Grattis Russell Boyd
Grattis till Russell Boyd, ASC, som tilldelades en OSCAR för bästa kinematografi till filmen “Master and Commander”.
Här kan du läsa en intervju med Russell som har varit publicerad av Kodak i serien On Film.
Russell Boyd, ASC
“Filmmaking is an incredibly collaborative art form. It’s not like being a still photographer or a painter who creates images entirely alone. An awful lot of people contribute to making a movie that tells a story. It’s not just me collaborating with the director. The actors play a big part in choreographing how we film a scene. It’s also my gaffer, camera crew and grips. Everyone has to pull together. I watch the actors rehearse and then we paint with light to create moods that are correct for each moment in the story. It’s not just what you light. It’s also what light you take away that creates moods and stir emotions. We’re not trying to hit the audience over the head with techniques. I respect their ability to interpret and respond to the moods we create. I believe films are the most powerful of the visual arts. They are more than entertainment. A successful film can also open people’s eyes.”
Russell Boyd’s credits include Gallipoli, A Town Like Alice, The Year of Living Dangerously, A Soldier’s Story, Mrs. Soffel, Crocodile Dundee, Forever Young, Doctor Doolittle and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
A Conversation with Russell Boyd, ASC
QUESTION: Where were you born and raised?
BOYD: I was born and raised in a small town, Geelong, in Victoria, which is one of Australia’s southern states, about 50 miles south of Melbourne. My family was farmers. Australia’s economy rode on the backs of sheeps during the 1950s. My dad used to go around to the shearing sheds, collect wool in bails and send it off to market. We went to the cinema every Saturday afternoon and watched Hopalong Cassidy and other serials.
QUESTION: Were you an amateur photographer when you were a boy?
BOYD: I was a teenage photo hobbyist. My very first job was in a small production company that produced newsreels for the cinema in Australia. We didn’t get television until the late 1950s in Australia. There were two big companies that produced weekly news programs and that was the only visual source of news the audience had.
QUESTION: How did you get a job with a newsreel producer?
BOYD: My mother took me on a visit to Melbourne. I wanted to be a press photographer, because of my interest in still photography, but there was nothing available in Melbourne at the time. She thought there was a possibility that there might be a job for me in this newsreel company. I started off painting sets and projecting film dailies, and it just developed from there. After about a year, I got to shoot newsreels.
QUESTION: What types of news stories did you cover?
BOYD: Plane crashes and all sorts of horrible stuff. After a few years of filming newsreels, I got a job shooting television news for Channel 7 in Melbourne. It was black and white at first. I think even then, I had a feeling I wanted to go into drama. I just didn’t feel comfortable shooting all the sensational things that were considered news.
QUESTION: How long were you a TV news photographer?
BOYD: After about three to four years in Melbourne, I went to Sydney where I worked for a small documentary company. We drove around Australia, shooting films that were put on a loop in an 8 mm projector. The immigration department used the films to try to encourage migrants to leave the big cities and populate the small cities.
QUESTION: How did you make the transition to narrative filmmaking?
BOYD: I was shooting TV commercials, a lot of them… actually, a different one every day. I worked for a studio that also had a big laboratory with around 150 people. It was big by Sydney standards in those days. We used to shoot commercial after commercial after commercial, but on the weekends, I worked with a friend who made student movies with no budget whatsoever. I borrowed equipment from the commercial company and put it in the trunk of my car. We’d go out on weekends and make movies. His name is Mike Thornhill. In 1974, he made a very low budget, full fledged dramatic movie called Between Wars, and asked me to shoot it.
QUESTION: Is that when you decided this was going to be your life’s work?
BOYD: I think I had already decided I wanted to concentrate on dramas.
QUESTION: How did you hook up with Peter Weir?
BOYD: The first assistant director on the second movie I ever did, was one of the producers of Picnic at Hanging Rock. He introduced me to Peter, and suggested that we talk. The next thing I knew, I was going on location scouts to Hanging Rock with Peter. We’ve now done five films together: Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, Gallipoli, The Year of Living Dangerously and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. He’s a wonderful director with a great ability to inspire people to work above and beyond what they normally do. Working with him is an absolute pleasure, because everyone around him aspires to do better and better work. It’s like a big family.
QUESTION: You must get tired of hearing this question, but what are your memories of working on a classic film like Gallipoli so early in your career (1981)?
