85 minute read
PRODUCTION & POST NEWS
SECOND REEF BECOMES EXCLUSIVE DISTRIBUTOR OF BLACKWING7 LENSES
Second Reef GmbH is now the exclusive distributor of the well-received Tribe7 Blackwing7 lenses in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Based in Germany, the company has been working with Tribe7 on the roll-out of the lenses since very early in the project, and the new agreement will help to streamline delivery times and continue service support. The timing coincides with the release of the newest focal length of 20.7mm
Purpose-designed for large format motion picture imaging, Blackwing7 lenses represent an entirely new range of tuned optics for contemporary filmmakers to use within their creative storytelling. Lens tuning allows parameters such as sharpness, contrast, roll-off, spherical aberration, field curvature, edge halation and flare to be modified to provide sets of ‘curated’ optics to suit the personality and intent of the owner.
The lens range comprises a core set of seven focal lengths (27, 37, 47, 57, 77, 107 and 137mm) plus the newly added 20.7mm - with three tuning options per focal length, configurable at point of manufacture.
Colorfront, the developer of high-performance on-set dailies and transcoding systems for motion pictures and high-end TV production, has launched Colorfront Streaming Server, a live-streaming appliance that delivers colour fidelity and real-time performance for remote post production operations.
The new product ensures that everyone collaborating remotely on a project - post production creatives and multiple clients - can simultaneously see the same material, with identical colour-accuracy, in grading suite or screening room image-quality, wherever they are located around the world.
Colorfront Streaming Server can live-stream colour and frame-accurate footage in reference quality 4K HDR from third-party grading, editorial and VFX applications - such as Blackmagic Resolve, FilmLight Baselight, Adobe Premiere, Avid Media Composer, Apple Final Cut and Autodesk Flame - to multiple remote clients simultaneously anywhere around the world.
The appliance works in real-time with HD, 2K, 4K and stereo3D content, in Rec709 SDR or HDR with Dolby Vision, and uses SRT (Secure Reliable Transport Protocol) to deliver low-latency live video, plus multi-channel audio, over the public internet to multiple remote clients concurrently.
On the client side, inexpensive small form-factor equipment - AJA T-Tap Pro, Blackmagic Design UltraStudio 4K Mini, and Apple M1 Mac Mini - support Colorfront’s complementary Streaming Player software and enable colouraccurate viewing and QC on a range of professional 4K HDR reference displays, Apple XDR Pro and prosumer OLED screens.
FILMGRAB CINEMATIC VISUAL REFERENCE SERVICE
If you want an example of how an obsession evolves into an industry service, look no further than cinematographer/camera operator Donnacha Coffey and the website he has been building for the last 12 years called FilmGrab (film-grab.com), writes Michael Goldman.
FilmGrab is an online still photo library/ database featuring reference imagery from over 2,660 separate motion pictures - ranging from shorts and indie films to the latest studio fare, approximately 170,000 separate images, all of them hand-picked and uploaded by Coffey himself, with more on the way.
He says he started the site as a personal blog to share reference imagery, but since then, it has become an important resource for filmmakers, educators, students, art and cinema aficionados, and more.
“After I started the site as a hobby, every time I went back to look, the numbers were growing and people were requesting images from various films,” Coffey says. “I started at the time with frame grabs from DVDs, and now it’s Blu-rays or streamed films. I usually will have watched the movie recently, and then I go through it faster, using a shortcut set-up on my computer to skip ahead or back, a frame at a time. It can come down to a single frame to get the right facial expression, an eyeline, anything that might turn an OK shot into a great still shot. Then, I’ll edit my selections to get to a number I like, usually between 60 and 65 still frames from each film. It’s quite labour intensive, but my motto for doing it is that if one person does it right one time, then it is done, and no one will have to do it again. So, I’m putting my time into hopefully save time for other people.”
Coffey charges nothing for the stills, refuses to sell anything, and goes out of his way not to profit in any way from the site. That is necessary to avoid copyright or licensing fee issues with intellectual property owners. The site is strictly a service for educational, journalistic, and reference use, and since he doesn’t profit from the images, there are no rights’ fees entanglements. Instead, he earns his living from his own film work and offering consultancy services to those searching for reference imagery for their own film, teaching or artistic projects. Beyond that, the site asks for donations from those who are so inclined. “These are not my photos, so there would be no point in trying to profit off them,” he says. “It’s a service. A lot of colleges and film courses use them, for example. Everything is searchable by film, director, cinematographer, production designer, costume designer, year, decade, genre, and so on.”
Coffey admits he does this work strictly as a labour of love, because he is obsessed with filmmaking. But he says the educational and referential value of the image database he has built is something central to cinematic communication.
“When I talk to cinematographers, or consult with them, we instantly talk in references,” he says. “We might say that is a ‘Kubrick’ thing or whatever. You build a vocabulary, a language of film, so beautiful still images as a reference point are just a better way to communicate such ideas. Seeing it is always better than words on a page.”
COLORFRONT LAUNCHES STREAMING SERVER FOR REMOTE COLOUR-ACCURATE POST PRODUCTION
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FORM FACTOR With a low weight for its size, the Panalux Sonara 4:4 offers a slim profile that hides its integrated ballast. Refine the fixture’s soft, wraparound output via softbox, diffusion, and eggcrate accessories, and rig how you like thanks to comprehensive mounting options.
CHROMA-QON LOCATION WITH GAFFER WAYNE SHIELDS
Having developed and introduced LED solutions for over 15 years, Chroma-Q has built a steady following within the production industry, that continues to see the creative application of its low-energy technology by a growing number of crews.
A selection of products from the company’s range of low energy solutions were put to use recently by experienced gaffer, Wayne Shields on Brave New World and The Witcher S2.
Shields says, “I’ve worked with Chroma-Q products for a few years. As an LED source, they deliver some great results, powerful output with plenty of flexibility when you need it.”
Shields and his crew recently made use of the company’s Color Force II LED battens, with an installation designed to deliver a range of creative, incamera effects.
He explains, “We used the Color Force II to illuminate a large-scale interior and create some pretty intense fire effects, within a listed building in central London. The fixtures worked well for this type of application = quick to set-up and simple to use. The overall effect was easy to control and delivered some great looks”.
Shields also achieved a strong performance from the Brute Force during filming with cinematographer Romain Lacourbas AFC, at a remote forest location.
Drawing 15 amps @ 240V the Brute Force from Chroma-Q is a true LED full colour RGB-W light source, fully-dimmable with an extended CCT range between 2,000K and 10,000K, using Chroma-Q Studio Force II battens. Available as 6-lamp and 4-lamp options, the Brute Force’s multi-point fixings allows units to be easily combined to form a powerful, low energy alternative to a ‘conventional’ quarter Wendy.
“The Brute Force really was both a surprise and delight to work with,” Shields continues, “we rigged it overhead for a night shoot, in some pretty dense woodland. The output was superb, drawing only minimum power, which was an added bonus in such a remote setting. The fixture has a great spread and the weather cover accessory made it particularly useful for a UK location during winter.”
CHARLES CRICHTON AND HIS CINEMATOGRAPHERS DOPCHOICE ADDS EVEN SOFTNESS TO CAMEO F-SERIES FRESNELS
To accommodate today’s preponderance of video streaming, DoPchoice now offers the patented Snapbag softbox and Snapgrid 20/30/40/50-degree grids to soften and direct the output of Cameo F-Series Fresnels. “As video streaming becomes more and more important, so does the need for softer, more even lighting,” explains Daniel Wrase, product manager, Cameo. “Fortunately, anyone with a Cameo F-Series Fresnel spotlight doesn’t need to buy a new spotlight. Now, without needing any tools, a spot can easily transform into a soft light using the practical, foldable Snapbag softbox.”
The Snapbag SBSAHF is made to mount exclusively to Cameo F1, F2 and F4 series fixtures. It comes packed flat in its own pouch and snaps-up instantly to form a rectangular, one-piece accessory. Weighing 1.3kg/2.87lbs, it attaches in seconds directly to Cameo Fresnels with hook and loop straps that fit around the barn doors. Snapbags even out the illumination thanks to the internal reflective fabric, then soften it in two ways: via an internal quarter grid baffle suspended within the interior; plus a removable half grid diffusion panel which hook-and-loops to the front of the Snapbag. To direct the light, the user can choose a 20-, 30-, 40-, or 50-degree Snapgrid that rapidly affixes around the Snapbag front. Manufactured by DoPchoice and TRP International, accessories for the Cameo F-Series are currently available through Adam Hall Group.
In a directing career across more than 40 years in film and television, between 1944 and 1988, Charles Crichton worked with some of Britain’s greatest cinematographers including Freddie Francis BSC, Eric Cross BSC, Otto Heller BSC, Christopher Challis BSC, Ted Scaife BSC, Ken Higgins and Alan Hume BSC.
But undoubtedly his most fertile collaboration, as revealed in the first-ever biography, written by Quentin Falk, of one of Britain’s finest filmmakers, was with Douglas Slocombe OBE BSC ASC. This included no fewer than ten films alone for Ealing Studios, notably Hue And Cry (1947), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953).
Crichton and Slocombe made their respective feature debuts in 1944 with For Those In Peril, a short, sharp, Ealing propaganda drama about the Air Sea Rescue Service in wartime. Its vivid exteriors were enlivened by Slocombe’s earlier experience as a newsreel cameraman, whilst Crichton’s background as an editor with producer Alexander Korda at Denham, then in short documentaries for the influential Cavalcanti at Ealing helped fashion an admirably taut seagoing tale. Away from the waves, Crichton and Slocombe proved equally adept whether reproducing youthful hijinks on London bombsites, a glorious farcical Bank Of England bullion heist or with the first Ealing comedy in colour about attempts to preserve a local railway line. After Ealing, they worked twice more including The Third Secret (1963), a psycho-drama which was to be one of the last Cinemascope films shot in B&W. Whilst Slocombe’s feature career went from strength-to -strength, earning him acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic - he died in 2016 at the age of 103 - Crichton’s feature work dried-up for more than 20 years during which time he worked in television on everything from Danger Man and The Avengers to The Adventures of Black Beauty and Space:1999.
It was on The Avengers that Crichton worked for the first time with Alan Hume, a collaboration that would ignite again most spectacularly in 1988 when Crichton made his remarkable comeback to films aged 78 with A Fish Called Wanda.
The film, which as well as supplying him with a healthy pension, also, rather neatly, earned Crichton a number of prizes including The Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution To Cinema and The Peter Sellers Award for Comedy. He died in 1999 on the cusp of 90.
Charles Crichton by Quentin Falk (Manchester University Press, £80), published June 29. The code OTH867 can be used to get a 40% discount when purchasing the book on MUP’s website. It expires on the 31/12/2021. Falk is a former editor of Screen International and Fujifilm’s Exposure journal, Exposure, and the author of books on Anthony Hopkins, Albert Finney, Alfred Hitchcock and Graham Greene.
