Bonnie Elliott is one of only 10 accredited female cinematographers through the ASC in Australia. She started her career with a Masters in Cinematography at AFTRS and shot her first feature, My Tehran for Sale, in Iran the following year. Since then Bonnie has worked on a number of features, most recently being nominated for an AACTA Award for her work on Stephen Page’s dance feature Spear. Ahead of the AACTA awards we spoke to Bonnie about her career and what it’s been like forging a career in male-dominated field.
Congratulations are in order as you were accredited to the ACS in November this year.
It’s obviously a big milestone in my career, and it’s something I hoped would happen at some point. I’m really happy to have a body of work that is worthy of accreditation and in a feminist context in means there are now ten women accredited to the society out of 379. So it is a slow business for change, but good to be part of the change.
You also picked up several gold awards at the ACS this year, and you’ve recently been nominated for an AACTA for cinematography on Spear, how does it feel to be recognised for your work?
I was really thrilled to find out that Spear was nominated for an AACTA award. To be honest it was a little unexpected, I often associate the AACTAs with bigger budget films being nominated in the cinematography category. We made the film with a very small budget and a very small crew, but I always felt really determined that you would never be able to feel the budget limitations in the imagery, that we would do justice to the vision of Stephen Page and his extraordinary choreography. So when I got the news of the AACTA nomination I felt really happy because it made me feel we achieved that.
I also felt pleased about the nominations in the category generally, because three of the four films are quite small budgets this year, so I felt happy that AACTA voters could see the inventiveness in the work and that it wasn't all about big effects. To win the gold awards at the ACS for features, TV and a doco was beyond my expectations of the night. I thought I was just going to be accredited and it turned into a crazy night. It was lovely to see that work recognised.
Can you tell us how you approached the cinematography for Spear?
Spear is an unusual project in some ways because Stephen Page and Bangarra Dance Theatre have such a distinctive aesthetic in their own right, so that felt quite formed already. It was about how to translate that aesthetic to the screen, and make it a cinematic experience. Having worked with Stephen previously on The Turning, I saw how strong he was in understanding the relationship of colour, mood and emotion so we had a really good beginning for our collaboration. With Spear, it was an unconventional film in so many ways, being mostly movement and dance, and it moves through many themes. We spent a lot of time in preproduction talking about these themes and how that translated to a quality of light. Also locations became a big consideration. On this film I did a lot more work helping to find the right locations, to take the audience on a visual journey. Working closely with the production designer Jake Nash and the locations manager Peter Hicks, we drew on our large collective bank of experience of filming around Sydney to find locations that would fit in to the shape of the stylised world we were creating.
How did you come onto the project?
Stephen had mentioned to me that he was putting in an application to The Hive for a feature project. The Hive is a wonderful initiative of the Adelaide Film Festival, which allows artists from other disciplines to direct works for the screen. Stephen decided to adapt his stage work Spear, which explores themes of Aboriginal masculinity, and he asked if I would like to be involved. I was totally delighted. It’s not often you get to work with someone like Stephen, who is such a visionary, and to work with him on his first film and help him bring to life 25 years of his choreography was a pretty amazing proposition.
Considering the numbers of women in your field are so low, how have you succeeded in your field and where are the other female cinematographers?
In terms of how I’ve succeeded, I was quite lucky in that throughout my career, as I was taught by trail blazing women. At UTS there was Martha Ansara, a cinematographer and documentary filmmaker, and later at AFTRS there was Jan Kenny, who was the first woman to be accredited to the ACS, and Erika Addis. I also worked with a number of female DPs when I was a camera assistant – Jackie Farkas, Justine Kerrigan, Carolyn Constantine, Cordelia Beresford – who all shared their experiences of what it meant to be a woman in the camera department. When I first studied film, Mandy Walker was emerging as a really strong voice in cinematography in Australia, and knowing there was a woman out there doing incredible things really helped my sense of what was possible in the industry. Looking back having that combination of female teachers and role models has been hugely important.
I think all the women who have succeeded in cinematography are all really determined people. And there are so many great women shooting in this country right now – Anna Howard, Katie Milwright, Ari Wegner, Tania Lambert, to name just a few, and there is a whole new wave of women coming, including some who have assisted me, like Sky Davies. But the numbers are still way too low, and I hope that changes, I really do.
Talking about role models, is their any particular cinematographer who you admire, and if so, why?
As I’ve said, Mandy Walker has been a strong source of inspiration. I am a huge fan of Love Serenade, one of my favourite Australian films. I also love the work of American cinematographer Ellen Kuras, who shot Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind and French DP Maryse Alberti, who shot The Wrestler, they have both done amazing work. Argentinian cinematographer Natasha Braier is emerging as a really interesting voice, she recently shot The Neon Demon.
