British Cinematographer issue 51 - Imago

British Cinematographer
Covering International Cinematography
www.britishcinematographer.co.uk
Issue 051 ––– May 2012
Presidents Perspective
–––John de Borman BSC
BSC President
Nollywood
or bust
Nollywood... Tinapa Studios
in Nigeria, which claims the
second largest film industry after
Bollywood.
Hotel Russell... the venue for this
year’s BSC Operators’ Night.
Well I’ve arrived in Nigeria and am in prep for my next
film Half Of The Yellow Sun. It’s a beautiful love story set
in the 1960s during the Nigerian-Biafran war. My first
impression after all the anxieties of everybody telling me
how dangerous it might be, and how mad I was to be
going to a war torn country, is how absolutely charming,
welcoming and unthreatening the people are – at
least in this area Calabar. It is amazing to see that they
have built an enormous studio called Tinapa here, with
editing rooms and a cinema, a 100ft stage that’s all airconditioned,
which would make Pinewood Studios proud.
Millions of pounds of investment, including a hotel,
were made eight years ago, and yet we will be the first
people to use it. They seem to have only used the studio
for weddings so far. What a shame, I think to myself, but
then as my prep progresses I realise where the problem
lies. This is a country with absolutely no infrastructure
whatsoever. No lights, blimped generators, nor cameras.
Even trucks we have to get from Lagos and, of course,
no experienced people. Having said that they are the
second largest film industry after Bombay in the world –
they make many more films than the US, or us, by far. They
have the third largest grossing film revenue in the world
after Hollywood. There is Bollywood and then Nollywood.
Unfortunately all their films are shot on camcorders
and now 5Ds, in daylight or with basic single bulb lighting
at night. I have seen some of these films shot by the
trainees I’ve taken on. I have to say they are impressive
with the little they have, and show great compositional
skills. The stories maybe slightly lacking sophistication, but
that could change.
05
British Society
of Cinematographers
Board Members
PRESIDENT:
John de Borman BSC
IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT:
Sue Gibson BSC
VICE PRESIDENTS:
Sean Bobbitt BSC
Joe Dunton MBE BSC
Chris Seager BSC
GOVERNORS:
Oliver Curtis BSC
John Daly BSC
Gavin Finney BSC
David Higgs BSC
Phil Meheux BSC
David Odd BSC
Nic Morris BSC
Dick Pope BSC
Derek Suter BSC
Robin Vidgeon BSC
Nigel Walters BSC
Haris Zambarloukos BSC
CO-OPTED ASSOCIATE MEMBER REPRESENTATIVES:
Andrei Austin
Rodrigo Gutierrez
SECRETARY:
Frances Russell
So my mission whilst I am here, I’ve decided, is to
employ as many trainees to work on this film as the
production company will let me, and to train them
with my very experienced lighting and grip crew from
South Africa, as best we can, and show them how we
light and move the camera and how they could use
their studio properly. This film we are doing is very, very
low budget, so I feel we are challenged to achieve a
lot with very little – much like they do. But, of course,
we are bigger in intention and that could be their first
lesson. Think ambitiously about how to achieve a big
cinema look, and then work out how to achieve this
with limited resources.
The other thing I now realise while I’ve been out
here is how ludicrous our tax breaks in England works.
It seems to act completely against all incentive to use,
and our British crews. It is more advantageous for a
producer based in England to hire a complete foreign
crew, add all the extra expense that entails – first class
tickets, per diems, hotels, etc. – the more the better,
as that allows him or her to claim more on the tax
credit. How is that helping our crews? There are many
examples of this happening all the time. Surely there is
something wrong here?
Conversely, I am shooting a film now that is produced
by Andrea Calderwood (Last King Of Scotland, Constant
Gardener), and we cannot get any tax credit because
we are shooting in Nigeria, and we couldn’t claim any
tax for having, for instance, an entire British crew, we
can only claim for whatever we shoot in England. Surely
this is ludicrous. We, like the Nigerians, need to promote
and train our crews and need to give our producers
the incentive to employ our very talented and highlyskilled
crews. If we have a tax break this must be taken
into consideration so that it helps our film industry and
perpetuates the high standards that we are known for.
The BSC, on the other hand, is definitely intent on
promoting our industry to the full. This year we will be
having our Operator’s annual evening at the prestigious
and beautiful Hotel Russell, Russell Square, Bloomsbury,
London WC1, on Friday 16th November. It is a much
bigger venue so will be able to accommodate
everybody who wants to come, and we won’t be
strapped for a lack of space. All DPs, operators, friends
and patrons please put it in your diary, and let’s all
celebrate what we do and love to do.
John de Borman BSC
President, British Society of Cinematographers