UK rental house Pixipixel has appointed Johnny Colley as director of lighting. Colley brings many years of experience to the company having previously been business director for ARRI Lighting Rental and, more recently, managing director for Sumolight Rental.
“Coming from a background working as a lighting gaffer for over two decades on feature films, dramas, commercials and music videos, I am eager to share my knowledge and experience and look forward to building relationships, growing the business and supporting crews,” said Colley.
Pixipixel has further expanded its team with the appointment of Chris Youlton, as a business development manager for cameras, and Russ Greening as a senior lighting account handler working on TV dramas feature films.
SETH EMMONS NAMED DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AT ERNST LEITZ WETZLAR
Cinema lens manufacturer Ernst Leitz Wetzlar is expanding its global marketing with the appointment of technology veteran Seth Emmons as director of communications. Emmons will use his 15-plus years of industry marketing and creative experience, including five years previously with Ernst Leitz Wetzlar, to strengthen and grow the brand’s connection to the production community.
Based in Los Angeles, California, Emmons will work primarily with the North American market of cinematographers, directors, rental houses, and professional organisations to increase exposure to the Leitz line of cinema lens products and develop brand opportunities for the company.
Leitz managing director Rainer Hercher, said, “Whilst Seth’s impact on the company will include our messaging and outreach to the global production market, his primary focus will be continuing to expand our connections in the American film and television production community. He will be a technical and creative resource for cinematographers and a point of contact for those looking to learn about and test our wide selection of professional cinema lenses.”
Most recently Emmons was vice president of marketing at The Tiffen Company, and has previously held marketing positions at Litepanels and Band Pro Film & Digital, as well as being one of the earliest employees at Leitz (formerly CW Sonderoptic) where he spearheaded its initial marketing efforts.
INTRODUCING THE NEW OCTAPLUS 4 LIGHTBANK BY CHIMERA
MOST ILLUMINATING
Panalux By Ron Prince
If you ever get an invitation to participate in a tour around a corporate HQ my advice would be: take it, they are always well worth it. So when the opportunity arose to pay a visit to lighting supplier Panalux’s HQ in Park Royal, I embraced it with open arms (plus a face mask and slathered in anti-bacterial gel, of course).
The facility itself is nestled beside a McVitie’s biscuit-making factory (more about that later) in the outer-suburbs of northwest London. Other than a brand-affirming sign, the premises look innocuous enough from the outside. The casual passer-by would have little idea that this Panavision Group company supports globally-acclaimed TV shows such as The Crown and Peaky Blinders, or movies like Tenet and The Father.
Heading indoors, the first impression when looking out from a mezzanine floor above the cavernous warehouse below, is ‘Wow, this is a paradise for sparks and gaffers’. This panoramic, birds-eye-view reveals a maze of rows-upon-rows of industrial-strength storage and shelving systems, dedicated to containing lots-and-lots of industrialstrength lighting gear for all manner of commercials, high-end TV and feature film production.
Ballasts, bulbs, cables, gels, textiles, flags, flight cases, stands and trussing, together with fluorescent, vintage incandescent and state-of-the-art LED fixtures galore - you name it, it’s all here. Not far from a row of Dinos, I could have sworn I saw some carbon arcs.
The Panalux group has no fewer that 320,000 line-items in stock. That’s some investment. And, by outward appearance there’s still a decent amount available on the shelves, despite the company, and the UK production industry at large, going gangbusters in 2021.
My masked tour guide, group operations director Christian Malone, and a man of some 25-years within the Panavision group, explains that the company’s 24/7/364 services are all departmentalised, with the inventory fullycomputerised to ensure the steady, and accurate, flow-and-return of lighting packages to-and-from sets up-and-down the country.
Gear being returned, via the company’s fleet of unmistakable white-liveried trucks and vans, is checked-in, cleaned, tested, and repaired when necessary, before being recycled back into the system, ready for dispatch on the next job. At the time of my tour, in the last weekend alone, the Waxlow Road branch had dispatched some 35 vehicles, loaded with 35,000 items, weighting some 145 tonnes.
Outside, in the yard where the Mercedes Benzserviced fleet resides, is evidence of the additional, powerful investments the company is making into environmentally-friendly production in the form of the h40 hybrid generator from Panalux Power. Capable of delivering 240V AC power up to a load of 40kW, the h40’s generator never idles and the diesel engine only engages to charge the batteries. This is good news for the planet, and good news for productions shooing in London boroughs, such as Richmond, Barnes, Putney and Greenwich, which have already adopted ultra-low emission policies, with more of the same coming countrywide.
In the company’s boardroom, bedecked with umpteen large B&W photographic prints of cinematographers working on-set, I get to meet the company’s technical director for EMEA, Dave Amphlett in-person and similarly veiled, with managing director Mark Furssedonn and group sales director John Lawton joining via Zoom on a huge TV screen.
Dave works over at Panalux’s Perivale facility of similar size, where there is additional storage, and where R&D, specialist engineering, special-builds, repairs and additional textile manufacturing take place. An industry veteran, with some 20 years of experience in developing lighting products, he is the brains behind Panalux’s next-generation Sonara 4:4 LED variable-white LED soft light, launched at the 2020 BSC Expo and now popular amongst gaffers. Apparently, John ‘Biggles’ Higgins used half a dozen Sonara 4:4s on the upcoming thriller All The Old Knives (DP Charlotte Bruus Christensen DFF ASC). We’ll save the technical details for another occasion and other innovations in lighting are on the way. So, watch this space.
Whilst Panalux develops lighting products in-house, and has classic fixtures such as Dino and Wendy-lights on offer, its vast and modern inventory is essentially predicated around blue-chip film-lighting manufacturers. These include ARRI, Creamsource, Kino Flo, Dedolight, Litepanels, Mole Richardson, Astera and Cineo, plus robotic/ automated systems from LRX and Martin, to name but a few, all providing choice and reliability for clients, as well as manageability by the company across its different facilities in London, Manchester, Cardiff and Glasgow. Panalux also has outlets in South Africa, France and Czech Republic.
Mark, a Panavision-company man since 1985, says that with so much feature and TV content being produced, never mind commercials, that (discounting the Covid-blighted 2020 from the financial reckoning) 2021 is looking to be a better year than 2019. And 2019 was a bumper year for the UK industry in general. He also says the company is always looking towards new opportunities that can help the company to grow with the industry.
Before I know it the best part of two-and-a-half hours has elapsed, and it’s time to go home. When Covid restrictions ease-up, the company will be inviting more sparks and gaffers to come over for a look at its facilities, and they will be in for a treat.
As for the McVitie’s factory next door, it apparently has a small shop, so getting something sweet to dunk into afternoon cups a tea is an easy proposition. More difficult a proposition is ‘The Cinematography World Challenge’. If you can name all of the DPs in the photographs in Panalux’s boardroom, we’ll give you a special prize (probably large box containing lots of Jaffa Cakes, Digestives, Ginger Nuts and Hobnobs). So who’s up for the next tour?
Opposite Main: Mezzanine view at Panalux HQ Right: h40 hybrid generator Lower: group operations director Christian Malone Below left: technical director for EMEA Dave Amphlett Below centre: a Sonara 4:4 LED going out on a job
PANALUX BY DATES & NUMBERS
1998 AFM/LEE LIGHTING BUSINESS STARTED AT WAXLOW ROAD 2007 PANALUX IS BORN AFTER PANAVISION ACQUIRES AFM & LEE LIGHTING 2015 PANALUX ACQUIRES ITS PERIVALE FACILITY 160 DELIVERY VANS AND TRUCKS 180 EMPLOYEES ACROSS THE PANALUX GROUP 180 LORRY-LOADS OF KIT DISPATCHED EVERY WEEK 27,000sqft PANALUX MANCHESTER, CARDIFF & GLASGOW 40,000sqft AT PANALUX PERIVALE 42,000sqft AT PANALUX HQ WAXLOW ROAD 320,000 LINE ITEMS IN STOCK
CAMERADERIE
Our regular round up of who is shooting what and where
WORLDWIDE PRODUCTION AGENCY Stephen Murphy BSC ISC is shooting S3 of FX’s award-winning series Atlanta, with director Hiro Murai. Arthur Mulhern is prepping C4 prison drama Screw, from creator Rob Williams and STV Studios, with Tom Vaughn directing the opening block. Ed Moore BSC is readying for The Birth Of Daniel F. Harris with director Alex Winckler for Clerkenwell Films/C4. Anna Patarakina FSF has started three-part series The Tower with director Jim Loach for Mammoth Screen/ITV. Baz Irvine ISC is shooting the first block of Amazon’s version of the critically-acclaimed series Call My Agent with director John Morton. Kanamé Onoyama is shooting on the third block of Top Boy S3 with director William Stefan Smith for Netflix. Tony Slater Ling BSC is lighting with director Adrian Shergold on Wolfe for Sky/AbbottVision. Catherine Derry is lighting on the feature film CURS>R with director Toby Meakins for Stigma Films. PJ Dillon ISC ASC continues shooting the series That Dirty Black Bag with director Brian O’Malley for Palomar/Sundance TV. Mattias Troelstrup has wrapped the second block of Hanna S3 in Prague with director Weronika Tofilska for Amazon/NBC Universal. Vanessa Whyte is shooting on Ted Lasso S2 for AppleTV+ with director Matt Lipsey. Joel Honeywell has wrapped in Manchester on Wolfe Ep3 with director Sean Spencer. Jaime Ackroyd has completed the feature Breakfast In Beirut, shooting in Bulgaria, Greece and the UK for Millennium Films and director Tina Gharavi. Ruairi O’Brien ISC continues principle photography on the final block of Amazon’s The Power, with director Neasa Hardiman. Jake Gabbay lit a Nike spot with director Ramone Andreson via LCS Studio, and an Adidas ad with Lainey Richardson through Caviar. Thomas Hole shot for Virgin Radio with EMO Ltd director Jon Riche, a spot for McCann with director Chris Ranson and JBL and an ad for Chelsea FC with Copa 90 and director Ben Jones. Matthew J. Smith lit a TVC for McDonalds with Tony Petersen Film and director Watts. Dan Holland received a Best Cinematography nomination at the Arizona Short Film Festival the multi-award winning short I Wish For You, and has wrapped spots with director Paul Butterworth on Hovis via Brave Spark, and Holland and Barrett though VCCP. Benjamin Todd shot a promo for Skrillex with director Ben Strebel and Biscuit, and then travelled to Paris with director duo AB/CD/CD and Very for a McDonalds’ ad.