Probably my favourite cinematographer of recent times has been the late, great Harris Savides. His collaboration with Gus Van Sant on films like Elephant and Milk is the sort of work I aspire to. The thoughtful use of the camera, his subtle and natural approach to light, his connection to emotion and performance, and the desire for elegant simplicity all resonate deeply with me.
Can you tell us how you first broke into the industry?
It started with studying at UTS where I worked on student films and met a young DP who helped me get an attachment on Heartbreak High. That was the first professional set I worked on, and DP Joe Pickering was very welcoming. I worked there a couple of days a week, just learning about the camera department and then after that I did some assisting on AFTRS short films that eventually lead to paid work. I was a clapper loader and focus puller for 8 years, and during that time I was always shooting my own work on countless short films, shooting them on short ends collected from other jobs! So it was a traditional pathway of assisting and that was deliberate as I felt there was a lot to learn about cinematography by seeing how others worked. I worked with some great DPs including Kim Batterham, Allan Collins, Steve Arnold and Bob Humphreys.
Getting a start on Heartbreak High must have felt pretty cool?
It was! I remember I used to catch two buses at the crack of dawn from Annandale to Maroubra for crew call at 7am, and I was just so keen! I would get up and travel like this for months before someone in the crew finally gave me a lift to the set. Once I decided cinematography was something I wanted to do I was quite obsessed. And I was lucky to have fallen in love with it very early at eighteen while I was studying at UTS. As someone who didn’t want to be a director, I was in a great position, because I got to shoot so many student films, and experiment in an environment that was really very free.
When you are reading the script or when you’re working with the director, how do you take the tone and translate it? Practically, how do you translate that into what you actually physically do to produce the look of the film?
That process of translation is quite an instinctive process initially. The first time you read a script all these images will come into your mind, or sometimes it’s just a feeling or a sense of colour, and that begins to grow as you talk to the director and discuss the story. Then there will be the quality of light, the setting, and the seasons in the script. Once those discussions have happened I go into a process of research, collecting images to bring to the director. Sometimes that would be contemporary photography, images from other films, paintings, basically it’s a way of helping the conversation, so we can discuss visual ideas with visual material, and help refine the tone before you start shooting. I’ll often make mood boards, as I find that process helps me to synthesize my own ideas, and also helps communicate to everyone else. Then in preproduction I do quite a lot of testing. Of lenses, filters, gels, art department elements, grading approaches, to refine the look before we get on set. On the last series I had a set of filters made from antique glass specifically for the show.
How long does your average lighting set-up take?
It really depends. Obviously, when you are shooting for TV, things move faster than shooting feature films. I think Australian filmmaking is pretty quick, in general. I’ve never really worked a lot in commercials so haven’t had the luxury of lighting pack shots for an hour or two. Although on Spear, there were quite extensive lighting set-ups at the beginning of the day and then later there were just small adjustments. Generally I try to light a space and let the action happen within it, rather than lighting every shot individually, so that it’s more organic and fluid for the actors. I like to keep things simple if I can.
What advice do you have for anyone wanting to pursue a career in cinematography?
I have two pieces of advice for anyone who wants to get into the camera department, and the first is to prepare for quite a long period of voluntary work. Camera attachments are where you will meet people in the industry. And once you are in the camera department, it is about taking the opportunity to really watch other people at work, and learn from how other people approach things. It is important to understand what it’s like to be part of a crew, so that when you eventually become a cinematographer you will know how a to be good head of department, and mentor and lead people in a really positive way. I think assisting in the digital age is a little undervalued, the importance of that experience and discipline.
The other vital thing, if you are going to be assisting, is to keep shooting. Whether that is short films or music videos or documentary, just keep shooting. You need to develop your own eye, because that is the thing that will eventually get you the work. And as you create your body of work, you must always think about what kind of work you want to do, and to try and steer the boat in that direction. Shoot films you love, and give them your heart, that’s when you do great work. It’s about finding your own voice as a cinematographer, which takes a while, so get on with it!
What have been your career highlights and why?
My first feature film, My Tehran for Sale, which was shot in Iran, will always be a major highlight, partly, because it was my first feature, and partly because it was such a deeply immersive experience living and filming in Tehran for 11 weeks. But mostly because it was a film I felt very passionately about, telling the story of the lives of young artists living under the repressive regime. The project had its risks, that’s for sure, I think we were quite bold really, to make the film the way we did. I was the only Australian on the crew, and I had some misgivings about being a female cinematographer working with a crew of all Iranian men, but they were some of the loveliest people I’ve ever worked with. I love it when things totally challenge your preconceptions. They were extremely passionate too, and would have a lot of debate on set. I think we forget how we have a particularly cultural way of working. I’ve shot features in Iran and Cambodia and it’s important to be reminded that there are other ways of working and other processes. Sometimes it’s challenging, but it’s good to have that experience. Iranians are certainly passionate about their cinema and are very committed crews with strong opinions about what they are doing.
