In a Screen Africa exclusive, veteran South African director of photography (DOP) KOOS ROETS writes about his camera adventures over the five decades of his illustrious career.
On 2 June this year it was exactly 50 years ago that I started working for Jamie Uys Films at the old Aasvoelkop Studios, at the top of the Northcliff koppie. Elmo de Witt, then one of the new young lions in the industry, was shooting a road safety documentary for Sanlam and I convinced him that he could do a grand thing by employing me as an assistant-assistant-assistant gaffer.
As a seasoned 8mm filmmaker I was absolutely awestruck when DOP Judex Viljoen opened a magical looking silver box and hauled out an Arriflex IV B camera. As destiny would have it, focus puller Manie Botha contracted tick-bite fever and on my first day on set I had to take over as camera assistant. Where the other assistant-assistant gaffers were at that stage I have long since forgotten. By the way, there is absolutely no truth in the malicious rumour that is still going around to this day that I planted that tick on Manie!
That was the day that changed my life as Judex decided to keep me as his focus puller and my love affair with the old Arri “coffee-grinder’ began.
Soon after that we started on a feature film directed by Emil Nofal and, as he decided to shoot final sound, Judex and I built a blimp for the Arri IV B constructed out of an old inner hair mattress and lots of Meccano parts. It was only a year or two later that we eventually got cutting edge technology in our hands – the 100S blimp and a Nagra 3 sound recorder.
The soundman on Emil’s film, a Hollander called Bonne Ter Steege, still recorded on 17.5 perforated tape on a massive machine the size of a smallish fridge. In the veldt this contraption was powered by 12 big 12-volt lorry batteries with an output of 144 volts. This was then redirected through a rotary converter (the size of a young pig) that upped it to 220 volts, which supplied the Arri and the recorder with the vital juice they required to run in sync.
The 220 volts was first sent through a black box (the size of a big cat) with a few vibrating fingers and this had to be adjusted by twiddling a mysterious looking knob so that only the 50 cycle pair vibrated. The operator then shouted: “Speed!’ to indicate all was well. Only then did the director give the “Action’ cue.
A good operator could get all of this done with about 50 feet of precious film stock running through the camera!
Anamorphic days
Everything in those days was shot in the 35mm anamorphic format (Dailascope and Ultrascope and Cinemascope at Killarney Film Studios). Jamie Uys later started filming his movies in Techniscope, a two-perf system that was pioneered by the Italians on the early Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns.
Then came disaster! Television arrived and we all went rapidly downhill. First we worked on 16mm and then on the dreaded Beta video format. I made a promise to myself that I would never in a month of Sundays work on video… I would rather be a waiter at the Spur. But we all know the rest of the sad story and I worked my way all the way down to eventually shooting dramas such as Feast of the Uninvited on mini DV!
Arriflex eventually came to the rescue and dispatched their knight in bright shining armour into the industry. Actually it must be a knightess as the camera is called the Alexa – and it changed the world for us forever.
Die Wonderwerker
Director Katinka Heyns (Paljas, Fiela se Kind) asked me to DOP her feature film Die Wonderwerker and I started looking at the different camera formats that are available today. While living in Australia I shot a digital movie on the RED camera and although it gave a wonderful end result, I absolutely hated working with it as it looked and operated like something that was built in somebody’s backyard.
Nevertheless I thoroughly tested the new RED camera and was again struck with its quality. But it still looked and felt very alien to me. So I asked DOP Paul Thompson’s advice and he recommended the Alexa. I was immediately struck by its film camera looks and its simplicity of operation. Seventy-year-old brains do not understand these new-fangled electronic gadgets and being called a “retard’ by my computer wizard son Werner, does not help either.
A thorough test confirmed my good feeling about “the beast’ (“beastess?’) and I booked one with Media Film Service for Katinka’s shoot.
Going beyond
Die Wonderwerker about the late legendary writer Eugene Marais, was one of the first features that I have done where I did not operate the camera myself. This task fell into the hands of the extremely capable Amelia Henning (known as “Mielies’), who knows and understands the Alexa backwards. So all my time was spent on taxing gaffer Jean du Plessis and his brother Daniel to death with new lighting ideas. Jean is one of the brightest sparks (no pun intended) in the industry and between the four of us we pushed the Alexa way beyond its limits. “Mielies’ swears she heard the camera cry one particularly dark and dreary night!
The film is mood and character driven, with mostly lamp and candle lit scenes. We used only two 600-watt lamps bounced off white umbrellas (as used by still photographers with studio flash units). The main source light was a huge candle with five wicks which was jokingly referred to as a 5k. This gave us exactly the amount of light a paraffin lamp or candle would and, working on the Alexa’s sweet spot of 800 ASA, gave us a stop of T1.6. We used a set of Zeiss Super Primes for these low light scenes and tried never to open them completely. It seems the more we starved the Alexa, the better images we got.
A lot of the scenes were shot on the 75-mm lens at T1.6, which should have given focus puller Kyle Smit a bit of a hard time, but he just shrugged it off. Being the best focus puller that I have ever worked with, the movie ended up razor sharp!
Day interior or exterior scenes were shot on the Angenieux Optimo 24-290-mm zoom lens with the same outstanding results. We found that Infra Red (or Deep Red as the Australians call it) filters are a must, rather than the conventional ND filters.
The film was shot at the Waterberg on the real location where Eugene Marais spent some of his time and, being summer, it was extremely hot. Unlike so many other digital cameras the very rugged and reliable Alexa coped with absolutely no overheating problems and finally convinced me that Arri has now driven the final nail in celluloid film’s coffin.
Screen Africa magazine – July 2012