INDEPENDENT TALENT Ole Birkeland BSC is in Australia filming Pieces Of Her with Minkie Spiro. Darran Bragg is shooting The Larkins with director Andy de Emmony. Bjorn Bratberg is filming The Long Call with Lee Haven Jones. Oliver Curtis BSC is shooting Stay
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Close for Lindy Heymann. Ben Davis BSC is lighting My Policeman with Michael Grandage. Anthony Dod Mantle DFF BSC ASC is shooting Lonely Boy with Danny Boyle. Simon Dennis BSC is working on American Crime Story S3 with director Ryan Murphy in the US. Adam Etherington BSC is shooting new ITV series Hollington Drive, directed by Carolina Giammetta. Arni Fillippusson is shooting block 2 of the new series Extinction, with director Laura Scrivano. Kit Fraser is shooting The Railway Children Return with Morgan Matthews. Catherine Goldschmidt is filming Chloe with Alice Seabright and Amanda Boyle. Stuart Howell is lensingThe Peripheral with Vincenzo Natali. Eric Kress is working on Borgen S4 for Netflix. Suzie Lavelle BSC is shooting Conversations With Friends, with director Lenny Abrahamson. David Luther is lighting new series The Swarm, with director Luke Watson. Roman Osin BSC is prepping The Last Voyage Of The Demeter with André Øvredal. Mark Patten BSC is in South Africa shooting Raised By Wolves S2 with Ernest Dickerson and Alex Gabassi. Stephan Pehrsson BSC is shooting SAS: Rogue Heroes with Tom Shankland. Tat Radcliffe BSC is filming Matthew Warchus’s Matilda. Christopher Ross BSC is shooting The Swimmers with Sally El Hosaini. Ashley Rowe BSC is prepping The Noel Diary for Charles Shyer. Carl Sundberg is lensing Flowers In The Attic for showrunner Paul Sciarrotta. Mark Waters is shooting Endeavour S8. Erik Wilson is lighting Landscapers with Will Sharpe. Maja Zamojda BSC is framing The Great S2 starring Nicholas Hoult and Elle Fanning. MCKINNEY MACARTNEY MANAGEMENT LTD Stuart Biddlecombe graded S4 of The Handmaid’s Tale and is shooting The Devil’s Hour for Amazon, directed by Johnny Kenton. Mick Coulter BSC continues on Outlander in Scotland. Sergio Delgado has started on Canoe Man for ITV. Gavin Finney BSC is prepping Darkness Rising for C4/HBO, directed by Peter Kosminsky. Jean Philippe Gossart continues on S2 of Netflix’s The Witcher and is preparing to join The Lark, also for Netflix. Steve Lawes continues to film The Hot Zone: Anthrax in Canada for National Geographic. Dale Elena McCready is filming The Rising, an eight-parter for Sky. Sam McCurdy BSC is shooting S1 of Scriptures in Canada for Warner Brothers. Andy McDonnell continues on BBC drama, You Don’t Know Me, directed by Sarmad Masud. Mike Spragg wrapped Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist in Canada and is prepping for The Last Kingdom S5. Richard Stoddard finished S3 of Brassic and moved on to Extinction for Sky One. Robin Whenary is prepping the Doctor Who Christmas Special in Cardiff. Denis Crossan BSC and Clive Tickner BSC have been shooting commercials.
UNITED AGENTS Philippe Kress DFF is shooting the SF Studio/ Netflix film Kærlighed For Voksne, directed by Barbara Rotenborg in Denmark. John Lee BSC is shooting The Rig, with director John Strickland for Wild Mercury Productions. John de Borman BSC AFC is prepping Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, directed by Hugh Laurie for Mammoth. Gavin Struthers ASC BSC is in Ireland for Epic, Disney/
Opposite: Nick Dance BSC and crew on Gentleman Jack in York; L-R: Anton Mertens working on Cobra; Zoe Goodwin-Stuart ACO; and Sam McCurdy BSC
ABC pilot, directed by James Griffiths. Marcel Zyskind has wrapped on the feature Dali Land, directed by Mary Harron in Liverpool. Alwin Küchler BSC is back in LA having wrapped on Falling Blocs for Marv. Donna Wade is shooting Ep7 S2 of Malory Towers, with director Gary Williams for King Bert Productions. Alan Almond BSC is reading for a variety of projects. Danny Cohen BSC is shooting Slow Horses for Apple TV. Damian Paul Daniel shot the documentary When I Was Younger, directed by Noella Mingo. Martin Führer BSC is meeting for various projects. David Higgs BSC is prepping The Amazing Mr Blunden, written by Mark Gatiss for Sky. Kieran McGuigan BSC is lighting Leftbank’s The Fear Index, directed by David Caffrey. Laurie Rose BSC is shooting Working Title’s Catherine Called Birdy, directed by Lena Dunham. Bet Rourich is starting on The English. John Sorapure is on Disney’s The Little Mermaid in the roles of second unit DP and second unit director. Simon Tindall is shooting Hidden S3 for Ed Taflan. Ollie Downey is shooting Eps 3, 5 and 7 of Amazon/Sister Pictures’ The Power, directed by Ugla Hauksdóttir and Lisa Gunning. Laurens De Geyter is shooting Hans Herbots’ latest feature, in Belgium. Sam Heasman is shooting three episodes of The Sandman for Warner Brothers/Netflix. David Rom is lighting S2 of Ted Lasso. Simon Stolland is meeting for several projects. Si Bell is lighting A Very British Scandal for director Anne Sewitsky and Blueprint Pictures/BBC/Amazon. Sam Chiplin is reading and meeting. Charlotte Bruus Christensen ASC has wrapped on All The Old Knives. James
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Clockwise: Lorena Pagès and Korsshan Schlauer on Top Boy; Will Pugh in North Wales on Sophie’s Story; James Frater on The Witcher; Gary Shaw shooting Intergalactic; and Maceo Bishop
Friend BSC ASC is lighting German-language feature All Quiet On The Western Front for regular collaborator Edward Berger and Rocket Science/ Amusement Park/Netflix. David Marsh lit the pilot Black Ops and is now on the Christmas Special of Call The Midwife. Anton Mertens SBC is lighting three-part drama Luxembourg for regular directors Nathalie Basteyns and Kaat Beels. Milos Moore is lighting four-part drama series Rules Of The Game for director Jennifer Sheridan and The Forge/BBC. Neus Olle AEC BSC is busy with commercials. David Raedeker BSC is lighting The Essex Serpent for director Clio Barnard and See-Saw Films/ Apple TV+. Niels Reedtz Johansen is lighting a TV drama in Copenhagen. Kate Reid BSC is shooting new drama series The Baby for Nicole Kassell, Sister Pictures/ Sky/HBO. Joshua James Richards has been busy with awards press and publicity for
Nomadland and meeting for future projects. Ed Rutherford is lighting The Serpent Queen for Stacie Passon and Lionsgate Television/Starz. Anna Valdez Hanks is lighting Magpie Murders for Peter Cattaneo and Eleventh Hour Films/Britbox. Ben Wheeler is on The Tourist for Two Brothers Pictures/ BBC/HBO Max and director Chris Sweeney in Australia. Remi Adefarasin BSC has shot a Ten X commercial with Elle Key through Caviar. Alex Barber lit a B&Q ad with The Sacred Egg for Riff Raff films, and a TK Maxx spot with Fredrik Bond for MJZ London. Simon Chaudoir collaborated with The Sacred Egg for a BT ad in Kiev with Riff Raff, and a Dior commercial with director Axel Morin via Frenzy. Lasse Frank shot in Slovenia with Martin Werner for Hornbach. Brendan Galvin is in Atlanta on The In Between with director Arie Posin. Stephen Keith Roach worked on a Met Police project with director Seb Edwards at Academy, and a National Lottery ad with director Gary Freedman through Independent. Tristan Oliver is shooting The Trouble With Jessica for director Matt Winn.
ECHO ARTISTS Stuart Bentley BSC is shooting BBC’s Life After Life with director John Crowley. Nadim Carlsen is still shooting director Ali Abbasi’s The Long Night. Carlos Catalan is on Amazon’s The Power lensing Eps 4, 6 and 8 with director Shannon Murphy. David Chizallet AFC has finished an Untitled feature with directors Luc Bricault and Ida Techer. Rachel Clark has been grading Reggie Yates’
Pirates. Andrew Commis ACS has graded Armagan Ballantyne’s Nude Tuesday. Nick Cooke had done the DI on Lynsey Miller’s Anne Boleyn for Fable Pictures. New client, Ruben Woodin Dechamps, shot the short Weekend Dad with director Dorothy Allen Pickard for BBC/BFI. Bonnie Elliott ACS is prepping The Shining Girls with director Daina Reid for Apple TV. David Gallego ADFC is prepping Laura Mora’s The Kings Of The World. Lachlan Milne ACS has wrapped S4 of Stranger Things. Will Pugh is shooting Eps1-3 of Crime with director James Strong. Korsshan Schlauer has wrapped additional photography on Top Boy S4. Maria von Hausswolff is shooting Hylnur Palamason’s feature Vanskabte Land. Felix Wiedemann BSC is grading on Mrs Harris Goes To Paris. Joe Anderson, Federico Cesca ASK, Edgar Dubrovskiy, Charlie Herranz, Jo Jo Lam, MacGregor, Lorena Pagès, Christopher Miles, Michael Paleodimos, Noel Schoolderman, Niels Thastum DFF, and Sean Price Williams have all been busy in commercials.
SARA PUTT ASSOCIATES Giulio Biccari is shooting Stay Close in Manchester for Red Productions. Duncan Telford is prepping The Cockfields for Yellow Door Productions. David Mackie shot in Lebanon the World Monument Fund, which provides training to Lebanese and Syrian refugees. Yinka Edward continues in Nigeria on The Black Book. The BFI feature Sweetheart, lit by Emily Almond-Barr, won the Audience Award at The Glasgow Film Festival. Andrei Austin ACO Associate BSC SOC is operating on The Bubble, directed by Judd Apatow. Danny Bishop ACO Associate BSC SOC is operating on All Quiet On The Western Front in Czech Republic for director Ed Berger and DP James Friend. Ed Clark ACO is shooting SAS Rogue Heroes for Kudos Productions with director Tom Shankland. James Frater ACO SOC wrapped on The Witcher S2, before working on Mahogany, and then starting a block of The Midwich Cuckoos for Snowed In Productions. Zoe Goodwin-Stuart ACO is working alongside Gulio Biccari on Stay Close. Ilana Garrard ACO has wrapped on Netflix’s Anatomy Of A Scandal and is prepping for The Swimmers. James Leigh ACO continues on Stephen Merchant’s series The Offenders for Big Talk/Amazon. Will Lyte ACO has been working on Top Boy. Vince McGahon ACO Associate BSC is operator/Steadicam on Embankment, starring Gary Oldman. Julian Morson ACO Associate BSC GBCT is working on The Little Mermaid, directed by Rob Marshall. Alastair Rae ACO Associate BSC is in Scotland on The Last King. Aga Szeliga Assoc ACO is the
Clockwise: Jake Scott, pre-lighting a Greygoose ad; Pete Rowe GBCT; Martijn van Broekhuizen on-set of Cool Abdoul; and DP Stuart Dryburgh NZCS ASC with gaffer John Busch on the virtual stage at Gum Studios, NY
Adam Gillham is attached to and prepping an embargoed drama. Ryan Kernaghan is shooting drama Karen Pirie alongside director Gareth Bryn. Oli Russell has wrapped Sex Education S3. Nicola Daley ACS has graded Gentleman Jack S2. Molly Manning Walker is shooting Superhoe with director Dawn Shadforth. Håvard Helle has wrapped Martin Owen’s The Lonliest Boy In The World. Luke Bryant has graded The Statistical Probability Of Love At First Sight directed by Vanessa Casill. Karl Oskarsson IKS is prepping an embargoed drama for Netflix, and Charlie Goodger has graded feature Year 10. Christophe Nuyens SBC is shooting an embargoed drama for Netflix. Susanne Salavati is shooting Back To Life S2 alongside director Ella Jones. Sverre Sørdal FNF is prepping a feature, Hamish Anderson shot pilot I Hate You for director Bex Rycroft, and Seppe
operator on Red Gun. Tom Walden Associate ACO wrapped on Sex Education, and welcomed a baby girl. Rick Woollard has been busy on commercials for L’Oreal, McDonalds, Nespresso, Persil, Dior and River Island, as well as dailies on CURS>R.