Can you tell us about Teenage Kicks?
Craig Boreham is a really old friend and a long time collaborator. We went to UTS together and did our share of experimental films. We continued to make short films together after we finished including Transient that went on to screen at Berlin Film Festival, which led to Craig and I applying to the Berlin Talent Campus, and going there together. We then went on to make the short film Drowning, which was a prelude to Teenage Kicks. Eventually we found ourselves making the feature, on a very micro budget, but it was very rewarding to make. I really committed to the film because of my belief in Craig, and I also think there is a certain point you come to where you have read a script and talked about it many times with a director, it sort of lives inside you.
The process of waiting for things to be financed is a little torturous, in that sense. I am about to finally shoot a film that I have been sitting with for a number of years, Undertow, and I am just so thrilled that it is happening. Again it is another script I love and its director, Miranda Nation, is extremely talented and I am glad we are going to let that film out of our heads and onto the screen.
Can you tell us about your recent television projects?
I’ve had two big television experiences in the last year. I shot Hunters and then a Matchbox series, Seven Types of Ambiguity. It’s been interesting entering the world of TV drama. I had done quite bit of second unit on The Slap, Puberty Blues and Offspring, so I had experience in television before, and the pace of shooting television, which is definitely quicker than features and generally uses two cameras, if not three or four sometimes, so it is a different way of working. Hunters, which is an American sci-fi series shot down in Melbourne, was quite a challenge and certainly jumping into the deep end of the pool in some ways. I learnt a lot on the shoot and got to work with some of Australia’s finest directors such as Glendyn Ivin, Rowan Woods, Kriv Stenders, Diana Reed and Daniel Nettheim, which was fantastic. Glendyn then asked me to shoot Seven Types of Ambiguity, which I would say is another career highlight for me. I loved the complexity of the novel by Elliot Perlman and thought it was really well suited to adaptation for television - it needed that time to express all the characters and ideas. I had always wanted to work with Amanda Higgs who was its producer, and the directors were another inspiring line up, Glendyn, Ana Kokkinos and Matt Saville. The series has an amazing ensemble cast including Hugo Weaving, Susie Porter and Alex Dimitriades. It was such a privilege to work with actors and directors of that calibre, and one of those experiences I won’t forget.
Can you share a funny moment from the course of your career?
I remember filming in a side street in Iran, and the sun was creeping up in-between these two apartment buildings and I had this feeling that the lighting continuity would be a disaster. I turned to my camera assistant and said ‘what a shame’, and he said ‘that’s ok, we can sort this out, I have some tissue’. He disappeared to the a truck, and a few minutes later I look above the two buildings and the guys had somehow got on the roofs of these buildings and hung this huge piece of fabric down and cut the sun out of the alley way in a matter of minutes. I did have a moment of thinking that this was the great bonus of shooting in Iran, if we had been in Australia it would have been a major safety rigging thing that would have taken hours! Although of course I do believe strongly in safe working sets and I have had other times, like in Cambodia, where I had to speak out around things that I thought were out of line, like driving a truck with a lamp on top of it down a bumpy dirt road with a guy hanging onto it. I do take safety very seriously, and feel responsible for the people who work on my team.
What are you working on now?
I’m about to head off to Denmark. I work with a video artist, Angelica Mesiti, we’ve worked together for seven years or so, and we are continuing our collaboration on a big commission over there. I love working with her, and really enjoy making images in an art context. It’s interesting to work across multiple screens and less narrative forms. Also I am going to Iceland after the shoot, so am very excited to spend some time in that landscape – hopefully I’ll see the Northern Lights!
Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
I am really glad the industry is finally looking at the issues of gender diversity in our screen culture. It’s about time everyone acknowledged the huge discrepancy, because it’s not changing fast enough, and it won’t just happen organically. Directors are an important one to deal with because they are the ones who employ cinematographers. I have worked with so many female directors in my career, so if there are more women out there making films, I think that has a flow on effect.
I think it is great what Screen NSW and Screen Australia are doing through their initiatives. There is proof that affirmative action works historically and I think it is really important that we follow through with it, and that there is a sustained commitment to change. The industry needs to think deeply about how the careers of woman can be improved and helped, especially around the issue of childcare, which is not just something that affects women; there are plenty of fathers who need help on this front too. The diversity of backgrounds in filmmaking is also too narrow and I’m glad there are efforts being made in this area too. It would be great to see a much wider experience of our culture and society expressed on screen.
