AN ENGLISH PERSPECTIVE
Interview with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy film stills photographer Jack English.
Legendary musician Eric Clapton calls him his 'favourite photographer [who] does great work'. Now Jack English has another lifelong fan in actor-director Gary Oldman who describes him as 'a true artist with a camera'. This British artist has worked his ever-evolving creativity worldwide in a number of areas, including fashion, music and film photography.
In fact English’s big break into film stills came after Oldman saw a blues album that English had done for Clapton in a record store back in the 90s, and the debut director contacted the photographer to discuss doing the stills for his 1997 semi-autobiographical and harrowing drama, Nil By Mouth. With no experience of film photography, but a major passion for movies, English describes how it all happened as a major gamble.
“Gary, who I thought was very hip, took a huge risk by hiring me, as I’d never worked on a film set before,” says English. “But part of the brief was that he didn’t want film stills – he wanted quite abstract images.”
English always thinks about the style and context of any film he works on, and how to replicate this in his pictures. He decided to bring an element of painter Francis Bacon’s vision to Oldman’s debut feature images to portray the character’s hardship.
“Fujifilm made Tungsten stills film back then and I actually shot on this,” adds English. “Bacon’s work influenced the stills with its colour, movement and the subject matter.”
From that moment onwards, English found his unique eye was in great demand on the international film scene. On Oldman’s recommendation, renowned French film-maker Luc Besson came calling on English to work his magic on the stills for his new sci-fi action thriller, The Fifth Element, starring Bruce Willis. It was quite a challenge and a change of environment, admits English.
“To go from a dark, low-budget art house film shot on Super 16 with mostly zoom lenses, to a 100 million dollar science fiction epic shot on Super 35 on sound stages, I didn't think I'd last a week,” confesses English.
Not only did he last the distance, but English was invited onto other sets, too, including Lost In Space (1998), Joan Of Arc (1999), The Transporter (2002), The Bank Job (2008) and more recently on the highly anticipated 2011 Sundance International Film Festival multi-award-winner, Tyrannosaur, written and directed by actor Paddy Considine, and due for release in October this year.
English admits he is able to choose his jobs now, selecting films that interest him, like Considine’s Tyrannosaur, Peter Strickland's horror project Berberian Sound Studio and working with his old colleague Oldman on Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of the John le Carré novel, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, out this September.
“Some movies I’ve done to pay the rent. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with directors and actors who’ve given me carte blanche to do what I want,” explains English. “Tyrannosaur and Tinker, Tailor interested me because of the directors, the actors, the screenplays, and the way I thought they'd be lit and shot, and what I thought I could bring to the projects.”
It was on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy that English – who got his first professional photography break in 1989 after photographing jazz musician Chet Baker with a borrowed camera after a chance encounter in Cannes, followed by a portrait of artist Andy Warhol which was published in The Sunday Times magazine – could explore his appreciation for the detailed and iconic black-and-white film portraiture work of late American portrait photographer Irving Penn, who died in 2009.
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English who is also a fan of Alfredson’s work on 2008 fantasy horror Let The Right One In, met with the Swedish director and Tinker, Tailor’s producer Robyn Slovo, after another recommendation from Oldman – who stars as espionage veteran George Smiley in the Cold War thriller, opposite a star-studded cast that includes Colin Firth, John Hurt, Tom Hardy, Ciarán Hinds and Mark Strong. Alfredson, Oldman and Slovo were instrumental in helping English do what he wanted, with reference to Penn, using the “winning combination of” Hasselblad lenses and Fujifilm Acros 100 ASA black & white film.
“I thought the feel of film would suit the time period. When you’ve got great faces like John Hurt’s, Ciarán Hinds’ and Mark Strong’s, it’s not hard work,” admits English. “I just put someone in front of a camera and I know if it’s going to work, or I think I know.”
