BACKGROUND

What was your route into photography?

David: The very beginning started at school, I was in a camera club when I was probably thirteen, and it just went on from there. I was doing an architecture course and I suddenly had a chance to be an assistant to a photographer in the West End in Soho, and that was in the late 1960s. This guy used to cover a lot of musicians, rock bands, at that time in London and, as you know, that was a great time for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and all that. He used to shoot photos for covers of the sheet music and I had a chance, when I was fifteen, of being an assistant to him. So my dad got me out of college, out of this architect course, and I ended up working for this guy as an assistant and photographing the top bands around at the time. He was set up on Denmark Street in the West End, which was known as Tin Pan Alley, where a lot of music publishers used to hang out.

I was taking my own photographs then, but my main job was to assist him. There was also a dark room for processing, so I got to learn from working with another photographer, rather than being taught formally. I think you can learn much more by working with somebody.

How long did you work with him?

David: That was for about a year and then I moved on. I started working in advertising for advertising photographers, mainly styling pack shots with tins of things. Again that was great, a great learning process for lighting and photography generally. When I started with the advertising I used to go along to sets of TV commercials and in the late '60s, early '70s, there were directors like Alan Parker, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, and Adrian Lyne making TV commercials. I was there covering whatever the TV ad was about, because quite often they used to run a poster or a magazine campaign along side the TV commercial, and I'd be there shooting that in stills.

You were doing the photography for potential print ads right there?

David: Yes, they were to be used in magazine campaigns or poster campaigns, and sometimes the client who'd employed the agency, if they were a big client, they'd have in-house magazines that wanted pictures, material to use in their in-house magazine. It would be the product shot, or if there was a well known name doing the TV ad it would be shots of them with the product, and things like that. I also covered behind the scenes, the director working the camera.

Was it before those directors had started making movies?

David: This was before any of them had made their first movie. My first movie was for Alan Parker, it was Bugsy Malone in 1976, and then I went on to do Ridley Scott's first movie, The Duellists. They were happy with what I was doing so I then got a call from Alan Parker to do Midnight Express, and so on, it went on from that. You get on this merry go round and once you start, people get to know you, get to see your work and, touch wood, it still happens today.

So it was from knowing them on commercials that you worked on their first features?

David: Yes, because of knowing them and following them into film from commercials, they were pretty comfortable having me around. It was Lord David Puttnam, who I first met on Bugsy Malone (he produced it, and he also produced The Duellists, Ridley's first film), he was giving an opportunity to these young directors to do their first movie. I think in total I ended up working with David on about fourteen or fifteen projects over the years. David was a great producer, from my point of view, because his background was advertising and he was also a photographer's agent so he knew the value of the stills material for selling and promoting a film. So we used to work very well together, and it made my job easier having someone around supporting you in what you're doing. It was the same with Alan Parker and Ridley Scott, their background being advertising, they again also realized the value of what I did.

Are there times that directors or producers don't necessarily see the value?

David: You do come across those producers and directors who sometimes wonder what you're doing there shooting stills of a movie. It takes a little longer to break them down and convince them that you're actually genuinely employed, and it is quite useful what you're doing there. Sometimes when it comes to budget and cost cutting, it's quite often the publishing of the stills that gets cut. Of course when it comes to selling the film, they realize they haven't got the material to sell it!

I remember meeting David Puttnam for the first time on Bugsy Malone where he said, ìDavid, more people see the stills of the movie than are ever going to see the movie.î He also said that if you calculate the advertising space that your photographs can generate - I get a fee for the job and the copyright of the material belongs to the company and it's given free to the press - so if you calculate how much it is to buy the space of one of your photographs that a newspaper has run free, if you work that out for all the publications in all the territories around the world, that comes to a lot of free advertising space that's achieved by your photographs. If one newspaper in the UK has a readership of six or seven million readership, he'd be happy if six or seven million people went to see one of his movies. So that's always stuck with me, and sort of kicked me off in the right direction. It's something I often quote to producers or directors who don't quite understand what I'm doing.

What have been some of your more memorable movies?

