Photo London sold the event as "Ken Loach, the English film and television director, is as well known for his socially engaged directing style as his left-wing politics. Part of Loach’s filmmaking process involves stills photographer Joss Barratt documenting each aspect of the project, from set to cast. The conversation will be moderated by film and culture critic Neil Norman."
I am a huge admirer of Loaches work and the chance to hear about his process, ideology and films was really inspiring to me. I like to deal with issues in my work and Loach has made a career about representing those in the downtrodden margins of society and giving them and their causes a voice. From Cathy Come Home in 1996 that raised issues of homelessness to the public conscience and the charity Shelter coming into existence as a result, through to last year powerful I Daniel Blake centring around the benefits system Loach has championed those with no voice and shone a light on issues kept out of the spotlight.
The event was really interesting and the bias was towards Joss's relationship as stills photographer with Ken for over 20 years. They talked about the intrinsic relationship and how Joss worked within Kens minimalist, un-flashy realistic style. This suited Joss as he started out as a photojournalist and on loach's closed sets with minimal crew around the actors this proved to be invaluable. Joss's work follows Kens style of being as unobtrusive to the film-making process as possible with the actors just simply inhabiting the screen and performing off each other not to the crew or cameras. Even though the whole scene is a "construct" as the actors, scenes and lines are not "real" they are played as real to keep the authenticity going. Everything is about bringing the "story" be it message, emotion or conflicts and drama to the screen this is the only sole driving force that everyone is expected to buy into.
One of Kens favourite tactics is to "shock" the actors by surprising them to set up and try to capture "real" emotions on screen. This could involve Eric Cantona "appearing" on set in a scene to the surprise of the actor or a character entering a room and finding an unexpected "surprise" in their to get a "real" reaction. Ken elaborated saying the first take was the shock but this shock stayed around for at least one more take of the secondary shock in the actors too! This also follows through into the fact that the actors only get the next days script the day before so they are discovering the film and the characters journey during the shoot creating an authentic feel to their reactions. he also likes to seek out relatively unknown actors so they are never bigger than the characters they are playing on screen and bring a lack of too showy a performance to the films.
What strikes you most about Loach is his class as he is a humble man but fiercely intelligent and with plenty of fire in his belly still at 80 years old. He has surrounded himself with a team or "family" of regular contributors who are all integral to his process. They develop ideas together, through trust and his relationships with the writer Paul Laverty and producer Rebecca O'Brien goes back decades through their production company Sixteen Films. there simply is no ego and the film and the cause are bigger than everybody on set. All the actors are treated as part of the crew, he does not tolerate prima-donnas and this creates the trust and sense of equality and a team mentality on his productions. As an example of this he hates the "A Film By" credit some filmmakers put up at the start of their film. he is very aware that film-making is impossible to do through one person and it only happens as part of a collaborative effort. However Ken is the conductor with the vision that is executed during the filmmaking process.
After the event I managed to grab a quick beer with Ken as I was part of Joss's party but unfortunately he had to leave early so there was no time to grill him further about his working methods. However I did go out afterwards with Joss and few friends and he reiterated that the filmmaking process was all to serve the vision and telling of the story and the narrative. Loach's films did all concern issues but were not solely about them it was the characters, narratives that these issues were happening to and the drama and conflict that arose from these. He did finally add that on set Ken rules the show and the last word but does listen to his collaborators but there has to be one captain.
There was a lot I gleaned from the event and discussions afterwards that I feel I could employ to some of my work moving forward. It has also made me want to try to write and create a short film. I have been toying with this for a while as I feel I work best when dealing with issues and causes close to my heart and it is a natural step from the character based narratives playing with representations of realism that have been preoccupying me to date.
Alongside this renewed interest in creating some issue based fictional works the points I will take from spending time with Joss and Ken are.
- Construct of reality. It IS a construct but otherwise play it as simply, un-showy and realistic as is possible within the confines of this.
- Lack of "showy" Hollywood shots. The cinematography, editing, sound and mise-en-scene MUST serve the story.
- The "real" reactions and secondary takes where you can use these. Try to apply to my work.
- Unobtrusive film-making. Small crew, minimal crew on set, hidden from the actors so they can "inhabit" the scene unencumbered by onlookers.
- Script one day at a time. I like this as it keeps the actors in the moment not thinking about what happens later in the film. You do not know your next scene in everyday life after all.
- No "A Film By" Jon Saward.
http://photolondon.org/event/ken-loach-in-conversation-with-stills-photographer-joss-barratt-chaired-by-neil-norman-film-and-culture-critic/
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