This year marks the 12th annual Camerimage International Festival of the Art of Cinematography, which includes competitive and non-competitive screenings, student films, seminars, and an awards gala where an international jury selects the most artful cinematography of the year.
Reporting from Poland is David Heuring. Heuring served as editor of American Cinematographer Magazine from 1990-1995, and has been writing about cinematography, filmmaking and postproduction ever since.
Monday, November 29, 2004:
Day three of the festival began early with a 7 a.m. shoot in the lobby of the grand theater, where Slawomir Idziak, PSC was overseeing a shoot that was part of the Clap Project. The star of the scene was Idziak’s former teacher, Witold Sobocinski, PSC. Sobocinski began his comical scene laying down some hot jazz licks on a drum kit and finished by catching his fingertip in the clapper board from Pirates, the film he shot with Roman Polanski. Sobocinski’s grandsons Piotr and Mychal were both part of the camera crew on Monday’s shoot.
The day’s screenings began with The Charge of the Light Brigade, photographed in 1968 by David Watkin and directed by Tony Richardson. That epic chronicle of a bungled war was followed by Genesis, an amazing documentary that put on the big screen the delightful antics of some of nature’s weirdest, yet strangely humanlike creatures. Filmmakers Claude Nuridsany and Marie Perennou, whose previous credits include Microcosmos have long been favorites of the festival.
Monday’s competition screenings included the South Korean-German co-production Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter . . . and Spring, which chronicles a boy’s spiritual enlightenment, corruption through lust, and subsequent rediscovery of the teachings of Buddha. The film was photographed by Baek Dong-hyeon and directed by Kim Ki-duk.
Also screened in competition was the Japanese production Hazan, photographed by Akiko Ashizawa. In it, a comfortably middle-class art lecturer decided to give up his secure position and pursue a career as a potter. The implications for his family become the conflict at the heart of the story.
Student jury member Michael Chapman, ASC held a daylong seminar at the Opus Film Studio sponsored by Panavision. Chapman is enjoying his first time attending Camerimage. Close to 200 students and filmmakers hung on his every word as he led them through the blocking, lighting and operating of a simple shot. He extolled the control that a geared head offers and offered tips on framing to would-be operators.
“I don’t have much patience for talk about cinematography and art,” he said. “Cinematography is about solving the problems that one encounters on a film set. I place a great deal of importance on quickly setting the key light and giving the director and actors as much time as possible. It’s an approach that has served me well over the years.”
Day three also included a Q&A with cinematographer Dick Pope, BSC. He explained the process behind Vera Drake, which was photographed in the Super 16 format on Kodak Vision2 500T 7218 film stock, transferred to a digital intermediate and output to 35 mm. “I was very happy to be one of the first users of the 7218 in the UK,” said Pope. “I used the DI mainly to maintain quality through the blow-up. When I started my career I made many Super 16 to 35 mm optical blow-ups. With the DI, it was nice to know the grain would be there but controlled. I’m very pleased with how the film turned out.”
Pope also addressed what he described as outdated perceptions regarding the English system versus the American system. “Years ago, it was true in the UK that the lighting cameraman did not concern himself much with camera movement and framing, which was worked out between the director and the camera operator,” he said. “I think that today, for the most part, that’s not really true anymore. As far as I can see, the design of shots is usually a collaboration among all three.”
Sunday, November 28, 2004:
Day two of the festival featured six screenings, workshops on Zeiss lenses and Avid editing software, and a two-hour Q&A with the Camerimage Lifetime Achievement honoree David Watkin, BSC. Competition screenings included The Ninth Day, directed by Volker Schlondorff and photographed by Tomas Erhart, and Vera Drake, directed by Mike Leigh and photographed by Dick Pope, BSC.
The Ninth Day, set in 1942, follows a Catholic priest who is released from Dachau and given the choice of helping the Nazis with public support or being sent back to the camp. He has nine days to make his decision. The photography was appropriately bleak and desaturated.
Vera Drake is also a period piece, set in 1950 working class London. Pope and Leigh used a digital intermediate process to help create and extraordinarily realistic portrait of a close-knit family that is torn apart when the selfless mother is revealed to be the neighborhood abortionist. Pope explained before the screening that Leigh and his collaborators created the film without a script. “It’s a bit like starting out adrift in the middle of the ocean,” said Pope. “But we trust Mike to bring us safely to shore, and somehow he always does.”
Watkin’s retrospective continued with a screening of The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez, which could be described as a 1991 update of the classic German silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). Earlier in the day, Watkin reminisced about his career while answering questions in a wide-ranging session. “My father was against my becoming a musician,” he said. “I thought of filmmaking because I knew filmmakers didn’t have to wear a suit. In the long run I’m grateful to my father because I’ve really enjoyed my career, especially the wonderful people I’ve worked with.”