David: The '70s were an exciting time, and I'd take it even a bit further, into the early '80s, with films I did like The Killing Fields and The Mission, which were with David Puttnam. Those were quite extraordinary because of the subject matter, and because of where we filmed sometimes, in impossible places. They also carried a really good message. He often tried to make a film for the cinema that carried a message. For a feature film people have to get up from their seats in their front room and their lounges, and they have to make that effort to go out and see a movie. And if you can make a movie like David's where an audience would come away with something to think about, they come away moved by that message. On TV ideas can just pass by, become sort of like wallpaper, but if you've made an effort to go out, to go to the cinema and share that experience with everybody else in the cinema, I think that is what cinema is about.

Have you found any favorite locations in your time in film?

David: I would say Thailand. Most of The Killing Fields was made in Thailand, it's a beautiful country and the people are great. The land of smiles they call it. You really experience that culture shock when you come back to England, or wherever, after spending time with those very smiling, warm petite, tanned people, it was great. Costa Rica is another favorite place. It's absolutely beautiful, the whole area, just like a wildlife park, it was 1992 when I was there. In fact, Berlin has been quite fun as well, on this film.

V FOR VENDETTA

How did you first get the call about a job with V For Vendetta?

David: It started off with Bronwyn Preston the Unit Publicist calling me. We'd worked together once before with Alan Parker on The Life of David Gale and we'd gotten on really well, so she called me to see if there was a chance I was available to do V For Vendetta. She briefly told me what it was about and where it was shooting. I said I'd have to think about it, and then the next call I got was from a producer [Grant Hill] saying he'd heard I'd expressed an interest in it and he would send me a script along with a copy of the illustrated novel.

Does the script influence your decision to take the job?

David: Yes. I liked the sentiment behind this movie. When you're new and you're young and you're starting, you just want to work; you just want to do anything. I was lucky enough those early projects all had great merit. My main criteria is to first read the script, if you can afford to be that picky, and then it's about the people you're working with. Working with nice people in nice places on a good script is my criteria.

A lot of films I've done have been for the same producers and the same directors. For some reason they seem to like what I do and ask me back again. I always know that those are going to be good projects because of who they are. People like Alan Parker, Ridley Scott and Roland Joffe, who directed The Killing Fields and The Mission, are an absolute delight to work with.

After you touched down in Berlin, what did you start doing for V For Vendetta?

David: I arrived a week before the first day of shooting because the art department needed a lot of photographs taken of various characters in the film to use the photographs in the movie. So I had a week doing that, and that's where I first met James [McTeigue, Director], who is delightful and so easy to get along with. He had definite ideas, so we discussed them, and that made it easy for what I had to do. A lot of the other crew I knew from before - in fact, they'd managed to assemble probably one of the best British crews that I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Terry [Needham], First Assistant Director, David [Stephenson] Production Sound Mixer, and Paul [Engelen] Key Makeup Designer, I've known for a long time, and it's quite rare for all of us to be together, all in the same place on the same movie. It was almost as if they'd cast the crew like they cast the actors for the movie because it was such a brilliant crew. I had also worked once before in Berlin and the German crew were, again, a bunch of people that I'd worked with before who are probably the top people in Germany.

Is it important for you to be comfortable with the people you work with to capture them naturalistically?

David: Absolutely. Knowing people is a great way to start because a lot of ice is already broken, so you're not really starting from the beginning. I've always said the easiest part of the job is taking the photographs, the hardest part is the politics, the psychological part, and the egos. The actors they cast as well are great. There's Natalie [Portman, Evey], who's a sweetheart, and there was this little rep group of British actors like Stephen Fry [Deitrich], Tim Pigott-Smith [Creedy], John Standing [Lilliman] and John Hurt [Chancellor Adam Sutler], who I've worked with in the past. They're brilliant and professional, and nice people as well. A great combination of people had been put together.

When you haven't met an actor before, do you make a point of meeting them before you take their photographs?

David: Yes, that's absolutely vital. There's nothing more rude than photographing anybody you haven't introduced yourself to. That's the very first thing you do, to anybody, before you photograph them; you talk to them. You tell them what you're doing and say that if there's any problem with anything, let me know, and we can sort things out.

Some of the sets on this film are quite intimate, so you would have had to be very close.

