Reach From The Sky

Suspended in a cage from a builder's crane nearly 700 feet up above a construction site at Canary Wharf in London's Docklands, Mattias Nyberg would have needed regular reminding that it was all in the cause of `art'.

The fact it was also a freezing cold January day and Swedish-born Nyberg suffered from vertigo didn't help either. The result, however, has since helped to block out some of the worst aspects of that wintry memory.

Nyberg had been invited by acclaimed British photographic artist Catherine Yass to film an eight-minute continuous take with the self-descriptive title Descent which then became part of her much publicised Turner Prize short-listed entry in 2002.

Filming on Super Fuji 16mm 500T, Nyberg held the shot while being lowered to the ground. "We're looking at buildings in the fog. The Canary Wharf tower was camera left and the HSBC building was in the background," he explained. It took three takes.

In post-production, Yass flipped the image, "as if you're going down the building upside down," said Nyberg. To add, reported an official website helpfully, "perspectival distortions." A related sequence of photographs in lightboxes shot by Yass from the top of the building site with a stills camera created "a giddying sense of freefall. Buildings disintegrate into abstracted streaks of colour and light as the camera tilts downward towards the ground."

This art installation contrasts nicely with a much more recent art film with which Nyberg has been involved. Destined for showing later this year at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead - then probably at various film events around the world -it was an intriguing project shot at the town's famous unfinished high rise carpark which film buffs may recall was the scene of a spectacular murder in the 1971 cult thriller, Get Carter.

Directed by Runa Islam, Project Car Park was filmed over six days using sets, actors and split screen all juxtaposed with shots of the architecture and the architect's original model. This time the weather was "fantastic. The building's great especially from the inside and I was able to get a really contrasty look - using Fuji's 125T and 250D - with the shafts of light and the concrete," Nyberg enthused.

For a young man - he's now just 28 - who might have been destined to become a full-time ice hockey professional, Nyberg's career has clearly undergone a major sea change since he left Sweden for England in 1995. He had studied economics at university but most of his waking time seemed to have been taken up with sport.

Looking back now, Nyberg, a rangy 6ft 5ins but two stone lighter than when he had to keep bulked up for his first division ice hockery team, thinks he didn't really have "the right mentality. I was too interested in other things like photography and literature." So, with a group of friends who were similarly bored with their native land, he set off for London without much idea of what to do next.

He was, however, "soon struck by the vibrant culture here. You walked through Soho and there were film companies everywhere, and everyone seemed to talk about film."

Signing up for a BA degree course in Communications and Audio-Visual Production at London Guildhall University (now part of the Metropolitan) Nyberg gained a particularly strong year for talented students what the course seemed to lack in decent in-house equipment.

The spectacular end result of his three years, during which time he had increasingly got to light various college films, was his graduation project in collaboration with, in his own words, a "very driven and conscientious" group of fellow filmmakers led by German director, Florian Giefer.

The Brothers Martorana, an atmospheric circus drama about three knife-throwing siblings finally driven apart as the pressures of the Big Top take their toll, won the 1999 Fujifilm Scholarship Award for Best Overall Production. In addition, it garnered the BBC Design Award for Lucy-Sian Clark while Nyberg himself was named runner-up in the Arriflex Award for Best Camerawork and Lighting. He also won the Kodak Nahemi Cinematography Award 2000.

"I've been back lecturing, giving lighting and camera workshops for Master's students and they now seem to have much more back-up and equipment since we left. Was this a direct result of the Fujifilm awards? Well, they were certainly very excited at the university about the awards," he smiled.

After Guildhall, Nyberg stepped almost immediately into work on a pair of shorts - Life Of A Lighter and One In Something - thanks to a helpful recommendation from the location manager on The Brothers Martorana who had turned producer for director Nick Moorcroft. His career plan was now clear: "to go on and shoot films. I was raring to go. I was also very naive and didn't realise just how tough it would be." What Nyberg needed was a mentor and he found it in Roger Eaton, successful photographer turned busy cameraman.

"We first met in January 2000 when Fuji were demonstrating one of their new stocks in Wardour Street. Roger was about to light a funded short called The Courier and he invited me to come along as a kind of DP assistant. There was no defined role as such but Roger and I would talk about shots and the lighting. It was incredibly helpful to me."

Their collaboration continued in a more profitable way when they then worked together on The Real Eve, a major documentary for Discovery about the origins of man. As the 1st unit focus-puller and 2nd unit camera operator, Nyberg travelled to Kenya and Oman as well as Scotland for the programme which was later to earn the channel's second highest ratings after The Blue Planet.

Eaton has continued to involve Nyberg on various projects, most recently when he directed Water Baby, a commercial for The Green Party which he invited the younger man to light. For his part, Nyberg fulsomely acknowledges Eaton's help and encouragement.

His current CV is perhaps a typical mixture of commercials, shorts and bread-and-butter television work including `reality' series such as Would Like To Meet, Behaving Badly and Young, Posh and Loaded, with formats spanning 35mm to DV.

As for the future, he would like to do "more commercials and promos. Commercials not only pay very well but also give you a chance to play around with a lot of kit. There's lots of back-up, the best crews and you've time to perfect things.

"Pop promos give you a chance to experiment, to try out new techniques. Often there's no narrative as such but you can try things which might not cut together if it was a drama or commercial."

Inspired by the work of Darius Khondji, Conrad Hall, Gordon Willis and fellow Swede, Sven Nykvist, Nyberg admitted his ultimate "goal" is features.

"Naturally I would love to work again on longer films with some of the people I've already made shorts. With Florian Giefer, of course, and, say, Kara Miller, who directed Cheese Makes You Dream which I shot on DVC-Pro. She's certainly someone to watch.

"I've had several scripts sent to me but turned them all down because, as far as I'm concerned, they weren't good enough. I don't want to end up shooting for six or eight weeks with very little money then be unable to stand by the product which may not get shown anyway.

"I hear people saying, `just get a feature under your belt.' Am I too choosy? I really want a script I feel I can do. Some problems can be fixed but if those problems are fundamental, it's a waste of time all round. I'm determined to hold out on this," said Nyberg.