HOW TO MAKE A ‘BIG’ FILM
things up because the camera’s running. I found runners outside the studios with cold Starbucks because they couldn’t get in and had been waiting for half an hour for the digital camera to stop. If you’ve got ten great takes there’s no point in shooting 30; the candles will burn down, the Irish Wolfhound that was sleeping by the fire will walk off. “You then have to add that hour to the end of the day which means the editors have to do more work and add crew overtime and that’s your film cost difference gone. So the argument that film is more expensive is absolute nonsense; digital is much more expensive.” PANAVISION DXL Mathieson went with the Panavision DXL large format camera. “It has a large format sensor which was nice. It was great to use this camera with the vintage 65 Sphero lenses, they had a very good feeling and fell off the focus nicely, the backgrounds bloomed with all those candles and mushy background scenes. “You needed a feel of the time, especially in Scotland where you have a lot of castles with wet dripping walls and skinny little ladies in waiting who are trying to keep away from the walls and as near to the fire as possible. You then have the opulence of Elizabethan England, these big Gothic rooms we found up and down the country in places like Oxford. Even though there is a scene with both queens in, much of the shooting was of them separately. “We initially shot Margot as she was off to do something else and then started again with Saoirse; they were very much on their own, very independent women and instinctive actresses. They know exactly what they want to do and I was sure to give them as much rehearsal time as possible as unless you’re happy with the rhythm of it there’s no point in shooting. You then have to give them the space to shoot it right. Stagecraft wise I think Margot is precise and is very exacting which is
John Mathieson talks about how other directors build a ‘big’ movie. “With other directors like Ridley Scott you know where you are. You look at films like Blade Runner ; it wasn’t Stanley Kubrick’s squeaky clean world, the world’s going to hell, the environment is screwed, it’s going to be raining and all the rich people are up in the shiny buildings and all the poor people are down in the street. “ Gladiator was the same: it wasn’t historically accurate but you did feel like you were in Rome, you felt how that society worked. He was good at putting you in the right place and giving you enough big shots, not necessarily wide shots, more fixed shots, very layered shots. For the thing about cinema is that you want to be in the world, you don’t want to notice the photography. Roma for instance is a great example:
nothing happens. A husband leaves a wife, the maid becomes pregnant and loses the baby, but you want to be in Mexico City by the end of it. “When you don’t really notice the framing or photography any more as you are in the film, that was my thing with Mary Queen of Scots , I felt that we didn’t quite feel the world around us, to feel the power of England, to feel the uncertainties, to see the power of the church and how militaristic they were. Rome controlled everything and to break from Rome was a big deal. “You want to feel the agricultural richness of England with billowing fields of wheat, hay wains and overweight cattle with Scotland so barren and cold. It’s not a big film for me, not a big-looking film, I wish it had been. But to be fair it was never really written as such.”
You have the opulence of Elizabethan England, these big Gothic rooms
16 DEF I N I T ION | FEBRUARY 20 1 9
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