rawr21s camera wows

British cameraman Ousama Rawi worked on the film Coup d'Etat in Toronto and shares with Mark Irwin some of his thoughts and techniques about lighting.

by Mark Irwin

Ousama Rawi checks a shot

22/ Cinema Canada / managed to meet Ousama Rawi two going to need a lot of light; it's going When Ossie Morris was shooting days before he began shooting Coup to be a very warm set. Equus here last year, he very openly d'Etat for Magnum Films. I had fol­ expressed his lack of confidence in lowed his work after seeing Pulp Canadian labs and their work. Have Your lighting style has managed to be (a Michael Caine comedy/thriller) you experienced any such horrors? a directional soft light. How have you in 1972. Since then I'd seen Black achieved that? Windmill, Gold and Sky Riders, all Well, Medallion is doing all our Some bounce, some diffuse. It de­ of them incredibly well photographed work. I spent a day with them and they pends on two factors: one, the location and I was very honored to finally meet were terrific. We're printing 5381 and we're shooting in, the height of the the man himself. not Gevaert because I think that final­ ceiling, the color of the ceiling, etc., ly 5247 and 5381 have now matured. I Born in Bagdad, and educated in and then two, the style of the director. was very disappointed when I first Scotland, he began shooting news for If he wants to pan through 270 degrees used 5247 before the modification Border Television in 1965. He worked or 360 degrees, that obviously poses came in - terrible contrast ratio, from commercials directly into fea­ a bigger problem for directional soft shadow detail simply wasn't there. I tures, thereby sidestepping the tradi­ light. mean 5254, you got used to over the tional clapper/loader to focus puller years, and you could let somebody go to operator to director of photography under a tree from sunlit to shade and route. At age 38, he has over 12 fea­ I've seen some lights you've had built it looked after itself. This film - tures and countless commercials to for Coup d'Etat called a skylight. Is under the shade of a tree and it's gone, his credit. this something you've used before? Yes. I used it on the Human Factor. no detail, nothing. I had a look at the negative and it was all there, they just Cinema Canada: I put your name in It's really to provide a directional pool of light, a soft pool. couldn't print it on 5381. So we print­ the company of Peter Suchitsky, Tony ed it on Fuji - same problem. Then Richmond, Peter Bijou, Chris Men- we tried 3M stock: not much better. ges... Is there a younger generation What I saw was like a huge lampshade Then we tried Agfa Gevaert and it was of cameramen in Britain? frame with six 1000 watt bulbs point­ like chalk and cheese, the detail ap­ Ousama Rawi: Yes, there is. Basical­ ing down. Do you cover it with diffu­ peared. So the combination of Eastman ly, we've all sprung up from commer­ sion or velour or... ? 5247 and Gevaert 986 worked. cials. In Britain, the commercial field Well, you have a choice: either is very, very active and our lighting white silk so that it glows, or else technique stems from that. Agencies black for a small amount of spill. I in England like to experiment with Why is it that lighting or a sensibility think you have to do that, really. I photography and it's terrific for the to light has changed? Why are you, as think too many cameramen just live cameraman... Plenty of opportunity to one of the world's best cameramen, with what there is. They have a Lowell test new styles, new equipment. You seeing and expressing light differently kit or conventional 2k, 5k or whatever. can quickly find out if it's a good ap­ than your predecessors ? Why shouldn't we be able to design our proach or a bad one, and either aban­ I think that what we're doing is real­ own equipment? Normally, you get don it after a one day shoot or remem­ ly nothing new. It was done in the early into a location and you have a pillar ber it for your next picture. silent days of Hollywood. Soft light was or something and you want to put a in right from the start because Cali­ light behind it and you can't because fornia had this harsh direct light and What will be your lighting style on the stand shows or the head shows... they started putting muslin over their Coup d'Etat? You have used soft so design one. Make it narrow and open stages and diffusing sunlight. light very well in the past. Since this small enough and that's it. has a sinister military theme, will Black and white film developed, it you aim for a harder edge? became more low key, more realistic. I try to light in a way that you're To go from lighting to hi-speed lenses Then color film arrived and that need­ not going to be aware that film lights and available light: how do you feel ed a lot of light; in the early days it are present on the set. I hate seeing about non lighting? was even slower than ASA 8. Then six shadows if there's only one lamp Ideally, we shouldn't have to use sound arrived and suddenly camera­ in the room, or someone standing by lamps at all. I do like to design a shot men had to shoot inside, on a sound a window with the light coming from in the sense of lighting. So just be­ stage. They had to provide an immense the inside instead of outside. I couldn't cause I've got enough exposure doesn't amount of light artificially and I think possibly photograph a scene like that, necessarily follow that I'll not use any the lighting style, the mood built up but in the old days they did. lamps; I try and change the direction with black and white, had to go for the So, I will go for a natural source of light, blocking out a window that's sake of illumination level. They had of light, except we do have a war room; not in shot, etc. to pump enough light in to illuminate now there a mood has to be created, the subject just to get an exposure. basically low key. Martyn (Burke) So you got this hard light style, with also wants a lot of depth of field; he What is your approach to night exter­ Fresnel lens lamps which produces wants to do a Citizen Kane effect. iors? Is there a blue moon that shines hard parallel lines and cameramen got Someone 3 feet away is sharp and on us all? stuck with it. someone 30 feet away is also sharp. Not the American blue... I find Then film speed increased, first to Now that, as you'll appreciate, is British blue is a much paler, much 16 ASA, then to 32 ASA, then 50 ASA, more subtle blue, against the full blue- and now 100 ASA and higher. But of ness of Hollywood. I dislike day for course older cameramen had only work­ Mark Irwin, an associate member of the night. On Sky Riders I had a lot of it ed with that kind of direct light so it Canadian Society of Cinematographers, and the way I did it was with black remained. They would now use less graduated from York University and has lights, but still in the same way that shot a number of films. Recently, he has and white film, high contrast. Let's worked on the The World of Wizards, and face it, in moonlight you don't see was imposed on them in the early on Blood and Guts. colors so why show color. days.