WIZZO & CO Aaron Reid has wrapped Stephen directed by Alrick Riley, and Gary Shaw is prepping the opening block of His Dark Materials S3. Diana Olifirova is shooting Heartstopper with director Euros Lynn, and Patrick Meller has wrapped short film Don’t Forget, directed by Mika Watkins. Van Grieken SBC is shooting a drama in Liverpool. Steven Ferguson shot pilot Silky Hotel, directed by Tommy Gillard. Jan Richter-Friis DFF graded Cobra S2 remotely, and is in the USA prepping a drama. Nick Dance BSC is shooting Gentleman Jack S2 with director Ed Hall. Fede Alfonzo shot for Jamie Rafn and Will Bex for The Bobbsey Twins. Joe Douglas worked with director Amy BeckerBurnett, and Franklin Dow with Charlotte Regan. Theo Garland shot with Jim Owen, and Arran Green with Marley Morrison. Ben Magahy shot with Randy Krallman, Antonio Paladino shot with Claas Ortmann and David Procter with Stella Scott. Congratulations to Molly Manning Walker who won a British Arrow (Silver) for her work on NHS: We Are Nurses directed by Billy Boyd Cape, and to Tim Sidell who picked up a British Arrow (Bronze) for his work on Everyman: Music Makes You Feel film directed by Sophie Jones.
BERLIN ASSOCIATES Will Baldy is shooting an Untitled project for Netflix/DC. Sarah Bartles Smith is shooting Queens Of Mystery S2 for Sly Fox Productions, with director Ian Emes. Len Gowing shot the second block on The Bay S3 for ITV in Manchester, with director Nicole Volavka. Alvaro Gutierrez is shooting We Hunt Together
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L-R: Robbie Ryan BSC ISC on Lord Jones; and Ahmet Husseyin shooting Money talks
S2 for UKTV/BBC with director Jonathan Teplitsky. Anniemarie Lean-Vercoe is shooting a block of Endeavour, with director Ian Aryeh. Nick Martin is filming Big Talk Productions’ The Offenders for BBC1, with director Stephen Merchant. Toby Moore is shooting the sequel to Fisherman’s Friends for Fred Films. Trevelyan Oliver is lighting Tiger Aspect Productions’ Hitmen for Sky1, with director David Scant. Tom Pridham is working on commercials, a TV drama and greenscreen shoots. Benjamin Pritchard is shooting Teacher for Clapperboard/C5, with director Dominic Leclerc. Andrew Rodger lit a promo for Connor Maynard, and graded the feature Confession. Pete Rowe is filming Dodger for NBC Universal, with director Rhys Thomas. James Swift shot a block of All Creatures Great And Small S2 for Playground Entertainment/ C5, with director Sasha Ransome. Matt Wicks is preparing The Witchfinder for Baby Cow/BBC2. Phil Wood shot block two of Doctor Who S13, and is now on Ragdoll for Sid Gentle Films/Alibi.
MYMANAGEMENT Pieter Vermeer has joined the roster. The Amsterdam-based DP studied photography at the prestigious St. Joost School Of Art & Design in the Netherlands, and then found himself becoming a sought-after DP for commercials, music videos and features. Chris Dodds lit commercials for Tesco, with director Caroline Irby via BBH, and a Remington campaign with director Simon Sorted. Dominic Bartels shot the short film Cold in Hereford, a dark fairytale for grown-ups about love and loss, madness and redemption, filmed in a dormant theatre, combining contemporary camera techniques with practical stage effects, written and directed by Claire Coaché and Lisle Turner. Craig Dean Devine is prepping Ladhood S2, directed by Jonathan Schey. Filip Marek went to
L-R: Chris Dodds on-set at Langley Park; and Arnaud Carney shooting for Garnier with Sony Venice
Bucharest to shoot with director Thor for Sargenor through Saga Films, and then teamed-up with Marek Partys for a Slido shoot. Sam Meyer lensed for Pokerstars in Paris with director Tom Brown, and for McVities through Unit 9, plus a Daniel Briskin music video with Pulse. Sy Turnbull joined forces with Annex Films for a Vista Print commercial, directed by Seb Pettreti. Tuomo Virtanen and director Vesa Manninen are working together on various projects in Helsinki. Nicolaj Bruel DFF worked with BRW Filmland and director Gabrielle Mainetti on a Mulino Bianco shoot in Rome, before heading back to Copenhagen for a Unibet spot directed by Simon Ladefaged. Adric Watson shot a Krunk music video with director Greg Hackett at Spindle, a Vodafone ad in Liverpool with producer Michelle Stapleton at Madam, and a Paloma Faith music video through Prettybird with director Yousef. Ahmet Husseyin joined-up with Passion Pictures for a Compare The Meerkat campaign, directed by Dave Scanlon, and Black Dog/RSA for a Sons Of Raphael shoot directed by Loral Raphael. Pete Konczal was in LA and New York for an Infiniti shoot with director Steve Fuller, and did a BMW spot with Jonny Mass directing. Robbie Ryan BSC ISC collaborated with Academy Films for an Aviva TVC in Scotland with director Seb Edwards, a Lord Jones spot directed by The Sacred Egg at Riff Raff, and a Nick Cave shoot through Uncommon Creative Studio with director Andrew Dominik. Jallo Faber FSF lit a Mercedes campaign with director Valentine Petite through Anorak, and a Frontier spot directed by RBG6. Arnaud Carney worked with Skillsprod TV and director Marcelo Melo for a Berluti shoot in Barcelona, before heading to Marseille with Downtown Paris for a Garnier spot. Gaul Porat was in Dubai with director Nico Kreis for a Nismo spot, and then worked with Déjà Vu for Amazon Prime directed by Shahir Zag. Zauberberg Production enlisted the talents of Ekkehart Pollack to lens a Smart shoot in Barcelona with director Daniel Warwick. He then teamed up with director Jake Scott for a Toyota spot in Athens through RSA. Paul O’Callaghan shot for Weekend Films on a Ford S Max ad directed by Loren Colson, and has
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Clockwise from top: David Procter on Pokerstars (pic by Harvey Ascott); Diana Olifirova shooting a commercial for AirBnB in Shoreditch; Dan Nightingale ACO; Tony Kay ACO shooting The Larkins
been doing recces for mini-series Imposters, directed by Gareth Johnson, for Raw TV/Netflix. Todd Martin teamed-up with director Julian Marshall for a Verizon shoot, and then Biscuit for a Sky Sports shoot directed by Dan Difelice. Ben Coughlan continued his collaboration with Vevo and director Jim Wilmot for their DSCVR artists to watch programme. Tomas Tomasson shot in Iceland with True North on One Strange Rock, plus a Mentos ad on Langjökull for director Saman Kesh. Lee Thomas shot for director Chris Thomas on a Keep Wales Tidy campaign, which highlights the incredible importance of keeping beaches tidy and free from plastics. Darran Tiernan was in LA lensing a Pepsi
spot with director Russ Lamoureux. Jo Willems continues in Toronto with friend and director Francis Lawrence on the adaptation of Windsor McCay’s Little Nemo In Slumberland, starring Jason Momoa, Kyle Chandler, Chris O’Dowd and Marlow Barkley. Daisy Zhou collaborated with director Charlotte Rutherford for Urban Decay in New York, followed by a Prada spot in LA directed by Martine Syms. David Lanzenberg has been on S2 of The Morning Show, an inside look at the lives of the TV people who help America wake up in the morning, directed by Mimi Leder, starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Billy Crudup. Stuart Dryburgh ASC shot a commercial for MCM, on the virtual stage at GUM Studios in Brooklyn New York, for Swell and director Tarik Malak.
PRINCESTONE Of the agency’s camera/Steadicam operators Dan Nightingale ACO is shooting The Almond And The Seahorse, directed by Celyn Jones, with co-director and DP is Tom Stern AFC ASC, starring Rebel Wilson and Charlotte Gainsbourg. by DP is Dion Beebe ACS ASC. Sean Savage Associate BSC ACO SOC, who is also ACO president, is filming Amazon Studios’ action-packed series Citadel, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, with Newton Thomas Sigel ASC the DP. Tony Kay ACO is shooting The Larkins, a new adaptation of the classic novel The Darling Buds Of May, directed by Andy De Emmony for ITV/Genial/Objective Fiction Fabrizio Sciarra SOC Associate BSC GBCT ACO is shooting Dungeons And Dragons in Belfast, with directors John Francis Daley and Jonathon Goldstein, and DP Barry Peterson, produced by Allspark Pictures/Paramount Pictures. James Layton ACO is on Hulu’s The Great S2,
Rob Hart ACO is filming BBC1 thriller, The Girl Before, with director is Lisa Brühlmann and the DP is Eben Bolter BSC, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw and David Oyelowo. Joe Russell ACO is on Red Gun, the prequel to Game Of Thrones, shooting at Leavesden Studios with DP Fabian Wagner BSC. Peter Robertson Associate BSC ACO is filming Disney’s The Little Mermaid, a remake of the 1989 animated movie, directed is Rob Marshall, shot with director Colin Bucksey and cinematographer John Brawley. Simon Baker ACO is shooting on second feature film of Downton Abbey with director is Simon Curtis and DP Andrew Dunn BSC. Cosmo Campbell ACO is shooting B-camera/Steadicam on Amazon Studios’ series The Power, directed by Reed Morano, with second unit DP Carlos Catalan. Matt Fisher ACO has finished shooting the next series of See for Apple TV in Toronto, and is about
L-R: a shot from Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break, directed by Nick Gillespie, lensed by DP Billy J Jackson; Tom Wilkinson on Jack Ryan 2; and DP Dominic Bartels on-set of short film Cold
to start on Disenchanted in Dublin for Disney Films, with director is Adam Shankman and DP Simon Duggan ASC, with Amy Adams, James Marsden and Patrick Dempsey starring. Peter Wignall ACO did dailies on various productions, including second unit on The Bubble for DP Hamish Doyne Ditmas and director Jimmy O’Dee, splinter unit on
Doctor Strange 2, with director is Lome Raimi and DP Katie Swain. Tom Wilkinson ACO is spending the summer in Budapest on the next series of action thriller Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan for Amazon Studios, with DP Richard Rutowski ASC, starring John Krasinski. Diego Rodriguez is the DP on Juventus: All Or Nothing a documentary shooting in Turin, Italy about the legendary football club. The production company is Fulwell 73.
