DoP Anthony Dod Mantle

You’ve just stumbled across a quarter of a million pounds - what would you do with the money? The question becomes even more interesting when you’re just nine and seven years of age and have got until the end of the week to spend it before the UK switches to the Euro and the pound will be no more. That’s the scenario that DoP Anthony Dod Mantle filmed when he worked on the comedy ‘Millions’, the latest production of Director Danny Boyle.

This was Anthony Dod Mantle’s fourth production with Danny Boyle. Their relationship first started with ‘Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise’ and has continued since with ‘Strumpet’, ‘28 Days Later’ and now ‘Millions’. It’s not uncommon to see successful relationships develop between a DoP and Director but what makes Anthony Dod Mantle’s affiliation with Danny Boyle more unusual is his willingness to embrace Danny’s desire to operate. The relationship between a DoP and Operator requires an incredible amount of trust so working alongside someone who is not as experienced with the camera must call for an extremely open-minded individual and Anthony openly admits that however tolerant you are as a DoP there will always be moments when you’re not quite 100% satisfied, whoever you have operating for you. He found that to be the case with Danny and even feels the same way about his own operating. So how have they succeeded in making their relationship work? Perhaps it is because of their openness with each other while working. All the concerns and critiques they had of each other about operating and style were voiced over their first two productions. “Danny hadn’t operated much before but he always had a fantastic library of visual ideas in his back pocket. There’s no limit to his visual aspirations and imagination, which is a joy, but still, particularly operating a camera, whatever size, it’s a complete trade in itself. We discussed his operation openly and I ensured I placed the cameras and placed Danny very carefully.”

		DoP Anthony Dod Mantle

‘Millions’, their fourth and biggest project together, had a pressing schedule and the demands of the production meant that Danny didn’t operate as much they thought perhaps he would. “I found that on Millions he had a great deal of work to do in directing the minors. He had a lot on his hands to actually get the acting home, within a hard schedule. But he did operate, and where possible always shot the second camera. He’s very honest and very humble, which I really value and I think it’s really nice to have an open illustration about the camera.”

Anthony chose to shoot ‘Millions’ with two ARRICAMs, one Studio (ST) and one Lite (LT), a decision which was based on concerns during pre-production about how much he would be able to lock off small children into block situations. “I wanted to have a certain amount of space around the children and create my lighting style accordingly so there would be more space to move freely. I therefore felt that certainly on my camera I would probably need to be flexible and compromise in my angles, my framing and in my physical approach to the blocking of scenes, so I was looking for the format and the quality that both ARRICAM cameras have and definitely wanted an LT in my package. As a handheld camera it’s fantastic, it’s agile and lightweight. As far as the ST is concerned it’s a solid camera for studio work and completely adorable to work with.” Anthony used the ARRICAMs in conjunction with the In-camera Slate System which meant that he could start the camera discretely at any time without distraction. “I was worried that we could find ourselves wasting too much film on kids who were losing their way in acting situations and that the very presence of the slate, marking it and with the whole focus suddenly on ‘action’, could be disturbing for them. There was a possibility that we could end up missing them so I wanted to have positive stopping and starting with sound running all the time, without losing slate reference. You never know which way things are going to develop but as a DoP I have to get together with Danny and envisage the worst possible scenarios before shooting, just in case. I had a situation where I thought I would need to be very, very flexible and less intimidating with my equipment and that’s why I chose the In-camera Slate System and that’s why I went for the LT – so I could be mobile and agile.”

When planning his lighting strategy for ‘Millions’ Anthony took in preliminary discussions with Danny and considered the whole design of the piece. He then had time by himself, as is usual with all his productions, to think out his lighting design, looking at practical problems like working with children. All of these came together to finalise Anthony’s lighting package, which was put together very closely with his main Gaffer, Thomas Neivelt, and supplied by ARRI Lighting Rental. “The film is about these boys in different worlds, one the material world and one the more spiritual world. The youngest boy kind of sees things, so together with the design and the costume design I chose to mute their costumes and also mute the lighting quite substantially so it was a lot more gentle and serene on the scenes where he has these visions.”

Anthony developed a ‘look’ he describes as an ‘exaggerated housing estate with a sodium orange glow’ for the night shooting. His palette consisted of two layers of exposure – one in black & white and one in colour. “For the night shooting my lighting was very, very warm indeed with abstract oranges and yellows, I then plated the skies. Whenever I could, certainly in all fixed shots, I plated the skies in black & white with red and yellow filters to enhance cloud formations. I then printed the exposures together digitally in post.” That ‘look’, a combination of black & white plates and colour exposure came about by coincidence after Anthony was out testing the ARRICAM with First Assistant Simon Tindall. “I was on a housing estate and I had no lights with me but I wanted to try and grab the exposure of that sodium orange to see what it looked like, so I cranked the camera down to about 3 frames per second and telecined it in London. I looked at this really strange orange glow, which is basically what you see when you’re looking at your rushes and the camera is just starting up, when the camera is running up to exposure you get this strange over-exposed glow. So I shot a test at 1 frame and 3 frames per second just to look at this light and decided I liked it. I liked it so much that I printed out a still of a night exposure on a slow shutter speed, in all orange colours and I painted over it. I drew all over it with pencils and black felt pens to bring the sky down and toned it and I presented that to Danny and to my Gaffers as a kind of idea about how I wanted to design my lighting of the housing estate and from then on it was just a case of achieving it. I actually shot with Wendy lights, just to get the overall ambience up in the housing estate, and then exposed everything in the houses. I yellowed all the tungsten that’s inside the houses so it was separated from the orange wash and I tried to keep the skin tone as clean as I possibly could. I then lit so I could get my exposure to work at about 400/500asa and it all started with a coincidental still image which I liked while I was testing.”

Looking back, Anthony describes the service supplied by ARRI Media and ARRI Lighting Rental on ‘Millions’ as immaculate. “It was a stressful shoot with a very pressing schedule. Russell Allen and Sinead Moran were very helpful all the way down the line. They’re all good guys at ARRI London; all the personnel were very helpful. I had a lovely time.”