Crossing Continents

Had things worked out a little differently for cinematographer Paul Englefield, he might have found himself working his way up the industry in America rather than here.

Armed with a degree in Fine Art from Portsmouth Polytechnic, Englefield headed for America's West Coast after being accepted for an MA course at the California Institute Of The Arts.

"I wouldn't have had to pay fees, but that was the extent of the offer they made," the 45-year-old now recalls.

But in one of those life changing moments, a cross-roads at which you might go in one of two quite different directions, he decided to turn his back on the land of opportunity and return to sunny Soho to pursue his career in the UK.

"I always wonder in retrospect whether I should have stuck it out, "Englefield says, with a wry smile. "But I would have been a very poor student, financially, in comparison to everybody else.

"From having been a student in Portsmouth to standing in this massive car park in LA filled with expensive convertibles was a real eyeopener. But my contacts were in London, people who'd been at Portsmouth with me were out working with clapper loaders so I had somewhere to start and a few doors I knew I could knock on.

"I still had to work my way up and realised I had a lot to learn. I started out as loader and then became a focus puller, taking the opportunity to start shooting some stuff of my own while I was still doing that."

An academic grounding is one thing, on-the-job experience is quite another. Hardened industry veterans typically favour the latter over the former anyway and Englefield admits that his entry into the profession was more of a start than an end to his education in film.

"I went off and did a variety of things," Englefield adds. "I worked with Dick Pope as a focus puller at that time just as he was moving from documentaries to TV dramas and features. And Roger Deakins was a partner in a company with him so there were a lot of opportunities to work with him too. I did second unit on some films with Roger as well and I was learning all the time.

"I was also fortunate to work with a couple of American DPs, like Haskell Wexler on an IMAX film of a Rolling Stones tour. As you progress you're inevitably going to imitate what you've seen done successfully.

Until you find your own feet, and your own vocabulary, you're going to learn from your peers and take the opportunity to work with people like that."

Working on the camera crew of a variety of second unit features, Englefield also began to cut his cinematographic teeth on commercials, documentaries and short films. Notable successes include A Bill Called William (shot on a combination of Super 16 and Super 8) which resulted in Englefield's nomination for a Royal Television Society award. Secret Loves was part of the Cutting Edge strand, Easy was a Channel 4/Anglia TV co-production while the acclaimed Slave Nation was shown over three episodes on Channel 4.

All were directed by longtime friend and collaborator Alex Harvey, with whom Englefield also worked onthe recent drama The Lives of Animals.

Add to that a pair of BAFTA nominated short films, The Fiance (also for Harvey) and Cabbage (for director David Stewart), the as yet unreleased feature The Van Boys and a clutch of commercials and it suggests a broad range of experience.

His latest, perhaps most challenging, job came on The Lives of Animals, a literary drama first broadcast on BBC4 but scheduled for a re-run on BBC2 in the autumn. Adapted from the novel by J.M. Coetzee it is a thoughtful assessment of life as it is lived in contemporary western society.

"The story tells of a celebrated author [Eileen Atkins] returning to England to do the yearly lecture at the college where her son [Paul Rhys] teaches," Englefield explains. "Rather than deliver a lecture about her work as a writer she gives a talk entitled `The Lives of Animals'. The lecture takes up a large proportion of the book but we tried to open it out, developing the narrative around her visit and only dipping in and out of her talk.

"We shot on the Fuji 500 tungsten stock because we had a lot of tungsten lit interiors. It was able to work in very low light situations, yet when we went outside - and bearing in mind it was a bright February day with a low sun - it was also very adaptable and could handle that contrast as well."

With limited time and - as ever - a tight budget, Englefield worked closely with director Alex Harvey to create lighting effects that complemented the unfolding drama.

"Most of the action takes place indoors. The only outdoor scenes are this woman's arrival at the airport and her departure at the end of the film. I tended not ever to have daylight looking a daylight blue; I went for a much more steely blue colour which was achieved with a mixture of filtration and lighting when I was filming the interiors.

"When she goes back to the airport we actually staged the scene in a tunnel. Thecolour cast by these mercury lights had the effect of being quite alienating, and with filtration it turned out as a bluey green colour. Some of the film was terribly formal, but other times we shot it hand held, which meant it could be freer and had a sense of reality."

A particular challenge that also allowed the lecture scenes to be broken up and made more visually interesting involved the creation of some `vintage' footage of a supposed experiment into animal behaviour.

"We shot a black and white silent movie which was then projected as part of the lecture, "Englefield explains, "and we did it as if it was a slightly impressionistic piece from the late 20s. We got ourselves a hand cranked camera - actually an adapted SR - and we played around with filters.

"It got to the point when we were filming when my assistant started hand cranking the camera and we noticed how much it was wobbling. And, of course, when you see the result it looks even more authentic because not only have you got speed fluctuations but the camera is moving just like on some old Charlie Chaplin film.

"Versatility might be a virtue in most careers, but in a business where you tend to be `cast' on the back of your last successful job this can be a problem, as much for a cameraman who has avoided being typecast as for any actor.

"I suppose it is a slight disadvantage," Englefield muses. "If I had to describemyself it would be someone who has his roots in documentaries but who has experience of bigger productions.

"The people that I've worked with have a certain simplicity in their approach. Which is not to say that Roger Deakins doesn't light something with 100 maxibrutes, or that Dick Pope or Haskell Wexler don't bring in all the equipment they possibly need. But their first principle is how it would happen naturalistically.

"I guess the reality of your work as a DP in the smallest scale production isn't that different to the biggest scale production. There may be more people and it may all move at a different speed, but you're always having to think on your feet.

"And that's nice too because while this is a collaborative business there is a sense that the DP is out there alone, trying to achieve something that is your idea of what's required."