October 1977/23 So someone of your generation... Well, consider this; New York camera­ assistants and second unit crews for Isn't tied down. We started with a men are worlds apart from Hollywood the likes of Supermen or Black Stal­ higher film speed and learned how to cameramen. Gordon Willis and Owen lion, but the creation of a distinct create a more natural light from the Roizman have a totally different style style, much less reputation, is a lone beginning. from Conrad Hall and Haskell Wexler. way off. It must be the texture of light. And it may well be, as Rawi pointed Well, that explains how Freddie Young It must be... in California, they'd out, that the source of creativity and and Christopher Challis have retained have to fill a much stronger sunlight, style is in the volatile field of com­ their hard light style but then people while maybe New York has more mercials. Indeed, the conditions and like David Watkin, Billy Williams, haze... We have so many cloudy days opportunities are the same, but here Ossie Morris, Goeffrey Unsworth - in England that we get used to soft the attitudes are quite different. The they all worked through the same light, so when we go into a room we likes of Fritz Speiss, George Morita, conditions, but their style is com­ don't want hard light. Nick Wolfe are not likely to sprint pletely contemporary. back and forth between the easy money and tight control of commercials and Well, there you see! Two of those What have you learned or seen of any Canadian camera people? the 12 hour day, location schedule names - Williams and Watkin - came hassles of features. In fact, people from commercials. From a photogra­ I think they're second to no one, like Harry Makin, Paul Van Der Lin­ phic point of view, commercials are really. I wish you were more recog­ den and Bob Saad, recognized camera­ a terrific training ground and a means nized around the world. In Britain, men with a list of features to their of expanding styles instead of rein­ we don't have that much of an indige­ credit, have taken their pension plans forcing old ones. I don't think I'd ever nous industry any more so we've be­ in the form of commercials, out to the want to leave them because they allow come a sort of service industry for greenback pastures. Only Reg Morris me to experiment, to learn. American producers. They pass and Marc Champion, etc., work both through London, pick up a crew and sides of the line and perhaps it's the Canadian producers are forever flying go off elsewhere to shoot a picture. challenge of the one and the opportuni­ in John Allcott or Peter Bijou to shoot I think Canadian crews should enjoy ty of the other that keeps them going. commercials and Harry Waxman or the same advantages. At any rate, the true test of style Brian West to shoot features. The The advantages of international will be the day that a British pro­ validity of this is a whole other article reputations will have to wait. Cana­ ducer flies a Canadian cameraman to itself, but on a strictly craft basis, dian cameramen may have built a England to shoot a feature. Q what gives British cameramen their name for themselves in the documen­ style? tary field but we are greatly out­ I have wondered numbered and outclassed that myself... in theatrical features. maybe because of the light we have in Europe, it makes us have to reproduce light softer...

On the shoot of Coup d'Etat: David Usher, gaffer: Rawi, lighting cameraman: Rick Wincenty, first assistant; and Martyn Burke, di­ rector