BOYD: It’s still one of my favorite films. It was a great story about an important part of Australia’s history. That was important to me, and I also like working on period films. Gallipoli was a fairly tough film to work on. It was tough physically, but it was one of those films that inspire people. You felt like you were part of something that was very important in terms of what it might do culturally for Australia. It told the truth about Australia’s beginnings and the youthful process of a country growing up.
QUESTION: Let’s talk about the collaborative process between cinematographers and directors. It’s one of the things that makes filmmaking a unique art form
BOYD: Filmmaking is an incredibly collaborative art form. It’s not like being a still photographer or a painter who works entirely on his or her own. An awful lot of people ply their arts and crafts and contribute to making a movie. Everyone, beginning with the director, has to understand they are working on the same movie, and they are collaborating on something that will be seen by people around the world. It’s not just me collaborating with the director. It’s also my gaffer, camera crew and grips. Everybody has an equally important role in making a movie that tells a story. Everyone has to pull together. I have felt that way from the beginning.
QUESTION: Making a movie is a big commitment, a big piece of your life… how do you decide when you get a script that it is something that you really want to do?
BOYD: First and foremost, I look at who the director is. If I don’t know the director, but I know his or her work, I’ll delve further and see more of their films. The second most important thing is the script. If it’s a script that I don’t think I can make a contribution to, I generally will steer clear of it. I try to be selective.
QUESTION: You have worked with the same crew a lot. Why is that important?
BOYD: I feel it’s important for me to have ongoing relationships with as many people in my crew as I can. My crew consists of some of my favorite people. Obviously, I like their work, and I also like them personally. You get to form a sort of shorthand working together. You can also get things done more efficiently because of your previous experience. But, the most important thing is trust. My gaffer knows how I like to light. I’m talking mostly about camera, lighting and grip crews, but we also collaborate with wardrobe, art and other departments. There is a family feeling about making movies, and the better that works the smoother things flow.
QUESTION: Do you think that when the cast and crew come together like you described above, that it’s reflected in the film?
BOYD: I believe that’s true. I don’t think it can possibly bring out the best in people when they aren’t getting along and working together.
QUESTION: Do movies play a broader role in our society than being a business and entertainment?
BOYD: I certainly think so. Going back to the early days of my career, I believe the films we made during that period were very important to Australia. They showed the world who we are and where we came from, and helped put us on the map worldwide. Film is such a great communicator. I think it’s the most powerful of the visual arts with the biggest audience. Film is entertainment, but they can also open people’s eyes.
QUESTION: There has been a lot misinformation in the media about lighting. Some people claim that with digital technology and fast films, lighting isn’t necessary.
BOYD: Lighting creates the mood that supports what the director creates with the actors. It’s not just what you light. It’s also what light you take away to create moods and stir emotions. In Master and Commander, I lit some scenes more dramatically. There are some scenes in the captain’s cabin where he has serious arguments and discussions with the doctor and the captain, where there is a little more contrast to create a feeling of gloom. There are other scenes where they are more at ease, so I used softer light to give the audience a sense of the mood.
QUESTION: How is new technology affecting the art of filmmaking?
BOYD: Technology is constantly changing. There is a fascinating future ahead. I’m a purist. I prefer to work in film, but digital intermediate technology can be a great enhancement. In Master and Commander there is a scene in the captain’s cabin, where Russell Crowe is giving a midshipman named Hollom quite a lecture. Russell walked forward and when he stopped I had too much light on him. Instead of stopping everything and shooting another take, we scanned that shot and I timed it digitally to bring the light on him down. In that case, it was more efficient to do it.
QUESTION: Does that mean anything can be fixed in digital timing?
BOYD: Digital intermediate technology can help you finesse some things, but it can’t cover glaring mistakes. It has its good points, but there are limits to what it can do. The cinematographer still has to get it right, knowing that he may be able to tweak it later. I don’t foresee the cinematographer’s role diminishing because of advances in post technology, and I think producers are starting to become aware of that.
QUESTION: The lighting in the captain’s cabin was like a series of paintings in motion with that beautiful blending of light and darkness always in the right place. Where does that come from? Do you see that in your mind before you shoot?
BOYD: You are drawing on personal experience and your ability to observe. I think your own emotional response to the scene you’re shooting at any given moment is what gives you the information and drive you need to paint with light to create a mood that is correct for that moment in the story.
QUESTION: Was the lighting in that scene preplanned or did some of it happen spontaneously at the moment of photography?