David: I remember hearing or reading that it's important for a photographer to be anonymous if you can be, you should just sort of melt into the background. For an actor there are a lot of things happening: there's a camera with two or three people operating it, there's a man holding a microphone, there's somebody taking notes, there are electricians holding up bits of Styrofoam. The first thing you do is introduce yourself to the actor, then if you can then blend into that format that they see when they're acting, that's probably the best way to do it. With any photography, the minute people become aware of the camera they start to behave differently, so it's good to be invisible. An actor, Ralph Fiennes, asked me when we were doing a film at Shepperton Studios if I had ever been to St. Petersburg, and I said I had... on a movie with him! He said he never sees me wherever I am, so that sort of thing is quite nice,

Part of my job is trying to make actors and actresses comfortable having you around. Because in the age of the paparazzi photographer - a dirty word - actors and actresses are so wary of cameras and having them thrust at them. They call themselves photographers, but these people camp outside their houses, they're so intrusive into their lives so when they're working and you're there with a camera, it is more difficult for us. Those guys have put us genuine photographers in more difficult position. Naturally an actor is going to see the camera lens and it brings all this bad stuff up.

What did you discuss with James when you arrived?

David: In those early stages the discussion was primarily for the art department pictures of the character Valerie [played by Natasha Wightman], who has a past as a movie actress in the film. We had to create a movie history for her of posters and publicity and advertising campaigns for four or five movies. James had some very definite ideas about that, which was good, because we only had an afternoon to shoot six or seven movie posters plus other publicity pictures and advertising things.

The wardrobe and hair and makeup people were also primed for this, changing Valerie's look from present day back to the 1940s, literally within minutes. Valerie, the actress, was brilliant, she got into it as well and was able to turn on her performance, for whether we were shooting a 1940s poster or a modern day gun-style movie. When the set was finally dressed with these images for the Vendetta film I was very pleased with it, and James was as well.

In the past have you had the opportunity to do that kind of work to actually appear in the film you're working on?

David: Not often, but it's quite fun. I think Evita was one that gave the most challenges because we had a day to create a 24 page newspaper of Eva Peron's rainbow tour, but substituting Madonna for every picture that was in that original newspaper. It was a combination of shooting actual photographs of Madonna as Eva Peron, and then sometimes superimposing pictures of Madonna's head onto bodies of Eva Peron with the Pope and various people that exist in photographs. I built Madonna a blacked out area and created a still studio on one of the stages. They brought her in to say hello and I had pasted up the ideas like a storyboard, pictures we had to achieve. She said to tell her what I wanted her to do and we'd do it. She was fantastic... in and out of wigs and costumes and different make up all day and absolutely brilliant. I would have got fed up with it before she did!

PHOTOGRAPHING EVEY

Evey has quite the transformation in the film and some harsh scenes; what was some of the photography like?

David: Natalie is an absolute sweetheart and so very professional. There were instances, especially in tight situations or small rooms, where there physically wasn't room for any people other than the actor or actress and the people on camera and the soundman. So in those instances, if you feel the scene and the images are very important for the film, then when they've done the movie takes and you've already spoken with the director, the first assistant, and the actor, you can say when this is finished I need to get in and cover some pictures in this situation. Not all actors or actresses are good at that because they've given their performance for the movie camera, to go and do it again for still camera can be difficult to do.

However, Natalie was absolutely brilliant. The first instance was in fact on the first day of shooting, I had to do those shots of when she's getting ready to go out and she's looking her prettiest, her most glamorous. It was very important to get those first images, and that's how we had to do it.

I must say, we had met before that first day of shooting because during that pre-week of shooting for the art department, I took quite a lot of pictures involving her, creating a photo history of Evey for the film. I took pictures of her with 'friends' in different situations, ID pictures, pictures of where she's supposed to be fifteen years old. This was to create things to dress in her apartment that, in terms of dressing, make the characters more real. In their homes everybody has photographs of their friends and family, so that family history we photograph is very important. Most production designers and art directors will do that to add reality to the character.

So on the first day of shooting Natalie knew exactly why I was there and what I needed, and was brilliant. If you work out in your head exactly the shots you want, it takes no longer than it does to fire off a roll of film at eight frames a second, and almost by the time they've checked the gate on the camera - when they look for hairs and bits of dust in the camera - you could have basically finished the stills.

We had to do a similar thing after her head was shaved for the part, when she was in the prison cell and probably looking her most unglamorous... although I think she looks great all the time, head shaved or what, she's a beautiful girl. She had to do recreate some traumatic scenes, but I still needed to get the shots because they're an important part to cover for the film. It's a matter of understanding, knowing the moments, knowing the emotion of the film, and picking those moments that you want to set up. You can drive people mad all the time doing it, but if you've read your script, you know the story, so you'll know those emotional times, those key times in the movie that are really vital to cover. Natalie understood that as well, and made my job really easy.