Watkin emphasized the importance of spontaneity in his work. “I always avoided reading the script too carefully, and if a director insisted on extensive rehearsals, I’d make myself scarce,” he said. “Sometimes directors would be cross with me for skipping rehearsals, but I’d tell them that it was my duty to not let myself get bored. Over familiarity breeds mediocrity. If I hear the actors go over the scene, then I’ve lit it in my head once. If I hear them go over it again, I’ve lit it in my head twice. After that, it begins to lose freshness, and can only lose quality.”
Watkin was charming and self-deprecating throughout. “Most of my best ideas are born of laziness,” he said. “I liked using soft light because it looks nice and it’s easy. I’ve also found that a good approach is to have only a few stipulations – I usually like to shoot against the light, for instance – but once you make them, stick to them doggedly.”
ARRI and Zeiss co-hosted a seminar demonstrating the new ARRI/Zeiss Master Primes series of motion picture lenses. The lenses, which will be available in 2005, come in a set of twelve focal lengths and incorporate a number of striking innovations including aspherical lens elements, dual floating elements, and improved coatings. All twelve focal lengths use a housing that is identical in size. With uniform size, focus and iris rings in the same position, the lens motors, follow focus and matte box can remain in exactly the same position after a lens change. Camera assistants will no doubt welcome this new approach.
Day two also included the dedication of a star on the Polish equivalent of Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, Piotrskawa Street. The star honors Polish cinematographer Zygmunt Samosiuk (1939-1983). Samosiuk’s collaboration with Andrzej Wajda, Brzezina, screened as part of the tribute.
Saturday, November 27, 2004:
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| Camerimage attendees rubbing shoulders in the lobby of the Grand Theater, which also serves as booth space for Festival sponsors. Visible at right are portraits of Slawomir Idziak, PSC, Freddie Francis, BSC and Billy Williams, BSC. |
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“We look forward to a week of workshops, seminars, exhibits, performances and social encounters,” Zydowicz said. “And of course most importantly, we expect a week of great cinema and the exchange of cinematic ideas among friends and colleagues.”
Zydowicz also thanked the festival’s sponsors, which include main industry sponsor Eastman Kodak Company, which has supported the festival from its inception, as well as ARRI, Avid, Panavision, Zeiss, Deluxe, Technicolor, Panther, Kino Flo and MovieTech.
The ceremony also included the presentation of a Lifetime Achievement Award to a director with special visual sensitivity to Manoel de Oliveira, a five-time Palm d’Or nominee at Cannes whose credits include The Uncertainty Principle, The Letter, Inquietude, The Cannibals, and 1998’s Anxiety, which screened at the festival later on Saturday. Anxiety was photographed by main jury member Renato Berta, AFC.
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| Witold Sobocinski, PSC lays down a jazzy beat in a scene being filmed by Slawomir Idziak, PSC for the Clap Project, a collaborative film that is being shot during the festival. The film will screen at the closing ceremony. |
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Also on hand was this year’s Camerimage Lifetime Achievement Award honoree David Watkin, BSC. Watkin is being feted for a body of work that includes almost 60 films going back to 1963’s the Six-Sided Triangle, which will be screened here as part of a retrospective of his work. Also slated are The Knack (1965), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) and The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez (1991). On Wednesday, Watkin will lead a seminar on shooting in black and white.
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| 2004 Camerimage Lifetime Achievement Award honoree David Watkin, BSC holds forth in the festival conference room during a two-hour Q & A session. |
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Students, who make up a large portion of the festival’s attendance, will also have many opportunities to rub shoulders with their filmmaking heroes at events throughout the week. Kodak is planning its annual student party, which will include a live local band.
Camerimage 2004 will also include the Clap Project, based on an idea by Krzysztof Kieslowski. Filmmakers in attendance are encouraged to submit scene ideas for a film that will be conceived, shot and edited during the course of the festival. The only restriction is that every scene or shot idea must include the Clap, or “sticks.” The resulting film will be shown at the closing ceremony on Saturday, December 4. The Clap Project is being led by Oscar-nominated cinematographer Slawomir Idziak, PSC. Idziak’s recent film Paradigma (Paradigm), directed by Krzysztof Zanussi, will also screen at the festival outside the competition.
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| Jury member and previous Lifetime Achievement honoree Laszlo Kovacs, ASC is interviewed for Polish television |
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The opening ceremony was followed by the first competition screening of the festival, The Sea Inside, a Spanish production photographed by Javier Aguirresarobe, AEC. With that, the festival was under way.
Later Posts:
About CamerImage:
The Camerimage International Festival of the Art of Cinematography was launched in 1993. Festival founder and director Marek Zydowicz says that the founders chose to focus on cinematography because it is a universal art form that doesn’t get the attention it deserves at many other festivals. In addition to inspiring and recognizing excellence in the art of cinematography, they envisioned a global forum where filmmakers from around the world could meet to discuss issues and exchange ideas. The festival moved from Torun to Lodz in 2000, where the Polish national film school is located.