHAEL PALIN’S HEMINGWAY ADVENTURE NIGEL MEAKIN
SHANGHAI VICE - PHIL AGLAND WILDLIFE SPECIAL: TIGER - CHIP HOUSEMAN HUGH MILES
BEST PHOTOGRAPHY AND LIGHTING FICTION/ENTERTAINMENT SPONSORED BY KODAK ENTERTAINMENT IMAGING
DAVID COPPERFIELD - ANDY COLLINS GREAT EXPECTATIONS - DAVID ODD WARRIORS - RICHARD GREATREX WIVES &DAUGHTERS - FRED TAMMES BEST SOUND FACTUAL SPONSORED BY BLUE POST PRODUCTION EYEOFTHESTORM-IANHILLS /DIONSTUART SAMANTHA HANDY
MICHAEL PALIN’S HEMINGWAY ADVENTURE JOHN PRITCHARD / BOB JACKSON PADDINGTON GREEN - JOHN RODDA DUDLEY HOULDEN / PAUL ROBERTS SHANGHAI VICE - SOUND TEAM
BEST SOUND FICTION/ENTERTAINMENT SPONSORED BY THE LONDON STUDIOS
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
RICHARD MANTON / PETER SMITH BERNARD O’REILLY / TERRY BROWN QUEER AS FOLK - SOUND TEAM WARRIORS - DAVID OLD / GRAHAM HEADICAR MAURICE HILLIER / DANNY LONGHURST WIVES & DAUGHTERS
PAUL HAMBLIN / PETER BRILL
IAN WILKINSON / DANNY SHEEHAN
FULL REPORT AND WINNERS IN THE NEXT ISSUE OF ACADEMY
Arts And Crafts
AWARD WINNING EDITOR TARIQ ANWAR TALKS TO QUENTIN FALK
PRIME CUTS
Entire sequences were shot, only to be excised later. As Sam [Mendes] observed during editing, ‘It’s like the movie is let- ting us know what it wants it to be.’” That’s American Beauty screenwriter Alan Ball reflecting on the tortuous process between his original script and the final cut of a film which has taken the box office, and critics, by storm on both sides of the Atlantic.
In a fascinating Introduction to Ball’s published “shooting script” director Mendes agreed the “the movie was, of course, to repeat the old adage, exten- sively re-shaped in the cutting room” before going on merely to hint just how extensively. His British editor Tariq Anwar, brought on to the picture after it had been completed and cut by by LA-based Chris Greenbury, explained further:
“Sam showed me a film which was great even in the cut I first saw but he said he was worried about the beginning and the end. If I had any criticisms to make would I, he asked, be forthcoming about them. The beginning was far too long, there seemed several starts to it. There were a number of court- room and police station scenes which felt somehow tacked on and unnecessary to the film. There was even a sequence of Kevin Spacey flying through the air [“Lester’s spirit taking wing”, Mendes described it] which just didn’t seem appropriate.”
So a less than a year after Anwar, 54, had first declined American Beauty because of
“family commitments”, he sud- denly, and rather ironically, found himself working on the project in an altogether more last-minute situation and with a first-time director who is “a con- trol freak.” Invidious or what?
Said Anwar: “I’ve been in this situation two or three times now. On some films I’ve re-cut I felt they haven’t been well cut anyway so it hasn’t been too dif- ficult. With American Beauty it wasn’t like that and a lot of the credit is down to Sam. He obvi- ously loves being in the cutting
room, re-shaping scenes and has a very good editorial sense. But that can provide its own dif- ficulties. He had got into the habit of being very ‘hands on’ with Chris. Two editors in same room is not easy.
“When we began to work together, he clearly found it dif- ficult when I said, sometimes rather forcibly, that I would pre- fer he wasn’t there. ‘If you want me to re-visit some scenes,’ I told him, ‘I’d prefer to do it on my own. I’d rather you weren’t standing over my shoulder. It’s just too inhibiting. At the assembly stage – the thinking
stage, if you like – you don’t really want the director around. Sam is full of ideas but you haven’t time to assimilate one before the next comes up.”
With various awards and citations cropping up almost
daily for
American Beauty, includ- ing this year’s BAFTA for Best Editing, you might think all the excitement would go to his head. But Oscar-nominee Anwar, whose next job is help
furnish a new apartment in Santa Monica, remains unflap- pable, a quintessential back- room boy. “I’ve got the best job. Do I prefer to deal with machines than people? You know, I think that’s it. Editing appeals to introverted people.’
It was a craft he first discovered back in the late Sixties after starting as a dri- ver for a small Soho- based production company. When he wasn’t parking and reparking cars to foil traffic wardens, he
joined the company on shoots working as the lowliest assis- tant director. Hating being shouted at “on the floor” he’d take refuge in the company’s cutting room where staff editor Peter Austin-Hunt’s enthusiasm “rubbed off on me.”
That youthful zeal eventually became an award-winning skill (BAFTA awards from six nomina- tions for Caught On A Train and Oppenheimer) at the BBC where Anwar spent no less than 18 years having successfully applied to the Corporation at the turn of the seventies for a job as a holiday relief assistant editor.
Anwar is no stranger to debutant feature directors who first made their name in the the- atre having been brought on to The Madness Of King George by Nicholas Hytner two weeks after the start of filming. He and Hytner have since collaborated on three more movies, including most recently, Center Stage, a dance-based American drama.
Can we expect a sequel to the Mendes-Anwar axis? He laughs, “I told Sam I could never work with him again. It was that kind of relationship.” ■
American Beauty by Alan Ball (Channel 4 Books, £7.99)
Photos from top: Mena Suvari in American Beauty; Tariq Anwar; Nigel Hawthorne and Helen Mirren in The Madness Of King George; Alison Elliott and Helena Bonham Carter in The Wings Of The Dove
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