Light behind the lens

By Dan Salmon, November 10, 2007 @ 11:31 am

A lavish look at New Zealand cinematographers

This is one of those ideas you wish you’d had yourself—a proven formula applied to our own curious part of the world. But where international texts written about cinematographers tend to be printed interviews, Duncan Petrie has crafted essays that focus on individual cinematographers’ work and the wider industry context.

Images are often the fragments of film that remain longest in memory. The famous ‘unease’ of New Zealand cinema comes as much from how our films look as their subject matter. Petrie’s introductory chapter tells us why New Zealand films look different—our uniquely hard and contrasty light, further complicated by the developing make-it-up-as-you-go Kiwi film industry. With no film culture to train within, many of our older cinematographers had to learn on the job. A 22-year-old Tony Williams—working on Runaway in 1964—describes learning about lighting “from books and by corresponding with a fellow Kiwi … who was a cameraman at the BBC”.

In researching Shot in New Zealand, Petrie, Professor of Film at the University of Auckland and author of The British Cinematographer, was shocked by how little had been published on New Zealand cinematographers, even luminaries Allan Bollinger and Leon Narbey—who have arguably been as instrumental in teaching New Zealanders to see themselves as photographers Robin Morrison and Laurence Aberhardt.

Bollinger’s descriptions of finding the look for iconic films like Pork Pie and Hot Friday are a highlight. In fact my only disappointment, other than not writing the book myself, is that editorial constraints limited Petrie to 12 individual profiles. But that makes us hungry for the sequel.

With its focus on craft, Shot in New Zealand will be a well-thumbed resource for students and practitioners, but because it treats cinematographers as artists it will also appeal to a wider arts audience. Not much gossip though, so I’m holding out for the story of New Zealand actors. Sex, drugs and violence … maybe there’s a film in it.