LUX ARTISTS Tom Townend is prepping Joe Cornish’s Netflix series, Lockwood & Co. Justin Brown is shooting Willow, directed by Jonathan Entwistle. Lukasz Zal PSC is getting ready for Jonathan Glazer’s untitled feature. Daniel Landin BSC lensed an Ebay ad directed by Tom Kuntz. Michael McDonough BSC ASC is prepping for Lou, directed by Anna Foerster. Rob Hardy BSC has wrapped on Men, the new feature from Alex Garland. Giuseppe Favale shot a Jack Daniels spot directed by Ian Pons Jewell. Nanu Segal BSC is shooting Emily, directed by Frances O’Connor. James Laxton ASC is preparing for The Lion King follow-up, directed by Barry Jenkins. Jessica Lee Gagne continues on Ben Stiller’s new series Severance. Guillermo Garza shot Stella Artois and Verizon campaigns directed by AG Rojas. Jakob Ihre FSF is shooting Johan Renck’s new feature Spaceman. Arnaud Potier AFC shot an NDA commercial, directed by Harmony Korine. Olan Collardy has wrapped on an untitled feature from Raine Allen-Miller. Martijn Van Broekhuizen NSC is prepping S2 of Gangs
Of London. Ula Pontikos BSC continues to shoot Russian Doll S2, directed by Natasha Lyonne. Steve Annis is shooting Inside, directed by Vasilis Katsoupis. Magnus Joenck is filming Rebel Ridge directed by Jeremy Saulnier. Mauro Chiarello lensed a Samsung TVC directed by Isaiah Seret. Adolpho Veloso shot an NDA spot directed by Nicolai Fuglsig. Manuel Alberto Claro continues on Kingdom Exodus, directed by Lars von Trier. Adam Scarth is shooting Pretty Red Dress, directed by Dionne Edwards. Jody Lee Lipes is shooting The Good Nurse directed by Tobias Lindholm.
VISION ARTISTS Benedict Spence continues on medical dramedy This is Going To Hurt, via Sister Pictures, directed by Lucy Forbes. Jonas Mortensen has wrapped on This Way Up S2, and won the Gold ‘Best Cinematography’ award at the Kinsale Shark Awards for the short religious comedy The Birth Of Valerie Venus, directed by Sarah Clift. JeanNoel Mustonen FSC is shooting a new comedy series with director Pete Riski. Nick Morris is lighting BBC musical drama series Superhoe, directed by Stroma Cairns. Dan Atherton shot the short Beyonce Almighty, with NFTS alumni Alexandra Brodski and Emily Everdee serving as director and producer. Evelin Van Rei lit Thick Bleach for multimedia artist Zoe Buckman, about intergenerational experiences of womanhood and violence in the home. Anna MacDonald is prepping Why Me?, a short written/directed by director Abdou Cisse, focussing on a young
woman’s struggle with sickle cell anaemia, plus the BFI-funded short Buffer Zone, a musical drama about two gay soldiers across enemy lines, directed by Savvas Stavrou. Kia Fern Little has been shooting second unit on the new series of Top Boy. Courtney Bennett is shooting second unit on the currently untitled feature debut of Raine Allen Miller. Jim Jolliffe has wrapped the pilot for an NDA comedy series with Red Bee Media. In commercials, Jaime FeliuTorres shot for the NHS with Merman, and Eoin McLoughlin for home brand spots with director Locky at BBH. James Blann lit pieces with new collaborators Canada. James Watson has been up North working with Chief TV. Richard Mott lit video game ads with Smuggler. Arthur Loveday lit charity commercials for Stella McCartney and fashion pieces with River Island. Luke Scott filmed ads with Sweet Shop. Ian Murray has been lensing more projects with Irresistible. Martin Hill shot beautiful food ads for Another Film Company, and heartrending NHS pieces on the effects of the pandemic, produced by HLA. Spike Morris shot sports TVCs with Spindle and Tim Green has been shooting fragrance ads for Dior with Frenzy.
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FILM FACTORY
By Natasha Block Hicks
On Monday 2nd September 2019 over 300 teenagers lined Highbury Grove in Islington, as the first cohort of students to enrol at London Screen Academy (LSA), a brand new sixth form college dedicated to the screen industries. LSA offers a unique and exciting opportunity for keen 16-19 year olds to learn the technical practices and professional behaviours which can lead to a career in the screen arts, in plain sight of their potential future employers, the academy’s many major industry backers and supporters.
“The idea for London Screen Academy started many years ago,” says film producer Eric Fellner CBE, one of LSA’s six founding partners whose collective output has formed a mainstay of British film and television production for the past 30 years. The founding partners are: Fellner and Tim Bevan CBE, co-chairs of Working Title Films, which has produced over 100 films that have grossed $7.5 billion; 007 James Bond producers Barbara Broccoli OBE and Michael G. Wilson OBE; Harry Potter producer David Heyman; and Lisa Bryer, co-founder of Cowboy Films and the producer of The Last King Of Scotland.
“We were motivated by a desperate need to support more diversity and inclusion within the industry,” disclose Broccoli and Wilson. “The creative industries are the fastest growing sector of the UK economy and we wanted to encourage young people to pursue the many opportunities that are available.”
Bryer adds, “We, the founders, felt the way to achieve this was by creating and running a sixth form Academy where students are taught the skills needed to enjoy a fulfilling career within film and Television.”
LSA’s vice principal is Sam Summerson, previously the founding vice principal of the Global Academy in Hayes, London, and a teacher with 14 years of experience, who was bought in as a consultant two years before LSA opened its doors.
“I realised what a great set of founders we were working with and the potential for the vision here,” says Summerson. He joined Charlie Kennard MBE, the founding principle of LSA, a former ambassador of the educational charity, Teach First, who also founded LSA’s partner school, East London Arts and Music (ELAM) with his brother Will Kennard of English electronic music duo Chase & Status.
The London Screen Academy is run by a mix of teaching and industry professionals. Fiona McGuire, a former head of production at Pathé and Revolution Films with 26 years of experience, joined the college in May 2020 to lead the LSA’s industry partnerships team. “I was aware of the school when it was being set up because there was a lot of industry buzz about it,” she recounts.
As a government-funded sixth-form academy, attendance at LSA is free for pupils. All students benefit from subsidised school meals and the loan of an iPad for the duration of their studies, plus certain students receive a free Zone 1-6 travel card, all part of measures intended to lower the financial barriers for those with limited means.
State backing only covers basic costs, so the academy must raise an additional £1.5m per annum to provide the industry-standard kit and facilities, pastoral services and vocational opportunities that are core to the learning experience.
Applicants are expected to demonstrate dedication, diligence and a passion for the screen arts. Achieving a minimum of five GCSEs between grades four to nine is the benchmark for enrolment. However, some leniency is shown to those who can otherwise demonstrate that they have the necessary aptitude and commitment to be successful at LSA.
As this is the only sixth form academy dedicated to the screen arts in the UK it is essential that awareness of LSA’s offering is far-reaching.
“We go out and visit schools in boroughs which have demographics we want to target,” says Summerson, “not just schools, but community groups and other spaces where students or young people meet, such as youth centres and clubs.”
Positive steps are also being taken with the industry gender bias. “What thrills me is seeing how many young women we have here studying technical,” says McGuire.
“It’s so much fun bringing something to life in images,” agrees Iman Ahmed, a Year 13 technical student and aspiring DP, “even if you mess up, you’re still learning.”
In the first year, roughly half of the students’ timetable is dedicated to a foundation in the screen arts, learning across a range of disciplines including screenwriting, production, directing and the art of storytelling. A quarter of the timetable is reserved for a specialism, which could be craft, including art direction and costume, post-production, which offers VFX and animation, and technical which covers camera, lighting and sound.
In their second year the emphasis swaps to the specialism. The remaining hours each week are reserved for studying an AdQual (Additional Qualification), for example A-level English or Maths, and throughout the two years all students have regular exposure to a wider culture of arts and recreation, known as the LSAx Enrichment Programme. Screenings are held weekly, and various pastoral services and mental health programmes ensure that students’ well-being is supported in these formative years.
None of this would be possible without state-ofthe-art facilities and equipment. Central to the school is a 2,700sq/ft sound stage, the A-stage, which also converts into a 260-seat surround sound cinema. Students have access to four smaller studios as well, which include a Vicon motion capture studio and a 4K multi-camera live TV studio, running on a Sony HDC-3500 Studio Camera System, along with greenscreen and autocue.
Students shoot with Sony FX9 cameras, plus Sony NX200s camcorders and Sony A7SII DSLRs mounted with Sony, full-frame, cine zoom lenses or primes ranging from 28 to 50mm. The well-stocked storeroom boasts Sachtler tripods, and for stabilisation there is a choice between Easyrig camera support systems, Tilta rigs and DJI Ronin S gimbals. Industrystandard lighting such as ARRI Skypanel S30-C, ARRI L5-Cs, Dedolight kits and SWIT LED panels are available to inspire LSA’s budding DPs and gaffers.
Such facilities, as well as being teaching tools, create opportunities for students to have hands-on industry experience. For example, an independent production company renting the A-stage for a day for an outside shoot, welcomed two LSA students to support their camera and lighting teams respectively. More recently the LSA shot its own promotional commercial and had students in supporting roles in every department.
“With 300 Year 13 students to get through a meaningful work experience programme annually,” continues McGuire, “putting students on shoots that are happening in the building is a real advantage. My team are here purely to imbibe the school in everything which is industry. We’re training young people to work in this business, and it’s really important that their understanding of the industry is up-to-date and based on practical experience.”
The Covid-19 pandemic has inevitably interfered with the placement scheme for the school’s 2020/21 academic years, but the industry partnership team has remained busy. “We organised a Careers Week event this March and had 46 industry speakers, including a panel from Panalux and Panavision, doing back-to-back Zoom calls with 150 students on each call,” explains McGuire.