When you can't get onto a tight set and you have to go on after, are you watching the monitor for the shot?

David: Yes. Monitors and video systems are used more and more these days, so that's one way of seeing what is going on. If you can't physically get on the set to see something, there's often a monitor around that you can see.

Do you try to get the angle of the camera?

David: No, not always. Sometimes an angle that works well for the movie doesn't necessarily work too well for stills. Also some actors, when you say you'd like to photograph them after a set up is finished, they insist on saying the words of the scene, and there's nothing worse if you catch those moments when somebody's talking. So you've got to try to say to them that you don't want them to say the words, but if they can just keep the thought and the emotion of the scene in their head. They don't have to look at me, but just look past me, or sometimes look at me, it depends, but just keep the emotion of the scene in their head without saying the words.

Singing and musicals are a nightmare! In those films most people are like that at all times of the day, so for Evita with Madonna, I would do those after a set up is finished. You also watch for the moments when they're not singing and they're waiting for the next beat, which can be quite a good moment.

Each film has a different mood, does the way you take photographs alter according to that atmosphere?

David: Yes, I think you have to be faithful to the tone of the movie. The lighting and the atmosphere will dictate that to you. It's also vital to know the script and know what the emotion is of it, I see far too many pictures where somebody is taking a picture of, say, the two main actors or actresses in the film, but they're not doing anything, they're standing there, like a couple of wax dummies. It's about watching for that intensity or humor, or whatever. I think you have to try and portray in a still frame what the movie is doing with the movie frame. That's where it can be quite difficult, because a movie has movement and sound as well, so for a still it is vital to try and capture that emotion or energy or humor, or whatever the movie is about. Don't just get your two characters in the picture, really try and do justice to the movie, try and be honorable to what the movie is about that you're working on.

PHOTOGRAPHING V

How tricky was the mask to photograph, particularly that it lacks the ability to change expressions?

David: In the pre-shooting week in Berlin they also held a big press conference, and they wanted to project some large images on a transparency of V's mask, so they asked me to photograph just the mask. I had it laid out on black and started to photograph it as a mask. I noticed when I actually started moving around it and changing the angle, it stopped being a mask, and that the expressions seemed to start changing. It was very cleverly designed, not only with the expression, but with the texture and everything. It was also important to keep it dramatically lit, but it was interesting how the expression almost changed as you moved angle from higher up or lower down. I suddenly looked at it in a different way, I wasn't just photographing a mask, I was photographing the character who was going to be working with for the next three months or more.

What was your on set experience of the mask on a physical body?

David: A lot was down to the actor behind the mask, he was doing that same sort of movement and putting just a tilt to the head - that is the craft of the actor behind the mask ‚ he was actually bringing the character to life. There were a few shots I took which I'm quite proud of, and that I think actually bring the character of V through the mask in a still without words and movement.

Were there any challenges particular to the V character?

David: In some of the settings he was in it was, I felt, important to get really square on to him, to get the angular shapes. I did that a few times, but not too many because we didn't need too many.

What were some of your favorite sets that you photographed?

David: The Shadow Gallery was a brilliant set. My favorite was the shrine set to Valerie the actress. Then we had the luxury of using the real Houses of Parliament and Big Ben as a set, so that was quite amazing to do because I don't know if that's done before... where they close Parliament Square for a movie company. I think John Landis had Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus closed for An American Werewolf in London... I think they closed Piccadilly Circus for about an hour at three in the morning and that was it. We were there for three nights and it was brilliant. The Underground Station was also pretty gruesome, it was about a hundred and fifty steps up and down, so that was quite fun for a few days. Not anybody's favorite set, yet it's going to look great in the movie. I think the whole movie has a great look overall.

From a still photography point of view, which set was the most challenging?

David: Parliament Square and Big Ben were pretty challenging; trying to encompass that whole scene or something that can portray that end sequence, when you know when the movie is going to be doing it in different cuts and angles. That's one thing you try and think of as a stills photographer, what is the definitive still of a movie that tells you all about the movie in one picture? Sometimes that is quite easy to do, sometimes it quite naturally happens, but sometimes it's impossible to sum it up in one still. Also, from a technical point of view, when action is happening at night and you have very little light, that's pretty challenging as well, because you're limited with your film speeds and camera speeds and stops. It can get boring if it is too easy... that's why I think why I still enjoy doing it, for those challenges.

