Going First Class? by Vered Amit

Author:Vered Amit
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2011-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

Relationships and Diversity

Conducting relationships and maintaining friendships is difficult in the cinematography profession, where the idea that one must be ready to travel at a moment’s notice is encouraged. Filmmaking is an emotionally heightened and volatile situation, but there are no written rules for behavior, and no personnel department. Indeed, misbehavior can lead to summary dismissal and immediate removal from a project. Like their mobile counterparts in other industries, filmmakers are expected to be able to work closely with a wide variety of people drawn from different backgrounds, the kind of working cosmopolitanism that Hannerz has identified as a “matter of competence” (1996: 103).

Here’s how Chris Doyle sees his role and part in this:

What we have to do is really trust in who we are, and other people will see, yes, there’s something of you in me. . . . I don’t know how the United Nations Commission for Refugees actually functions, because there’s people moving all the time. They’re not moving with the volition we have, they’re not moving because they want to, but I think that the phenomenon of this particular period of history is that this world is . . . cross-bordered.

Phil Meheux describes below the tenacity and adaptability needed to traverse this experience, and survive discontinuities in personal life. He was a nimble sixty-two years of age at the time of this interview in 2003:

I have a brother and sister-in-law. My parents have died now and I don’t have any children. . . . I love the business you know. . . . I was always the one at the BBC who volunteered to go away, because I actually enjoyed it . . . I like the camaraderie of filmmaking as well. It’s your family. I get quite depressed when there’s no work . . . and you’ve got to do mundane things like ironing shirts, making the tea, cleaning the windows. Waiting for the phone to ring and get on another picture! We always try to . . . it’s so much better to have somebody you know with you. On Round the World . . . they wanted to use the sale and lease back agreement with England, so the crew were all British. I had my own grip, gaffer, best boy, assistant grip, operator, focus, loader, and second AC. Roger, the operator had done Goldeneye, Entrapment and The Mask of Zorro with me, and The Saint. He’d done a lot of films with me. . . . It depends. If you’ve got children at school that changes everything. No, it’s a trial if you’re always away. Whatever relationships you have, it’s a trial. Your friends even. I mean you don’t see them for six months. And you come back and they go “how was it?” You go “it was okay.” And that six months of your life is reduced to three sentences.

The tension between the excitement and intensity of filming on location and the emotional toll such frequent absences can exert was also

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