Seeing things in black and white
On Sunday 6th April 1980, at the Gate 2 Cinema in Notting Hill, London, The Guild of British Camera Technicians arranged a showing of The Innocents, the black and white, Cinemascope production, directed by Jack Clayton. Its distinguished cinematographer, Freddie Francis who had, at the time, recently completed shooting another black and white production, The Elephant Man, kindly made himself available for a question-and-answer session after the showing. The following is a transcript of that session in relation to The Innocents:
F.F.: What a terrible dupe that print turned out to be. I’m glad my operator Ronnie Taylor was not here to see what they did to his work. I myself am a very non-technical person – I love taking photographs but I don’t know what goes on when they prepare a film for television. What I cannot understand, because I am a very simple soul, is why they didn’t come to someone like Jack Clayton, or even Ronnie for advice when converting from film to television. Then we wouldn’t be subjected to watching such atrocities as we just have done. However, bearing in mind that was not a representative copy of the film, if anyone has any questions at all please go ahead.
Q.: Was it all shot on PLUS X?
F.F.: Yes, I can’t remember using any faster film.
Q.: What about the interiors – were they shot in an actual house?
F.F.: No, they were all shot at Shepperton. The interesting thing was it was the early days of Cinemascope, when there was all sorts of rules and regulations set out. Some of you may remember the days when you couldn’t get closer than 10 feet. Of course we did, by shooting some of the interiors at 16 and 22. As you can imagine, it got a bit warm at Shepperton.
Q.: You were working for depth a lot weren’t you? Even though I hear you couldn’t always see the person on the other side of the screen?
F.F.: Yes, this was a trouble. One of the great things that we achieved for the first time with great depth of field and these panning and scanning people in their wisdom shows you one person at a time.
Q.: Who were the two focus pullers, do you remember?
F.F : Yes, I do. Ronnie Maasz and Bernie Ford.
Q.: Can you explain to people who don’t understand about the setup, just how the two focus pullers work?
In those days you had a combination lenses such as with Panavision etc,; then you had an anamorphic, which was a separate entity, mounted on the front of the camera, in this case an BNC Mitchell. You want to pull focus on the anamorphic lens as well as on the standard lens; therefore you needed two focus pullers. I don’t know how that sound used to cope, with all the dialogue going on between the two focus pullers! However, it seemed to work.
Q.: Did you use a filter at all?
F.F.: Well, this is a terrible thing, something about the picture projection that makes me angry. We had to make the film in black and white which was fair enough. Then, because the film was financed by 20th century, we ought to make it in Cinemascope. Both Jack Clayton and myself felt the Cinemascope was a terrible format for this picture. You are now going to be saying, why am I beefing about it being shown in 1.85? Well, as we had to make it Cinemascope, we had to do something to make it interesting. So I devised a special front, in addition to the anamorphic and standard lens. It involved the use of graduated filters – two filters being slid in from either side. This enabled us to filter, or graduate off, the sides of the picture. Although this sounds quite normal now, it had a wonderful effect with this film, because you were never quite sure what you could see at the sides due to the gradual diffusion at the edge. This greatly enhanced the claustrophobic feeling of the picture. Unfortunately, here today you didn’t get that effect except on the odd occasion. One terrible example is where we have a wonderful two-shot in centre frame (with the edges going off) and they have decided to frame up one person – on the wrong side of the screen. Nevertheless, we had these filters made up, with the special front, and this enabled us to change them during the actual shot, bringing them in and out. I don’t know which of the two focus pullers was responsible for that. On the side of the screen which you missed today you would have seen all of this – I would like you to see it properly someday.
So, in answer to your question, yes we were using filters throughout. Sometimes even painting filters as we went along, to give special strange effects.
Q.: The effect with the candle – was that one of your made-up filters?
F.F.: We just had nets on – we didn’t know about such things as ‘star filters’ in those days. In fact, another problem we had to face was the fact we were shooting interiors at 16 and 22, so the candles presented a bit of a problem. We were shooting single wick, and double with candles. In fact at times we even went up to five wicks, which meant that the candles were more powerful than the lights at times!
(VOICE OFF, A NOTE OF PATHOS: Can we go back to shoot interiors at between 16 and 22?)
As a matter of fact, Tim, (who is working with me on my next film) and I were discussing the film with the director. It is to be in two parts – with long flashback sequences; we have a modern part and a period part. I’ve just agreed with the director that we are going to shoot the period part (which is 75% of the film) at as wide an aperture as we can get. (Groans).
Q.: Why have you decided to do that?
F.F.: I can’t tell you too much at the moment because you are not supposed to know about it! Let’s say that it is a film within a film, and a period section has to be very romantic, whilst the present day is harsh. The type of stylised romantic lighting I have chosen for the 100 years ago part, requires a wide-open aperture. Also, I feel that in the good/bad old days of film, shooting wide open gave a romantic aura to a film.
I remind him of all this when he is grumbling about his lot – imagine trying to work with two focus pullers!
When I started there were all sorts of strange lenses i.e., Astro lenses, which were F2 this was great because everything seemed slightly soft, so therefore, everything looked equally sharp. I personally think that since then lenses have been getting awful, because they are getting too sharp, but that is just my point of view!
Q.: In the shot by the lake, in the rain, with Miss Jessel out in the reeds – when the Governess asks, “Where’s Flora? – did you use a filter on that; the background looks more contrasty.
F.F.: I am going back 20 years, but I am pretty sure that we didn’t shoot that it was a made up shot in the foreground. People were put in afterwards. The lake stuff was shot without filters to the best of my recollection.
Q.: The background looks like it has been taken with a longer lens than the foreground. The closer figures looked normal.
