To Do With the Price of Milk

Cinematographer Leon Narbey needs no introduction to anyone in the New Zealand industry. He has been regarded as one of our absolute best for many years now. Though he’s busy with ongoing projects, Leon agreed to write us a piece about his experience shooting The Price of Milk for Harry Sinclair in 1999.

Having recently approved a NZFC digital grade of Harry Sinclair’s The Price of Milk, and with the current pay-out to dairy farmers being so low, I thought this film would be a good starting point.

We made it in 1999 with no script, and yes it did have NZFC approval and investment.

It must have been scary for the producer Fiona Copland, and the actors Danielle Cormack, Karl Urban, Willa O’Neal, Michael Lawrence and Lawrence Makoare as they were never sure where their characters were going story-wise. Harry and I pursued a 2.40 ratio with feelings towards deep focus (having referenced several Renaissance profile portraits with detailed landscapes behind), while speaking of Russian Romantic music and finding locations to suit these dreams. We shot mainly on weekends for about three months, staying overnight with a sleeping bag in caravans on the Awhitu peninsula where kikuyu grass covers ancient sand dunes which in turn were infested (or was it invested) with Friesian cows. It was summer.

It evolved through a stumbling process of discovery which was an essential part of Harry’s risk taking and search for the drama within. Being experimental, Harry demanded you make fresh choices and take risks. I do remember waiting for clouds that would come and go within the scene, as Harry wanted to see darkness and normal light in transition. Things were never ad-libbed or improvised however, he was fastidious about dialogue as written. A few times we reshot an entire scene in a new location with a different emphasis.

Shooting in chronological story order was a unique experience. Harry wrote only three or four pages depending on how the previous shoot days evolved. On the Wednesday prior to the next shoot a production meeting would send Kevin Donovan to arrange grip things, be they massive forklifts to lift caravans, or for Grant McKinnon to organise many small generators for the coming night scenes. It was a very small crew and all departments overlapped and mucked in. The intensive work on those two full days got the best of us, then bedraggled we’d return to Auckland to recover and wait in anticipation for the story to unfold.

Perhaps this was how Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin did it? Free from the weight of the printed script, their films began and meandered with their dreams and merged in the half conscious thought patterns of their minds.

Made without the dominant fiscal incentive of today where so many fingers in the pie can muddy the clear vision of writer/directors, the film stands out in our recent film history for its audacity and courage. Yes it was rubbished by some as pure indulgence but the film won much praise and awards in many festivals. Weird and surreal, with fairy-tale logic and a small nod to the absurdist cinema of Bunuel it needs to be seen again on the large screen.

Another stand-out is Desperate Remedies. In 1992 directors Peter Wells and Stewart Main wanted a world of artifice devoid of landscape and shot within a dark wharf studio. Melancholy and Romantic Italian opera were it’s force, as the 1860s was its time-base, while Orson Wells’ The Magnificent Ambersons was one of our agreed references, as was Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter. Stanley Cortez shot both and perhaps it was more his dynamic cinematography we so admired and in some ways tried to reinvent. There was never a desire to ‘lets look at this scene and try and do the same as it was done,’ but more of a slow immersion and looking and feeling the style; finding what were the visceral components that enhanced a particular quality we so wanted. Movement was key. The zoom and the Dutch tilt were also embraced. My operator, the late John Day, would be dollied about by Harry Harrison while John framed with a double set of fluid heads, one on top of the other, as there were no tango heads then.

Lighting-wise it was Kevin Riley who introduced me to the glory of 24 x 1000-watt Dinos. We only had two. One at either end of the studio for all the those back-lit smoky effects scenes. Meanwhile the young Cliff Curtis did not want to be limited by marks on the floor, but softened when he saw rushes and how shallow our focus was and how difficult it was to hold the dynamic performances. Hopefully we will re-master this film to 2K files soon so it can be seen again as well.

At an earlier time in 1979 I helped Vincent Ward complete In Spring One Plants Alone. Alun Bollinger had shot wonderful sequences with Vincent over a long period and had clearly covered some unique moments with Te Puhi and Nick, the subjects of this documentary.

I came in for a few days that ended up being nine days of pick-ups after they had arrived at a loose cut. We stayed in a share-milker’s old cottage and at night while Vincent chopped onions for the meal I’d be watching reels of work-print on a16mm projector. He would point out the bits needed to fuse the edit. We, of course, could never freeze the projector, so one had to hang on to the surrounding images and try and keep them alive in your memory: lighting the fire; pouring the tea; hands to the left; waiting at the door.

Next day I’d be waiting to catch the moment when Te Puhi did those things Vincent wanted, but he would never tell her to do it. We had to be there on the ready to capture it at the right angle, but in her time, and of her own volition. Directing her was out of the question as this was a ‘pure’ documentary, and Vincent was trying to abide by those principles. Sometimes in the morning, however, the biggest problem was to convince Te Puhi to wear the same dress she might have worn six months before.

There was no mains power. Albol got Alister Barry and Andy Grant to assemble a power source. Twenty 12-volt car batteries were rigged in series and placed on a trailer which gave us 240 volts and gave us a few hours of lighting. Albol had screwed spigot bases for lights on the ceiling in a semi-permanent way, and with diffusion over the 800-watt lamps we had ambience enough to get an exposure amongst the dark-timber panelling of the interior. At the end of the day we would tow this heavy battery-laden trailer home and recharge it over night with enormous DC chargers. It was better than having a generator without all the sound and fumes one would have to put up with. Today, with ultra-high-ISO cameras and LED lamps, it would be so easy.

Towards the end of the shoot there was a tangi at the Marae so we couldn’t continue filming with Te Puhi and Nick. We had to make other arrangements. Vincent needed a heron bird in flight. Herons would congregate on cow troughs in the middle of paddocks but would fly away as soon as we approached. Vincent solved the ‘flying away from camera mode’ by walking a long circle over many fences, circling the trough and slowly advancing. Then, with arms waving and much shouting, he would run to the birds, meaning they would fly toward me and I would be shooting on a long lens trying to hold onto to it in the frame. After much practise we eventually got it.

These have all been treasured moments. What I’m remembering (with rose-tinted glasses perhaps) are those films that were made within a small collaborative hub, and where the filmmakers had a vision that stood apart from fashion and the conformity of market demands.