The academy organises multiple masterclasses during term time, of which students must attend at least one per week. For example gaffer Mark Clayton, who has headed the lighting team on films such as Last Night In Soho (2021, DP Chung-hoon Chung) and The Mercy (2017, DP Eric Gautier AFC), visited LSA for an afternoon’s workshop showing students how to light a set for a student project. Students have been treated to a masterclass by DP Seamus McGarvey BSC ASC, and can count James Friend BSC ASC, Zac Nicholson BSC and camera operator Ilana Garrard ACO Assoc BSC among a long list of mentors. Additionally, companies such as Sony have put on training courses at LSA to familiarise students with the school’s newest cameras.
“The whole industry seems to be motivating behind the success of LSA,” marvels Fellner, “it’s been incredible. Right across the board people are giving their time and even offering the potential of employment.”
Students graduate from LSA with a Level 3 Extended Diploma awarded by the University Of The Arts London, the equivalent of three A-levels, plus their AdQual. The programme is designed to give them the necessary tools to progress directly to a career in the screen industries if they wish, or on to further education or an apprenticeship. This September VMI, ARRI Rental and Panavision will start offering a Camera Prep Technician apprenticeship scheme in collaboration with LSA, a pathway into the industry aimed at all graduating students, from LSA and elsewhere.
A degree is not essential for a lot of roles within the industry. Some of our students will go to university, but what they study at LSA will give them options. This summer sees the inaugural intake of students concluding their studies at the Academy.
“We’re looking at a potential third year for the course,” says Fellner, “and really focusing on apprenticeships and trying to ensure that we can find placements and work for all of these students.”
With studies showing that 83% of young people have struggled with their mental health during Covid pandemic, LSA’s offers a range of well-being and mental health programmes to students, including oneto-one counselling and talking therapy programmes.
McGuire concludes, “We’ve got herds of young people wanting to join the industry and we have skill shortages. LSA has the potential of making the career aspirations of these young people come true.”
Main: Sight and sound, students filming at London Screen Academy Below top: The LSA building, Highbury Grove, London N5 Lower: Gaffer, Mark Clayton lighting workshop
DANCING WITH CAMERAS
By Natasha Block Hicks
As Peter Robertson ACO GBCT Associate BSC completes his first quarter as the new president of the Association Of Camera Operators (ACO), he reflects on the collaborations that have shaped his work, the choreography of camera operating, and ensuring longevity in what is a physically strenuous career.
Tucked away at the bottom of Robertson’s extensive IMDb filmography, beneath the throng of acclaimed productions such as The Nevers (2021, DPs Seamus McGarvey BSC ASC/Ben Smithard BSC), Mary Poppins Returns (2018, DP Dion Beebe ACS ASC) and Bohemian Rhapsody (2018, DP Newton Thomas Sigel ASC) there is a curious anomaly: a modest producer and cinematographer credit for a feature documentary, Children Of The Wind (2013).
“I came across this story a few years ago on Bonaire, a very remote island in the Dutch Caribbean,” explains Robertson, “about three impoverished boys who used windsurf boards discarded by wealthy American tourists to go out and fish among the huge waves. They got spotted by some professional American windsurfers and ended-up becoming world champions.”
This temporary revisiting of Robertson’s documentary roots (he made art documentaries for notable figures such as Derek Jarman and the BFI early in his career) has a context. “I was out there windsurfing,” he reveals, “I’m a really keen windsurfer and foil surfer. It’s great for flexibility, balance and proprioception (body’s ability to perceive its own position in space).
“Operating is very physically demanding,” Robertson continues, “you end up in the strangest and the most awkward positions. I’ve spent hours poking a camera through the back seat of a car, or crouching in a bath. Even now on a big budget production I might get dangled out of the window on a wire.”
He describes the first week of shooting on Hot Fuzz (2007, DP Jess Hall BSC ASC), where, shouldering the camera and accessories, he was required to track actor Simon Pegg in a chase sequence.
“As we were setting-up Simon said, ‘I’ve done three months training with the Metropolitan Police for all of this’ and I replied, ‘Oh, they gave me two days prep last week’,” Robertson laughs. “So to be an operator, you have to train and make sure you’ve got a good physio and a good chiropractor!”
Hot Fuzz was the first of three films that Robertson operated for Hall, before the British DP moved to Los Angeles, the other two being Brideshead Revisited (2008) and Creation (2009), which followed in quick succession.
“Creation was a fascinating film, beautifully-lit by Jess,” says Robertson. Real-life man and wife team Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly were cast as Mr and Mrs Darwin, their closest collaboration as actors. “I was honoured to witness two professionals working so intimately together,” continues Robertson, “one of the great privileges as an operator is to watch a performance come to life.”
Robertson’s respect for a beautifully-oiled, collaborative machine is perhaps an unconscious reflection on his own working style. “As an operator, I often say that you’re really a co-operator,” he states, “you’re working between the grip team, camera team, DP and director. It’s a role of diplomacy”.
Opposite: Look both ways, Peter with DP Seamus McGarvey BSC ASC on Anna Karenina Right: Speeding... fine, on Edge Of Tomorrow Middle: Right direction on Anna Karenina, with Joe Wright (in background). Bottom: filming Children Of The Wind
It is a credit to Robertson that DPs and directors often call him back for subsequent productions. As well as Hall, Robertson has been engaged five times by DP Dion Beebe ACS ASC, who initially interviewed him for Edge Of Tomorrow (2014) and with whom he is currently working on Disney’s live action remake of The Little Mermaid at Pinewood Studios.
It is with renowned DP Seamus McGarvey BSC ASC, however, that Robertson has had his most fruitful collaboration: seven productions to date. One of these, Atonement (2007, dir. Joe Wright) bought Robertson’s operating skill to the attention of a wider lay audience, for a five-and-a-half-minute Steadicam single-take tracking shot set on WW2 era Dunkirk Beach, which also won him a Society Of Camera Operators (SOC) Award for Best Historical Shot.
For anyone unfamiliar with this feat of ingenuity, the scene can be watched in its entirety on the ACO’s website: https://www.theaco.net/ atonement-peter-robertson/ .
It is fitting that a Steadicam shot scored Robertson a nod from his peers. In the late ‘70s, after graduating from the Slade School of Fine Art in London, he was shooting documentaries, but was keen to move into narrative film making. Then Steadicam’s inventor Garrett Brown caught Robertson’s attention with the ground-breaking tracking shots in The Shining (1980), and he saw a way in.
“I did a Steadicam workshop at the National Film & Television School (NFTS) offered by the National Short Course Training Programme,” reveals Robertson. “It was taken by Ted Churchill who was a legendary American exponent of the Steadicam. After that I was in-demand, as there were so few people doing it in the UK.”
The springboard for his career, Steadicam has remained Robertson’s stalwart companion throughout.
“When electronic gimbals first came out a lot of people said, ‘well, that’s the end of Steadicam’,” recalls Robertson, “and there are certain things that the gimbals are more suited for, like awkward, very low shots along the floor. But there is still an electronic interface between your hand and the camera. The Steadicam is the closest thing you can get to handheld for the operator’s hand eye coordination, it’s just a lot steadier, ideal when you’re working with actors in free movements.”
Robertson’s peers recognised him again in 2013, with an Operator’s Award for his work on Anna Karenina (2012), another Wright/McGarvey, director/DP collaboration based on the Leo Tolstoy novel. Wright had imagined a fantastical shape-shifting theatre, deftly realised by production Designer Sarah Greenwood, as the location for the oft-filmed classic, with lighting, backgrounds, characters and camera choreographed and constantly on the move.
“The nice thing from an operator’s point-of-view with Anna Karenina was that it used lots of different techniques and methods,” divulges Robertson. “Shots that were started on a crane ended-up on a Steadicam or on a dolly and track. The trick was to make that into a coherent whole so that the camera moved seamlessly without drawing attention to itself.”
Robertson reflects on a particular scene where the camera waltzes through a crowded ballroom following Anna Karenina (Keira Knightly) and Count Vronski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). As the illicit lovers’ infatuation builds and Vronski lifts Karenina high, the ballroom seems to magically empty.
“This was done as an in-camera effect,” reveals Robertson, adding that, in contrast to the scene’s gravitas, it was quite comical to shoot. “Whilst I was bringing the camera down to floor level,” he laughs, “out of the corner of my eye, I could see all of these professional dancers in full skirts and starchy uniforms literally falling over each other to get out of the way in time.”
The supporting cast had been extensively drilled by the choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui however, so the shot worked. “It’s always amazing to be at the centre of that when a director chooses to do something very brave,” says Robertson respectfully.
Wright reunited with McGarvey, Greenwood, Cherkaoui and Robertson at the end of 2020 in Sicily to shoot Cyrano, a musical remake of the classic tale Cyrano de Bergerac.
“Sicily is stunningly beautiful,” marvels Robertson, “and so is the film, from the costume, to the locations, to the camera moves and lighting. I was proud to operate on it.”
Music seems to be a theme for Robertson’s work, from out-and-out musicals such as Cyrano and Mary Poppins Returns, through to rock biopics like Bohemian Rhapsody and Nowhere Boy (2009, DP Seamus McGarvey BSC ASC) to films where the soundtrack is an integral connecting thread, such as Anna Karenina and Atonement.
“I’ve always felt that music really does help as an operator,” comments Robertson. “You can envision the pace that the characters are moving, especially if the music’s woven into the dialogue. Someone like Joe Wright often has tracks already composed and he will give you the music to work with when you’re operating. That way you can immediately slip in.
“The Little Mermaid is along those lines,” he continues, “we’re working very carefully with precomposed music. The director Rob Marshall works to a beat in his head and is very precise about timing, framing and how the camera moves. It’s really enjoyable.”
As of March 2021, Robertson must balance his operating with spearheading the ACO, the organisation that he helped conceive in 2009. “Before the ACO there wasn’t a chance for camera operators to share experiences or present a public face,” emphasises Robertson, “now we have a say in the future of our film industry.”
FROM THE HEART
When did you discover you wanted to be a cinematographer? I have a picture of me at age seven telling my parents I wanted to be a filmmaker. I remember the moment, thinking that I had figured out some cosmic exploit. Through filmmaking, I could live a million lives. I could work on a film about a person whose life was fundamentally different than my own and inhabit their world. Even as a child something about that felt magical. Even now, what I love about filmmaking is that to visualise the story of another, the storytellers must first empathise and understand the characters – they must open their hearts to them and their world.
Where did you train? Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, for my undergraduate education, and NYU Tisch School Of The Arts for my masters.
How did you get your first break? I was fortunate enough to shoot a film called Get Out Fast for director Haley Anderson. She wanted to express the almost explosive energy of youth.
Haley’s vision for the film was so deeply specific, and the story and the approach were so resonant with me as a person/artist.
Coming into the project I had experienced a real test of faith around my approach to creating images and wanted to throw off all the established rules of photography I had focused on for so many years, and just create something that felt like a more reactionary expression. Being loose with my approach, being free.
