Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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This made him reluctant to compromise. “The set had a medieval feel, as if we were
seeing it through Toss’s eyes after she had been influenced by Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
When it was not looking how I imagined it should, I waited until the crew was away
and went into one of the sets and destroyed the interior with an adze and crowbar. This
pointed act of finality might have sent some art directors into a fury, but Kai Hawkins
shrugged tolerantly”. 662
Ward knew visually exactly what he wanted. White remembers that the crew “had the
onerous task of trying to shoot the movie to avoid sunlight. So whenever it was
overcast or raining, we were outdoors shooting and whenever the sun shone, we were
inside shooting interior scenes”. The weather was very changeable and they “very
quickly learned that we only had weather for about half an hour in any direction,
especially coming from the south or the west”. 663 Alun Bollinger, who was the director
of photography on the film, points out that although “generally, when the sun came out,
we went inside”, there are a couple of sequences that are shot “with very watery
sunlight […] but we picked a time of day so it’s only ever backlit, like the old man with
his invention on the pond. That’s one of the sequences shot with soft, not hard sunlight,
but soft back bits, so the hills are still dark behind, but they’ve got this soft rim, so
there’s a little bit of optimism there”. 664 Stuart Dryburgh (later the director of
photography on An Angel at My Table, The Piano and Once Were Warriors) was the
gaffer on the shoot, and the high quality of his work contributed to the quality of light
being such an important part of the film, according to Bollinger. The camerawork in the
film is relatively static which is due in part to the desired pacing of the film and to the
care with which it was composed. Bollinger makes comparisons between the
cinematographic style used in Vigil and European cinema, and points out, that unlike
Hollywood cinema, where a big event, like blowing up a building is needed to create a
climax, “with a film like Vigil, you pace things down […], you get a sense of the slower
time and more a sense of suspense. You can do the smallest thing to create a shock, like
drop a plate, so it can become much more realistic […]. You don’t have to blow a
building up, you only need to drop a plate”. He believes that “it’s a harder thing to do
662 Ward, Edge of the Earth: Stories and Images from the Antipodes 73.
663 Lynette Read, interview with Timothy White, 29 September 1999.
664 Lynette Read, interview with Alun Bollinger, 3 December 1998.