important. Colour has a huge impact on composition so when you strip it away you get a very different thing. It was a huge pleasure to shoot in black and white. It was shot in colour, but what I was determined to do was that everyone on the set never saw a bit of colour during the whole shoot. With the modern Arri cameras you can apply a look, so I went with Eugene and graded a look for outdoor and indoor, and I could just apply that to all of the monitors. So the output of the camera was always black and white. I felt that it was important for everyone to get their heads into that black and white space. For the production designer to know that if the put a red book in there then it was just going to be a tone of black and white. And for wardrobe it was really important too. Wardrobe did a great job. It suddenly meant that they could use colours that they would never normally do. They could put a yellow in or something like that. Normally that would look ridiculous. It was always really important that everyone just thought in that headspace of black and white. I just felt that I should never show any colour on the set at all. The big fear on a film like this is that the producer might balk at the last minute and say it has to go back to colour. You make a decision to shoot something in black and white and you really have to stick to it, because if you're caught half-way between the two that's a dangerous game. It's interesting subsequently films like Ida and Nebraska have come out after. And I remember Pat saying to me at one stage that people are just going to think we did it because of those. But we had thought of black and white before that. It was quite interesting to see those movies and see that you could make a more mainstream movie like that and that an audience would go and watch that and enjoy it, and take it for what it was. That it wouldn't turn too many people off. That was a nice confirmation. It was nice to know that.
What was Pat like to work with as a director?
Directors are a unique brand of people. To make a film you have to be so driven and determined to keep it going, because there are so many things that can go wrong. It can be tough. You have to have that belief in yourself. I really admire them. As a cameraman bigger jobs are big commitments, but you can still get other jobs along the line or do other things, but directors are a unique type of people. Sometimes they have to be a pushy and a bit bullying or a bit tough. And in fairness I have to say that Pat is amazing. He's really strong, he has a really strong core to him about what he wants and what he doesn't want. And he won't budge on that stuff. He's brilliant like that, but his manner is so gentle and he's just so decent with people. I think that disarms a lot of people. I think that people are so used to directors being the alpha-male on the set and he is just the opposite to that. I really enjoy working with him for that reason. He's very collaborative. He doesn't speak a lot, but when he speaks you know exactly what he is thinking. And that's a nice thing about working with and knowing Pat a while. You do get to understand certain things. You don't have to speak about stuff, which is a lovely place to be. I could totally trust him. If he told me that we were going off to do something I would respond "Yep, I'm totally up for that Pat".
48 CinÉireann / December 2017