That form of working really threw me into a place of doubt about my work, and had me constantly questioning if that approach was the right one. It was also the first time I had shot an entire project on celluloid. I wanted to use a mostly naturalistic approach, and really pushed the limits of my exposures. Also, as we weren’t able to get dailies back, I was doing it blind, all of which caused me a lot of stress. I walked away from the project feeling like I had gone too far with the approach and hadn’t done the story and the director’s vision justice, even though it has a lot of Haley and me in it – a lot of our heart.
I look back and feel so proud of the work we did in that way. It would go on to win us the Kodak Vision Award which really opened a lot of doors for me and emboldened me to be open to more nontraditional approaches and really focus deeply on the story, the vision and to trust myself.
What quote/mantra do you live by? I often think about the Eve Arnold quote, “If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.” Empathy and vulnerability are two of our greatest tools within cinematography. I always try and lead with my heart when I shoot. I try to always be compassionate and fully-present to the emotional life of the character. Ideally I want to be equally vulnerable and equally there with an actor/character as we are shooting a scene. My goal is to translate those vulnerabilities and emotional presence into the camera.
Opposite: On track - DP Jomo Fray Below: Filming Emergency Lower: Young Jomo gets behind the lens
All pictures kindly provided by Jomo Fray
Cinematography is a deeply human art form and necessitates the practitioner to push themselves to be as emotionally open as possible – in my case – as a man, a partner, a son, a friend and a brother. My cinematography is an expression of my journey to be the most open me as possible.
What advice would you give the ‘young you’ just starting out? “Taste precedes technique.” It’s easy to be hard on yourself starting out because the images you are making pale in comparison to the images that you most admire. That’s natural.
Technique can be cultivated, but taste is a resource that requires far more personal reflection. This is not to devalue the importance of technique, but to say that early-on it’s natural for your taste to far outpace your ability to replicate similar images. As an artist, trust and cultivate your taste and let that be your guiding light.
Where do you get your visual inspirations? I find myself inspired from so many things! A novel, a poem, a song, a photography book, or a ray of light that I notice in the sky when I’m seeing my mother after a long time apart. I treat all of these things as totally equal in their ability to inspire a look for a film or a scene.
What have been your best/worst moments on-set? Best: I love those rare moments when everyone is in the pocket – flowing and perfectly in harmony – and you collectively are able to create a moment that feels like it transcends the work of any given individual there. Those moments are what have me completely and totally enraptured by filmmaking. They provide an opportunity at times to be part of something so much larger than myself. To create something with a set of other artists that, when it hits just right, can take on a whole new life all its own!
Worst: The worst moments on-set are when the scene eludes you and the director. You might have a plan, but something just isn’t quite working. In those moments when you step back as a team you can almost always find an interesting opportunity, but the stress of that place is very real.
What is your most treasured cinematographic possession? I always carry a leather scarf that used to belong to my father whenever I’m on-set.
What was the biggest challenge on your latest production? Sometimes it’s hard to be bold, hard to take risks! I am on a feature length film right now, which has a very distinct look and feel, and a very particular visual language born out of that approach. There are moments I find myself worried if the look will work, but also find that those often stand to be some of the most exciting places to be for me on a project. I feel like success usually sits a few paces away from utter disaster! How do you keep yourself match-fit? I try to create space for my physical/mental health and try and prioritise the relationships in my life when I’m not on-set. You need life to inspire art!
What are your current top albums? That may be an impossible question for me. The albums that have been in heavy rotation lately are: Vespertine by Bjork; Conversations With Myself by Bill Evans; Aromanticism by Moses Sumney; Heaven To A Tortured Mind by Yves Tumor; and Neighborhoods by Ernest Hood.
Tell us your greatest extravagance? A lump of caviar can make even the hardest days on-set melt away. I always keep some stashed away just in case.
Give us three adjectives that best describe you and your approach to cinematography? Vulnerable. Human. Handmade.
What advice do you have for others starting out as cinematographers? Shoot from the heart. A large turning point in my style and approach happened during my time in film school. A piece of work I had done had received a particularly hard critique from a mentor for its focus on technique. I think the critique cut so deep at the time because it felt as if it was not only a commentary on my filmmaking, but a call for me to be more open as an artist.
That experience pushed me to think deeper about imagemaking. To push past merely trying to capture an event or a moment from the script, and to truly search the depth of what the director and I were trying to express and give visual life to.
There is an importance to technique and honing that, but there is a limit to what it can achieve on its own. It is important in and so far as your ability to let it go and be fully-present on-set with an open heart. Although I have far from mastered this mode of shooting, I think it is a road worth travelling. Cultivate an open heart and technique will follow.
Who is your agent? Ann Murphy and Amy Grgich at ICM.
URL/website address? www.jomofray.com
Filmography (so far): Random Acts Of Flyness (2018, second unit), The Underground Railroad (2018, second Unit), Selah And The Spades (Sundance, 2019), Port Authority (Cannes, 2019) and No Future (Tribeca, 2020)
Accolades: 2016 – Kodak Vision Award 2017 – Project Involve Cinematography Fellow; ARRI Volker Bahnemann Award for Outstanding Cinematography; Roger & Chaz Ebert Foundation Fellowship at the Independent Spirit Awards 2018 – Roger Ebert Fellowship at the Sundance Institute; Special Jury Award at Sundance Film Festival; 25 New Faces Of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine
MILK FLOAT
After cutting his teeth as an assistant and camera operator on films for David Fincher, Noah Baumbach, Spike Jonze and Tom Ford, Christopher Blauvelt shot his first feature as a cinematographer, the multiaward-winning Meek’s Cutoff, for indie auteur Kelly Reichardt, back in 2010. Since then, he’s been Reichardt’s go-to DP and they’ve collaborated on all her subsequent films - Night Moves (2013), Certain Women (2016) and First Cow - which have cemented her reputation as one of the most distinctive voices in movies today, thanks to her hands-on approach (she’s also edited her last six films), and ultra-realistic, unsentimental, gritty and minimalist style. And that austere material - mostly co-written with novelist Jonathan Raymond - is, appropriately enough for the outlier auteur, mainly about proverbial outsiders and enigmatic figures, wanderers adrift in the American west, often alone in their endless and mysterious journeys across timeless landscapes, all beautifully rendered by Blauvelt’s spare yet rich cinematography. In her latest film, First Cow, Reichardt once again travels back in time to the Pacific Northwest, and evokes an authentically hardscrabble, early 19th century way of life. A taciturn loner and skilled cook, ‘Cookie’ (John Magaro), has travelled west and joined a group of fur trappers in Oregon Territory, although he only finds a true connection with a Chinese immigrant, ‘King-Lu’ (Orion Lee), also seeking his fortune.
Soon Cookie and Lu collaborate on a successful baking business, making blueberry clafoutis, although its longevity is reliant upon the clandestine participation of a prized milking cow, the only one in the area, owned by a wealthy landowner nearby. From this simple premise, Reichardt again shows her distinct talent for depicting the peculiar rhythms of daily living and ability to capture the immense, unsettling quietude of rural America in the early 1800s.
Here, Blauvelt, whose credits also include The Bling Ring (2013) for Sofia Coppola and Emma (2020) for Autumn de Wilde, talks about his long collaboration with Reichardt, and his approach to the cinematography and lighting on First Cow.
Kelly has told me that she spends a lot of time with you in prep, going over all her ideas that she’s collected in a book she always assembles. Tell us about that process and how you start finding the right look for the film. The luxury of doing so many projects with Kelly is that I hear from her at conception, and on First Cow that was 18 months before we actually shot the movie. We went on a hike and she broke down the entire script for me, with all the details of how it should look and feel. Then she sends me photos and tons
of reference material, like films to watch, and she compiles these amazing books full of everything from sculpture and paintings to films grabs, so I’m really steeped in all her ideas. That really is a luxury, as you don’t often get that when you start a new film with a director.
Kelly also told me that you both make a very detailed shot list together - which she then ignores during the shoot! (Laughing) That’s true! It’s really an exercise to make sure we’re both in sync. We painstakingly go through every scene, every line, and discuss how we’re going to shoot it. ‘Is that a dolly move?’ ‘What’s that frame like?’ ‘What lenses are we using?’ It’s incredibly detailed, but then on the day she doesn’t really need it. I carry it with me, but often it’s for my crew - such as, ‘Today, we need 200-feet of dolly track’. Stuff like that. And sometimes it might remind us of a shot we’d discussed in detail, but we also leave things open to see what the actors might do, and what the sun and shadows are telling us. So it becomes second nature. It’s built into our DNA by then.
How long did you spend scouting, and how important was that? A long time, and it was crucial as First Cow was all shot on location. I was in prep for five weeks, but we didn’t stop scouting until a week before we started
Main: Milk float - John Magaro and Co. Below: John Magaro and Cow Right: Director Kelly Reichardt
Photos: Allyson Riggs Courtesy of A24
shooting. The characters are always on the move in this film, and it was very important to Kelly that the geography, and the plants and trees, all changed appropriately as well. You could probably get away with shooting it in one forest, but we would never let that happen. Cookie and Lu’s journey and all the details around that had to be real.
You shot Meek’s Cutoff on 35mm, then worked on Certain Women in 16mm, and you shot this digitally. Was that because of the budget, and do you miss film? The budget was definitely a factor. The first film we did digitally was Night Moves, and that was a big challenge as we both love shooting with film so much, and we miss it. But after that Kelly was far more open to digital, and it also gave her advantages - like more time shooting actors without having to reload. And to me, the result looks very filmic. In fact, a lot of people have asked me what film stock I used on First Cow!
What cameras and lenses did you use, and why? I shot with the ARRI Alexa Mini at 2.8K ARRIRAW, with series two Cooke Panchros and Tiffen Glimmer Glass #2 or #3, depending on the backlight, contrast in the shot, and so on. Early on, I tested various cameras, including the Red and the Sony Venice, but we narrowed-in on the Alexa Mini for this. I really like the sensor. For camera movement we had a dolly with track, a Ronin 2 gimble rig, plus a jib arm for one shot.
You used day-for-night. Tell us about that challenge and working with your DIT. That was the big challenge of the whole shoot, and another thing that was informed by our budget restrictions. We didn’t have a big lighting package - mostly lots of Fresnels (650w, 1K, 2K, 5K, and 10K’s), LEDs (ARRI SkyPanels and S360’s) for overhead interior hutches, our ghost hutch and the saloon, using some smaller Fresnels for pools of light. There was no way we could afford to light and shoot the cow in a big field or have these guys running around in the forest at night in these huge landscapes. It was a new challenge for me, one that I spent most of my time trying to crack, and we didn’t have the breakthrough until a couple of days before shooting.
That was super-scary but, as a cinematographer, it’s one of my proudest accomplishments, as I’d told Kelly and everyone, ‘There’s no way we can shoot day-for-night and cut it against night-for-night. Those scenes have to be separated. But by week one we were already shooting day-for-night into night-fornight, and it was working so well.