“I like that classic line from director John Huston who takes an actor out into the middle of the desert with a film camera. The producer says, ‘what are you going to shoot out here’, and he says, ‘the most interesting thing in the world, the human face’.”
English works with Ross Sterling when he does portraiture. They first discuss what they are going to do, then take instant photographs using Fujifilm’s Instax cameras to judge the lighting. “Basically, for Tinker, Tailor, I set them up on a stool and we shot the instants then moved the actor around a bit and changed the lights,” explains English.
In-keeping with the film’s voyeuristic and paranoid nature: “I shot Gary in front of a bit of foam soundproofing, putting two walls at an angle and placing him in the V of the angle of the walls to make it look claustrophobic,” adds English. “Colin Firth I shot behind glass with water running down it to make it look like he was looking through a window with rain on it.”
Again, as with Besson on The Fifth Element who told English to “do what you want”, the photographer admits he doesn’t usually encounter many challenges on a film set and works at his own pace because people “like the results” and just want him to get on with the job. The real challenge is doing something different each time and not sticking to a particular style. Nevertheless, English has had his fair share of sticky moments.
“The distributor wanted to go a very different way with Tinker, Tailor, with people shot against white backgrounds, but I didn’t want to do any of that,” says English. “I was even told by a publicist on the film not to shoot any black-and-white because they couldn’t use it. Then there were five pages of my Tinker, Tailor stills in the last issue of Empire film magazine – all black-and-white.”
English first came across Fujifilm Acros in Los Angeles, and has just done a black-and-white shoot with Oldman for Italian Vogue’s September issue, as well as with singer Will Young for the October magazine using the same stock. That said, a photographer is only as good as his printer, and although English uses London lab Bayeux for colour printing, he relies one printer in particular for black-and-white.
“I go to a very, very good black-and-white printer who specialises in black-and-white called Klaus Kade, one of the few black-and-white printers left in London,” praises English. “You build up a strong relationship with a printer over a period of time, particularly with black-and-white film. They get to know what you like, and how you want the print.”
However, it’s not all black-and-white: “I did do a whole homeless piece in Los Angeles, spending three months with the homeless, and that was on Fujifilm’s Velvia 50 – a highly saturated colour film, the results of which you can see on my website under ‘Downtown LA’,” admits English of his paradoxical, yet comical set-ups of desperation against bright, warm surroundings. “The homeless project was for myself as downtown LA has always fascinated me.”
Indeed, LA is the setting for English’s first moving film project and debut directing role. “Funnily enough, I’m supposed to be directing a short film with a 91 year-old English lady who lives in LA – the mother of someone famous. She doesn’t wear reading glasses. She gets on the bus on her own. She goes ballroom dancing. She feeds the homeless once a week with another group of women. She even uses an iPad.”
English has a lot of prior talent and experience to aspire to, citing Oldman as the “best director he’s ever worked with” as “Gary has a very good eye. He shoots on film and he’s great at getting the very best performances out of his actors.”
Apart from Oldman, Alfredson, Besson and Considine, English has a lot of respect for Hungarian film-maker Béla Tarr (The Turin Horse and Werckmeister Harmonies Damnation), his style and his use of black-and-white film stock. English admits that he would like to work with directors Andrea Arnold (Wuthering Heights and Fish Tank) and Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin) who he has met.
In the meantime, Jack English can be found sweltering in the New Orleans heat, doing the film stills photography for crime thriller Parker (out 2012), director Taylor Hackford’s adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s novels, starring Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez and Nick Nolte.
“I just shot a picture with Jason using a Leica M2 and Fujifilm Neopan 400 black & white. Jason was as good as gold – as was the film stock.”
For more information and to view Jack English’s work for Nil By Mouth and Downtown LA, please visit: www.jackenglish.co.uk/
Lisa Giles-Keddie
Tags:
Jack English | Gary Oldman | Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy | Colin Firth | Tom Hardy | Wuthering Heights | Fish Tank | We Need to Talk About Kevin |
