In Conversation with
Credit: John Narvali
Nigel Walters
Nigel Waters bsc (left) with Joan Hutton csc at the 2015 CSC Awards in Toronto.
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or the past six years, Nigel Walters BSC has been the president of IMAGO, an international umbrella organization for cinematography societies around the world. Originally, IMAGO was a European federation that allowed non-European societies to belong as non-voting associate members. Last year, after changing its statutes, non-European societies could now become full members of IMAGO with all rights and privileges. One of the first to be admitted was Canada, making the CSC the first society to join from North America. Walters, who is also vice-president of the British Society of Cinematographers, was in Toronto for the 58th Annual CSC Awards Gala, where he presented the society’s past President Joan Hutton csc with an IMAGO Tribute award for her years supporting IMAGO’s aspirations of becoming a global organization and bringing the CSC into its fold. Canadian Cinematographer spoke with Walters about IMAGO and its two major initiatives, authorship rights and working conditions for cinematographers. Canadian Cinematographer: Can you tell us a little bit about the history of IMAGO? Nigel Walters BSC: IMAGO came about through the inspiration of Italian cinematographer Luciano Tovoli. With the fall of communism and the opening of the Eastern Bloc, Europe was being inundated with new cinematographers, and it was felt that standards needed to be developed for cinematography and to keep those standards as high as possible for everyone’s benefit. There was also a need for establishing authors’ rights. So Luciano pushed for societies of Europe to band together to establish some sort of order. That was in 1992,
20 • Canadian Cinematographer - June 2015
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By GUIDO KONDRUSS
when four societies – the Italians, the Germans, the British and the French – came together, forming a nucleus and called it IMAGO. Today there are 47 societies worldwide, and when it gets to 50 societies, I’m calling it a day and going home. CC: How did the name IMAGO come about? NW: Nobody seems to know. However, in Latin imago means “image” or “reflection,” and since we’re all cinematographers, it’s a good bet that the name probably originated there. CC: You mentioned earlier authorship rights for cinematographers. Can you elaborate on that? NW: Authors’ rights is one of the fundamental reasons for the existence of IMAGO. Right now, through the European Union we’re working towards changing regulations in Europe regarding residual payments to cinematographers for their work as image creators. There are many European countries that are paying cinematographer residuals on one level or another. But it’s uneven. CC: Is there any hope at all that author rights will become standardized throughout all countries? NW: Well, this is exactly what IMAGO is about. We’re trying to standardize it, and we are succeeding. But it’s a slow business and it doesn’t happen overnight. The situation regarding authors’ rights across the board (all areas of copyright) is at this moment under very serious review (by the EU) for urgent attention. Author rights are going to change in Europe, and we cinematographers want to have a part in that change. CC: How sympathetic is the EU towards cinematographer authorship rights in specific? NW: Are they sympathetic? They want to do what is right, but we have to persuade them, and I think they are listening. We’ve got very positive responses to our approaches. We’ll know hopefully this summer whether or not this new legislation comes in and encompasses the word “cinematographer” as a recognized co-author of the image. We have a lawyer, a German lady, she works out of Barcelona, her name is Cristina Busch, and she represents us voluntarily, putting forth our case at EU meetings in Brussels. We’re hopeful. We already made a big breakthrough in the last two years with the EU recognizing IMAGO for the first time as a representative cinematographers’ organization, a federation. So they are listening to us. CC: Where are you finding the most resistance to authorship rights? NW: There’s resistance obviously from the people who will be affected. At the moment, directors are getting 100 per cent