I worked very closely with Sean Goller, my DIT, right from the start of prep and testing. We set up a theatre in the house we were staying at in Portland, and every day I’d get back from scouting and he’d have spent the whole day working with the test footage on the different looks in-camera with various lenses and filters. And we’d also work on our recipe in DaVinci Resolve with the LUTs, and make custom LUTs for each scenario, a total of six.
How did you set about lighting all the interiors? It was all dictated by the period - so all you have to motivate the lighting by is sunlight, fire, candles and moonlight. And those limitations guided all aesthetic considerations. ‘Does it look real?’ ‘Does it look like a shaft of moonlight, or sunlight?’
What was the most difficult scene to shoot and why? It was Lu’s cliff jump, because it was such a huge expanse, and also a stunt - or our version of a stunt, as we never use slo-mo or anything to glorify a moment like that. We had one shot of the two guys running into frame, then panned around as we briefly lost Lu from the image, before the stunt double ran into frame. It’s a very old-school ‘cowboy flop’ stunt, and we used day-for-night in that shot.
How did you get that hazy look in the scene where Cookie’s recovering from his head injury after his fall? That’s another old-school trick! Kelly wanted a kind of dreamy look, which was a bit out of our wheelhouse. Cookie was in this ‘ghost cottage’ with the image from his POV, so we don’t even know if the people taking care of him are real or just imaginary. I used Vaseline on a filter in front of the lens - it was our version of a VFX shot!
Tell us about doing the DI at Harbor Picture Company with colourist Joe Gawler. It was my first time working with Joe, and he was incredible. During testing Sean and I would send our look to Joe, and he’d create the actual software with the LUTs that would go into the camera. That’s such a great workflow, because when you go to post and your final DI, it’s all the same language, as Joe did it to begin with. I never want to do another digital movie without that now.
DIRECTOR KELLY REICHARDT TALKS ABOUT SHOOTING FIRST COW
How did you collaborate with Chris Blauvelt on the look you wanted? This was the most pre-production time we’ve ever had together, and Chris was able to do a lot of scouting and testing. It was also the first time we were able to build the interiors around how we wanted to shoot them.
Part of the inspirations for the look were the American Old West paintings of Frederic Remington (1861-1909), with their muddy greens and blues. The whole team, the production designer, costume designer and Chris - all worked towards that. We watched films like Satyajit Ray’s The Apu Trilogy (1955-59, DP Subrata Mitra), about a peasant family, which was shot very low to the ground. I also did my usual book, which acts as a visual guide that goes through the whole film, scene-by-scene.
Then I sat down with Chris and we looked at my book, went through the script, and worked out how we wanted to shoot it, and started the shot list. There’s a lot of foraging and digging and stuff close to the ground in First Cow, especially at the beginning. We had a lot of pans and tilts, and we shot in 4:3, a square format that we also used in Meek’s Cutoff, which really suited the story and the overall look - both the exteriors with the tall trees, and the interiors which I wanted to feel simple and intimate.
How tough was the shoot? It was 30 days as usual, and it was great. We shot it all on location in Oregon in the fall, so it was cold and rainy, but you could dress for that. It was the first time we’d ever shot five-day weeks, which was fantastic. We had time to think a bit and visit locations at the weekend.
SCHOOL’S OUT
Directed by Hong Kong-based Derek Tsang, the suspenseful Chinese feature Better Days, follows a high school girl, Chen Nian, struggling with severe bullying and the pressure of college entrance exams. Her life becomes intertwined with Xiao Bei, a mysterious teenage outcast and petty criminal, and a tender love story begins as he seeks to protect her from psychological and physical abuse. Due to the immense popularity of its leads, Zhou Dongyu and Jackson Yee, the hard-hitting melodrama became a pop culture sensation in China, as well as a box office hit, grossing over US $230million. The film was Hong Kong’s official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards in 2021, with Taiwanese cinematographer Fisher Jing-Pin Yu praised for the simple, unassuming and realistic nature of her photography. Fisher includes DP Hoyte van Hoytema FSF NSC ASC amongst her cinematographic inspirations, and counts Ming Ming (2006, dir. Susie Au) and Candy Rain (2008, dir. Chen Hung Yi) amongst her many credits.
Better Days was shot on location over the course of two months, from July to September 2018, in the sprawling municipality of Chongqing in southwestern China, where the Yangtze and Jialing rivers converge, and where many air raid shelters and artillery batteries remain from Sino-Japanese conflicts.
Please tell us a little about yourself? I live in Taipei, Taiwan. I didn’t study or train cinematography through any institution or academy, but I loved cinema as a student. I began my career with stills photography, and was intrigued by the dark room - it is where you can make something with nothing, from a sheet of white paper, and create images that float in front of your eyes.
How did you get involved with Derek? We first met for his film Soulmate (2016). I always follow gut feelings or intuition, and at our initial meeting I brought along a visual reference that the first reading of the script brought to my mind - a book called Journeys by Japanese photographer Yoshihiko Ueda. Derek trusted me and my aesthetic choices for that film, and we have since worked together on other features and several commercials.
Derek and I have a mutual understanding and trust on aesthetics. When it comes to the technical part, he is entirely hands-off and gives me complete freedom. He will say how many shots are in a scene, and then entrusts to me entirely about the choice of lens, framing and lighting.
What was your first reaction to the script for Better Days? I was very excited about how it looked at humanity and its undulations, the education system in China, bullying a school, teenage conflicts and how the authority of the police is torn between reason and law. I felt the script contained many layers about modern society in China that we witness, but which are not spoken about, especially through the medium of cinema.
What were your initial conversations with Derek about the look of this film? From the beginning - from understanding the script, observing the rehearsals and identifying the pulse of the film - we both agreed it would be shot handheld. Derek showed me Andrea Arnold’s film, American Honey (2016, DP Robbie Ryan BSC ISC), and wanted Better Days to be shot in that sort of documentary style, with a light, agile, fluid and realistic manner to depict the intimacy between the characters.
A lighting reference I shared with Derek was the work of the Dutch artist Viviane Sassen. We also referred to many films from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Each region its own cinematographic style, and we wanted to find a visual style of its very own for Better Days. We constantly questioned ourselves and did all sorts of tests, trying to achieve different depths to the image and a cinematographic language dedicated to Asian skin and its contours.
Please give details about your selection cameras and lenses? As this was to be handheld, we shot with ARRI Alexa Minis, framing in 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Prior to filming we did camera tests with Cooke S5, Zeiss Super Speed Prime (MK2) and Vantage One Lens T1 Prime spherical lenses, to see how they could support the handheld rhythm of shooting our young characters. I went with the Vantage One lenses as I felt I could use the shallow depth-of-field you get by shooting wide-open at T1, to reveal the uncertainties and perplexities our characters’ faces, as if there is no future nor past. I used a LensBaby for one scene in which our lead actress is badly bullied and has her hair cut off.
Of course, our focus puller had difficulties following the action, because not only were we shooting handheld, but we also didn’t mark or do blocking with our actors either, because I didn’t want to restrict their movement.
The cameras were generally rated at 800ISO, and sometimes up to 2500 ISO depending on the lighting of the scene, such as a dark interiors or night sequences. I used Tiffen Black Pro-Mist filters throughout production, as my intention was to reduce highlights, lower the overall contrast and add a softer feel to the image. The cameras, lenses and lighting equipment were supplied by U-Gear in Shanghai.
Opposite page: close up DP Jing-Pin Yu with Director Derek Tsang Centre and right: Dongyu Zhou as Chen Nian in Better Days
Photos courtesy of Goodfellas Pictures/ Fat Kids Production
Did you operate the camera? Yes, I always do. If the camera is a paintbrush, I want to be the one holding it, with soul.
What was your thinking behind the film’s colour palette? I didn’t get OCD or fixated with the colour palette, and didn’t document it exactly. Even if I had recorded the colour palettes before filming, they would have constantly changed due to the lighting of the city and the characters’ emotions. Generally, I would know in advance there was an overall colour we wanted for particular sequences. For example, for night scenes my instincts told me that red was good, because it’s dangerous and it suited the mood better.
Initially, we devised our own LUT with a colourist, but didn’t use it on-set because it was not well-tested due to the timeframe. Also, it was not stable from one lighting situation to the next.
Instead I used LUTs from ARRI’s Look Library, which has a massive variety of colours. At that time, we were the first to use LUTs on-set whilst shooting because it was widely not practiced in China, Taiwan or Hong Kong.
For the school scenes we didn’t want the palette to be ‘bubble gum’ and look like TV shows, such as Asian Idol, which mostly use white, over-exposed, clean colours. So I chose a blue/greenish LUT to add more realism. In those scenes we also adhered subtle yellow gels to the windows to really break away from that commonly-recognised bubble gum look. We did the final grade with David Rivero Martin at Feelfine in Beijing.
Were there any challenges for you with the locations? Although Chongqing is a very big, metropolitan city, we tried to achieve the feeling that the story is set in a much smaller place, to help portray the intimacy of the story and make the audience aware that this subject matter could happen anywhere in China.
Chongqing has no straight roads, it’s like a maze, with many flyovers that look like neural connections, and this helped with the complexity of the story. Plus the city is built on mountains. You can stand on the fifth floor of one building, and look across to the 15th floor of next building, which visually is quite surreal.
How much was shot in natural light? About 80% with lighting, and 20% natural lighting. Even in natural light, we would still use some lighting support, especially for long scenes for the lighting to be more stable. We used HMIs for daylight, plus HMIs with an additional flood light, which I especially like because it’s softer, with less sharp edges, and can reflect the character’s inner world better. We used ARRI Sky Panels for most of the indoor scenes.
Please tell us about your crew? We typically worked seven-day-weeks, followed by a rest day, before recommencing production. The camera operators on the second unit were Tseng Wei Yu and Saba Mazloum, with Yang De Jun the first AC. My gaffer was Wang Wen Bing. Overall they were very reliable and, since most of the film was handheld, they were my second pairs of eyes making sure I didn’t fall or get obstructed.
What was the biggest challenge on this production? The scene where the main actress endures dramatic bullying, as the others cut her hair, hit her and shoot it all on their mobiles. There were two points-of-view that were inte rcut - one side the bullies, the other the victim. I had to feel both sides of their emotions. We didn’t rehearse for this scene, and we only had one opportunity because Zhou had her haircut for real. I was the camera operator and did the focus on my own to capture that scene.
Did you learn anything new about yourself, and skills on this production? We spent a lot of time discussing the script with three screenwriters, our director and producer. We even shared our own personal experiences about bullying others and being bullied. I dont normally, attend all of the script discussions prior to shoot, because I think its important to keep a distance and remain objective. So, taking part on all the script discussions so tightly with the creators of this film was an interesting one for me.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given? Don’t fear failure. Be aware, be attentive and observe. Really look around - all you need is curiosity.
What are you thoughts about the opportunities for women to become cinematographers? It’s getting better, more and more woman are now in the technical departments in the film industry, but I have never thought of myself being limited because of my gender. Thanks to Karena Lam for translation assistance.