F.F.: I am sure that this was a made-up matte. In other words, we shot the background as normal and then the matte was made as late as the editing stage. In fact I don’t even know where that happened.
I do know the lake stuff was shot without filters because it was mostly bad-weather stuff anyway – and that is the stuff you can’t filter. There comes a time in B/W as you know, where you are wasting your time because there is nothing to filter.
Q.: Looking at The Innocents I think that it would have lost something if made in colour. It cries out for B/W.
F.F.: I can’t agree with this. We’ve just made a film The Elephant Man in black and white, and because it was turn of the century everyone thinks B/W is its medium. However in retrospect one wonders what could have been done in colourful stop I only said this because on the film I’m just about to do (in colour) people keep asking me “do you think we ought to do it in B/W?”. People seem to have a preconceived idea that the films made around the 1800s should always be made in B/W. I like them in black and white, but I think a good job can also be made of them in colour.
Q.: Why was this one made in B/W, was it a studio decision?
F.F.: I’m almost certain, it was the studios decision. But remember that in those days the decision was usually whether it could be made… in colour. B/W at that time was more or less the norm. The big castle came with Cinemascope. It was a very intimate story with a small cast of players, and everything everyone thought it was wrong to do it in Cinemascope. Recourse if you took 20th Century’s money, you took those Cinemascope anamorphic lenses as well. You had no way out. Which is why we designed our system of lenses.
Q.: Paradoxically now it is almost more expensive to make things in B/W is it not? Unless you print on colour start. In fact I believe Kodak or stopping the run of B/W.
F.F.: Tim and I have had so many problems on this film with B/W you would think it was something new. I sometimes get the impression and maybe I should have my solicitor that could call out ‘we don’t want films in B/W.’ We had complete and utter non-co-operation. We got to the stage where there was not a single usable 1000 feet roll of B/W in the world. So Kodak said, could we carry on with 400 feet rolls – which we did. However, eventually the wasn’t even 400 feet B/W PLUS X left – or any PLUS X left at all. Then someone there had the effrontery to turn around to say to me – “Why can’t you use Double X?” To which I replied, we can’t use Double X because I don’t want to use it AND we just happened to be in the middle of sixteen sequences which we have already shot in PLUS X. So they had to go back to recoat some. And the stock they’re coated was at least twice as fast as a stock we had been shooting on – so a great time was had by all!
Q.: I got that feature 35mm B/W is nothing to Rochester – very small part of the total output. The Motion Picture represents such a small percentage of the world demand for 35mm B/W you think the massive use in the amateur/stills field would guarantee that there should be a huge amount of PLUS X available all the time, on tap, ready to use.
F.F.: I think that all I was quoted at Rochester, they don’t coat it over here at all so I understand. So, it’s quite a drama now to shoot on B/W.
Q.: But they do talk about printing on colour stock.
F.F.: Of course. Our release printing is going to be done on Gaevert. I do feel that Brian is right – certain films do call for B/W, and I think you should be able to choose. The guy who is responsible for setting up The Elephant Man – Mel Brooks, is a great one for B/W.
Q.: How does working with B/W on The Elephant Man compare with working back then on The Innocents with B/W? Were there any essential differences?
F.F.: Well all our recent stuff went to Denham labs (about whom I can’t speak highly enough) and they had trouble on The Elephant Man because all the B/W equipment was out of date. however, Denham did a wonderful job with the processing, but I was surprised at the lack of grain on the PLUS X now, not that I thought it was ever excessive. The quality that Denham got out of PLUS X was amazing.
Q.: I suppose that the main differences now are in the lenses, there being so much faster. I can’t remember many then that were as fast as current Panavision lenses.
F.F.: Oh no, no.
Q.: And obviously light souses have changed, too, haven’t they?
F.F.: Yes, of course. I haven’t photographed a film since Night Must Fall and they have changed tremendously. One of the things I did notice coming back to photographing films after such a long lay-off is the sparks[1]. situation. At the time we shot The Innocents everyone had sparks from the studios, but now it’s all freelance and everyone is on their toes. I found the sparks were absolutely fantastic compared to what they used to be. This was very heartening, and certainly made life easier for me. Now you have a light for everything you may need – it’s horses for courses, you can pick and choose lights for any situation. However, in those days you had just the ordinary studio light; 2K’s and 5K’s and brutes, and that was it.
Q.: The shot of Deborah Kerr going up the stairs with the candles, when she is on the first part of her search, she goes through about five or six keys; was that just from one or two sources flagged off, or was each section keyed separately?
F.F.: It is hard to remember what I do recall is that I had a wonderful gaffer/sparks called Maurice Gillet, who I am sure you all know is tremendous. I know there were men on dimmers all over the place – we’ve got a man on a dimmer hidden in a grandfather clock. The answer is to be that there was lots and lots of tiny sources for that shot.
Q.: How long was the shooting schedule?
F.F.: About 10 weeks, which indoors days was a fairly long schedule.
Q.: was it shot in 1960?
F.F.: Yes.
Q.: Do you think the studio exteriors were more successful in B/W than they might have been in colour?
F.F.: I think that there is no difference (in quality) with interiors exteriors. B/W or colour. But if it’s a case of matching, if you have to match locations in the studio, I think you stand a better chance with B/W. Did I made that terribly complicated? We had a few exteriors which was shot at a place called Brighton Park[2] which we then had to match on the silent stage at Shepperton and I think that it was easier in B/W than it would have been in colourful. A strange answer to your question. It’s not whether it is easier. In B/W or colour to match exteriors in a studio the great problem relates to whether you have space or not.
Notes:
[1]. A lighting technician on a film set.
[2]. The outside location shots on The Innocents were actually filmed at Sheffield Park.
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