BOYD: I planned with my gaffer how we would do broad brushstrokes. We filled in the details after the first rehearsal when we knew where the actors were going to stop, pause, sit down or stand up. All of those moments have to be taken care of, and that requires a fair bit of preplanning mostly in the broad brushstrokes. The fine-tuning was done on the day after the first rehearsal. That’s when we set our key lamps in the right positions based on what the actors were planning to do. The actors play a big part in choreographing how we film scenes. I’ve always felt that’s the best way to get a scene to work visually in terms of capturing the performance. After the actors have done two or three rehearsals and repeat their moves a few times, we’ll put marks on the floor, so we know roughly where they are going to be standing at any important point. After the rehearsal, I’ll talk with the director and operator about choreographing camera movements and we’ll light to capture that moment. I think you have to make it comfortable for everybody, rather than giving the actors a preconceived plan.
QUESTION: What about the relationship between cinematographers and actors?
BOYD: They have to be close. The camera and people around it are the closest to the actors during their performances. We have to apply a little psychology and treat the actors with great respect. We give them as much room as they want… we give them their own space if they want it. Most actors respond to the camera and to the people around it.
QUESTION: Unlike cinematographers who began their careers as assistants and operators and had mentors, you’re self-taught. Where did you look for inspiration?
BOYD: I watched a lot of films, mainly from the 1950s; especially black and white films, including some of the great English and other European dramas. Jules and Jim made a life long impression with me. It was directed by Truffant and Raoul Coutard was the cinematographer. Another film that inspired me was called The Harp of Burma. It was a wonderful film about a Japanese soldier in Burma making his way home towards the end of the war. It was directed by Kon Ichikawa. I don’t think those films taught me how to light as much as they fed my passion for using film to tell stories.
QUESTION: Do you think the fact that you had an opportunity to start out with black and white, news and documentaries helps you today?
BOYD: Shooting in black and white was an absolutely wonderful experience. All of those dramatic films that I shot on weekends were black and white. I’d love to do a black-and-white film if the chance came up. It’s difficult explaining why. I think it’s a more dramatic form of expression. It’s almost like you can reach out and touch the images in some strange way. You can manipulate skin tones much more easily than you can with color negative, and you can actually create an even stronger mood.
QUESTION: There are people who say that none of this matters to anyone but cinematographers. They say the public doesn’t know or care. But, you seem to give the audience a lot of credit for understanding visual clues at least on a subconscious level.
BOYD: I respect the audience and believe they respond to the moods we create. We’re not trying to hit the audience over the head with some particular technique and we don’t want them to be conscious that we are manipulating looks.
QUESTION: How about Crocodile Dundee, a totally different genre film?
BOYD: It was a lot of fun working on that film. When I first read the script, I laughed and laughed. I guess in a way it was sort of an extension of putting Australia on the map in a far different way than Gallipoli and other much more serious period films from that era. It was a great way of seeing a knockabout Australian take on the world or take on the United States, in a way. Paul Hogan played a larger than life character. That was his intention and it worked. It was a great piece of entertainment that a lot of people throughout the world enjoyed and responded to.
QUESTION: You also filmed Cobb, a film about a great American baseball player. How did you prepare for that?
BOYD: Truthfully, I knew nothing about the history and very little about baseball. Cobb obviously was a fascinating character. He was a tough bugger who seemed to have a burr under his saddle a lot of the time. He was also a very colorful character. It was quite interesting to work on a film dealing with U.S. history.
QUESTION: What advice do you have for young filmmakers who are just starting their careers? What lessons have you learned which might help them?
BOYD: I always tell my camera assistants to keep their mouths closed and eyes open, but that doesn’t really answer your question. I think the best advice I can give is to study the masters, and try to figure out what made their work special.
QUESTION: Have you ever thought about directing?
BOYD: I’ve observed a lot of directors at work, and they’ve got a tough job that I don’t want. I’d rather be inspired by a great director than become an ordinary director myself. It’s different with every director. Some of them don’t want your help, and that’s fine. You still do the best job you possibly can to create the right mood for each shot. On the other hand, a lot of directors want your advice and ideas. You have to know when to push forward and when to pull back and stay in the background. Part of your job is understanding the psychology of what it takes to work with different people.
QUESTION: This is a totally off the wall question. What if you were born 100 or 200 years ago, and there was no film? What you do you think you would have done?
BOYD: I’d like to think I would have been a pretty good painter. I’m not saying that because I think it’s related to my art form, or that I would even be competent. When you asked that question, I imagined myself living 100 years ago, and that’s what I saw.
Skriven av .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | 2004-03-01, kl. 22:12.
Kategori: Artiklar.
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