TV PRODUCTION

The Way We Live Now Trollope's chronicle of Victorian excesses captured by Chris Seager, BSC

	Left to right, Grip, Steve Ellingworth; Camera Operator, Jeremy Hiles; Chris Seager, BSC and Focus-Puller, Kim Seber.

A century and a quarter after Anthony Trollope wrote The Way We Live Now, Director of Photography, Chris Seager BSC, a veteran of period pieces, has been working to a hectic schedule filming Andrew Davies' adaptation of the novel about Victorian power, passion and corruption, produced by Nigel Stafford-Clark.

Augustus Melmotte (played by David Suchet), an infamous European financier, comes to England with his daughter and is approached by two young businessmen who have plans to build a railway from Salt Lake City to Vera Cruz. Many figures and stories are interwoven in the four 75 minute episodes and audiences are likely to be surprised by the startling comparisons between the turmoil of Trollope's world and the present day, and also the similarity of Melmotte's character to the late Robert Maxwell.

"This is a heavy interior lit piece with a classic look: out of an eighteen week shoot, we've got five weeks on stage and around 75% interiors on location," says DP Seager. "After talking to the Director, David Yates, we decided that all the major lights for interiors would be coming from outside and we would have minimal fill light inside. I used 12kW and 18kW HMIs outside and added 7kW and 4kW Xenons - they gave shafts of light to which I added smoke that lingered and created a fabulous God-like illumination. I love sunlight when it comes through a window, hits the floor and bounces off furniture or ornaments. I'm not always interested in direct light on actors and I'm not afraid of having them in darkness.

Chris Seager, BSC taking a light reading from actor Gerry George.

	Behind the scenes on The Way We Live Now.

"I've got a box full of filters - they're my friends all the way through. In one scene, I shot a girl playing piano with 7246. Shafts of light were coming through the window. The exposure on the girl's backlit face was f2.8 and light coming from outside was f16. With an exposure of f4 on camera and with the exterior overexposed by four or five stops, I used a soft contrast filter to bring the contrast down and to be able to see detail outside," he explains. "The effect was wonderful; you can see trees outside the window which you wouldn't normally expect."

The scene at London's St. Pancras Station caused headaches, the abundance of visible electrical cables being one. A small platform was used and a substantial section of the station's roof arch was filmed to provide scale. Part of the platform shoot was blue screened to allow for the painting in of a steam engine and carriages that the crew filmed in Keighley, Yorkshire. The Moving Picture Company also painted on four additional carriages. CGI was also required for a balcony shot overlooking a beach. "It proved impossible to replicate an 1870s view without modern day trappings getting into shot, so eventually a house with a balcony was found in London and the seaside view was filmed near Christchurch," recalls Seager. "We did a shot inside looking through billowing net curtains to our lady on the balcony and put a 20 x 20 blue screen on scaffolding outside for the CGI."

The interior of Luton Hoo provided the stately setting for a large banqueting scene in Melmotte's London house. While the guests grab food and eat voraciously around a forty-foot long table, Melmotte surveys them like a lord and then speaks. "It was a long sequence with a crane tracking over the table and a close-up at the end, so we had to plan everything precisely," says Seager, who also admits to thoroughly enjoying occasional 'red herrings' David Yates throws his way. In one such instance, Grip, Steve Ellingworth, Operator, Jeremy Hiles and Seager devised a rig on scaffold poles, which they suspended in monorail style above a corridor at Luton Hoo. Another variation of their scaffold rig, this time on a base with skateboard wheels, solved the problem of tracking among long costumes in a ballroom scene. "We used cranes and Steadicams in many shots, but the improvised rigs worked fabulously well too and made particular shots look very different. Our rigs weren't toys for the boys, but the essence of good teamwork and that's what I really love about cinematography," he says.

"My work gives me a real buzz. The more I do, the more I want to do - and the more I push my own limits and that of my equipment and film stock, the bigger buzz I get. I want to continue to wake up at three o'clock in the morning feeling exhilarated but slightly scared too."

The Way We Live Now is scheduled for broadcast on BBC 1 at the end of 2001.

Data File

The Way We Live Now

Director - David Yates
Producer - Nigel Stafford-Clark
Director of Photography - Chris Seager BSC
Camera Operator - Jeremy Hiles
Focus-Puller - Kim Seber
Clapper-Loader - Tom McFarling
Grip - Steve Ellingworth
Editor - Mark Day

A BBC/WGBH Co-Production in association with Deep Indigo Productions

Chris Seager BSC

Seager gained a Diploma in Film & Television from Guildford School of Art and after two years with Wessex TV, joined the BBC as trainee video camera operator. He remained with the BBC until 1994, progressing from Camera Assistant to Lighting Cameraman in its Television Film Department, shooting a variety of documentaries including, Arena and Forty Minutes, dramas such as Bergerac and South of the Border and feature length television films of Only Fools and Horses, Cold Comfort Farm and the Bafta winner Scallagrigg. In 1994, Seager became a freelance DP and has since made television dramas, mini series and feature films. He became a full member of the British Society of Cinematographers (BSC) in 1996.

Credits include:

TELEVISION FILMS/MINI SERIES -
Murder Rooms (II), Lorna Doone (BAFTA Nomination for Photography & Lighting), The Sins, Madame Bovary, Frenchman's Creek (Royal Television Society nomination for Best Photography-Drama), A Dance to the Music of Time, Scallagrigg (BAFTA Best TV Single Drama), Bullion Boys (INTERNATIONAL EMMY Drama Category) and The Vampyr (PRIX ITALIA Music and Arts Category)

FEATURE FILMS -
The Biographer, Vent de Colere, Fever Pitch, Alive and Kicking (Winner - 40th London Film Festival Audience Award), Beautiful Thing (Winner London Gay & Lesbian Film Festival Audience Award), Cold Comfort Farm (BANFF Best Made for TV Movie), and Stonewall (Winner - 39th London Film Festival Audience Award)

COMMERCIALS -
Sanyo Phone, British Gas and CGU Direct.