V For Vendetta had two units running, how do you manage to be in two places at once?

David: I beg them to let me have somebody else as an assistant to work with me if they have a big second unit, or if there's going to be a book made for the making of. It's important to have somebody else concentrating on behind the scenes and the making of pictures, and also covering second unit, especially if it's a big action unit. If I'm on my own in that situation, basically you can't be in two places at once, so I stay with the money, with the main actor or actress, wherever they or the main camera are. In the past I have tried to be in two places at once, and what happens if a good shot is happening over there, and one is happening over there, you can spend your time walking in between the two and not taking any pictures at all because when you get there, they're not ready. Then by the time you get back they've done the shot and finished, so it's pointless trying to do that. I let people know it's pointless trying to do that and that they're going to lose something if there's not another person there. On this film I was fortunate enough to have somebody covering second unit and doing a lot of behind the scenes, Juliana Malucelli.

Do you have one favorite photo from V For Vendetta?

David: There's a few I like very much, but there's one moment I enjoyed and I think it worked in the picture, and that was during the end scene down in the Underground station when V and Evey kiss. They were shooting over shoulder on one, over shoulder on the other, and just moving to the side of that so you could see a bit more of them in profile. I noticed that when Evey moved into V for the kiss, there was a wonderful bounce light from the mask into her face. It was to me a very magical moment.

On The Mission there was a wonderful Irish actor named Ray McAnally, and there was a scene towards the end of the film where he stands by this window and he's looking out, talking about the despair of what happened. In the movie this tear runs from his eye, an incredible performance, and they must have shot it twelve or thirteen times and every time he was able to produce that tear that ran down his face. This was one of those tight, difficult situations where it was impossible to shoot it as it was happening, but I thought it was an important picture to get, so I would have been happy with a good, tight head shot, seeing the emotion in his eyes. I had worked with Ray before and he was great, God rest his soul, so I asked if could we do something after. When they pulled the camera out I asked him to stay looking out the window, because after every take the makeup people dried his tears. So I'm shooting, just pleased to get a good powerful head shot, and suddenly this tear runs down his eye, like the fourteenth time he'd done it... and he's doing it for me. Of course I'm nearly crying now and I can't focus because I've got tears in my eyes, it was a very magic moment that happens I'll always remember.

STILL PHOTOGRAPHY FOR FILM

For someone who wants to get into still photography for film these days, what kind of recommendations would you have?

David: How does anyone get into any type of photography? Sports photography, fashion photography, travel photography? You've got to specialize and be interested in what you're doing. So it would be the same advice for sports photography, follow sports, shoot pictures of sport whenever you can. If it's portraits, shoot portraits of people, friends, animals, whatever, a lot of it is practice. If it's movies, to have a good book of your work, and I think it should be made up of some portraits. Try doing student films or anything like that, theater, even. If you're interested in becoming a photographer on movies, you will find a way to get that experience. TV commercials were a great grounding for me and for those directors.

When you've got a good portfolio just phone everybody up and drive everybody mad, at Warner Bros., Fox, all of them. You want to talk to their photo editors and get in to see them and say this is what I can do. I think that is the only way because there's no training scheme for it. I've been fortunate enough on the last two movies to have a second unit photographer, to have an assistant, and that's a great opportunity to learn. Juliana has served her time as my assistant in the past, and now she's shooting some very good pictures and has the opportunity to gather a good portfolio of movie stills. Offer your services for free. Phone up still photographers - find out who they are if you don't know them - if you want to do their job, meet them, get to talk to them, assist them for nothing, learn, visit the labs (with the process now, so much is done digitally), ask if you can look around the lab, see the sort of work that's being done. Find out what's expected, what's needed, like with anything, learn as much as you can about it.

People say to me, you're so lucky! And I am. Apart from golf, my two loves are photography and movies, and to be able to combine that, and be paid for it, be sent to all these places around the world is quite amazing. You sometimes have to remind yourself of that when you've been standing in a wet field for sixteen hours, soaking wet and freezing cold, and haven't got a shot.

Thank you very much for your time David.