Research: Inspiration w/ Christopher Doyle

As part of my research for this project and part of my own personal development with regards to working as a Director of Photography/Cinematographer; I did some research into one of my favourite cinematographers; Christopher Doyle and found some very interesting and helpful interviews with him on YouTube.

Here in his segment that was shown on BBC's Culture Show, what I really took from this clip was how he talks about location and building your screen and frame from what you've got to work with; the location itself can add to the context of your film. What I'm taking from this into the project is to think about what I see on the location for our film; during the Recce shoots I will look for that standout something that can add to the project.

I also really like how he describes the movement of the camera as a dance and how you can be dancing with the actors, that lends its self to a more dramatic and dramatic visual style for the audience; unfortunately I'm not going to be taking too much from this into the mocku-mentary, but in the future I can certainly see an added value in working with the Merlin Steadicam, though in the scene he himself is using a rather basic DIY set-up.

Again towards the end of the interview he talks about his work on Chungking Express (1994, dir Kar Wai Wong) and how a sense of space and meaning can really add to the films context, this is something I will really try and get on board with the film project; I'll look at the character briefs and try and find the correct location for them so that there is an added sense of space with each character, looking at locations themselves in Plymouth that can really lend themselves to our characters background giving the project added context and texture.

This is an interview with Christopher Doyle at Hong Kong International Film Festival sharing his thoughts on film; what really struck me was the way that he talked about experience and the film making process; what I really take from this is that approach of filming and learning from just going out and shooting; for me what Doyle is trying to say is that you can only truly grow as an filmmaker and an artist by just going out there and filming with what you have at the time and at hand. This for me has struck a chord that I hadn't particularly thought about too much before, what is the point of me wasting hours upon hours of searching and research the best ways to shoot a documentary with my camera and lenses, for this project I'm just going to go out there and do the best I can and adapt to any problems and learn through my own mistakes, for me that is what Doyle is saying that you can only get true experience from going out there and filming yourself and then you will truly grow and gain a better understanding of your art.