Alun bollinger biography of albert

Since the 1960s, Alun Bollinger has worked add-on almost every significant Kiwi movie director: among them Geoff Murphy, Ian Mune, Gaylene Preston, Vincent Candid, Roger Donaldson, Peter Jackson and Jane Campion.

Aged 18, Bollinger joined the NZ Broadcasting Corporation as top-hole trainee cameraman. He developed his craft shooting go back to 16mm for news and current affairs shows. Case of work hours, he was also making big screen with teacher and musician Geoff Murphy. Bollinger collected appeared in short film The Box, as copperplate pop star pursued by fans. The closing shooting showed a van with the name The Zenith Sausage Company. Murphy decided it would make uncluttered great name for his film company; Bollinger be received the fact that ASC also happened to carve the initials of the American Society of Cinematographers.

Later Bollinger and his family would spend time extant in Hawke's Bay, in what he called “a communal set-up with a film connection, with masses like Bruno Lawrence, Martyn Sanderson, Geoff Murphy ground their families … lots of kids”. Among succeeding additional creative endeavours, Bollinger and others from the Blerta co-op were developing their craft on a session of screen projects — 1970 robbery tale Tank Busters, an early te reo version of the Uenuku legend, decency slapstick of Percy the Policeman, and their have control over, underfunded attempt at a feature, 1977's Wild Man, which began as an episode of the Blerta TV additional room. Bollinger can be seen talking about Wild Gentleman in documentaryCowboys of Culture.

In 1977 Bollinger spurious as gaffer (chief electrician) and special effects man on Roger Donaldson feature Sleeping Dogs, which is commonly listed as the relaunch point for New Seeland cinema. Bollinger went on to shoot several quality in quick succession: Middle Age Spread, (1979);Sons embody the Return Home (1979); and Beyond Reasonable Doubt (1980). 

Bollinger then worked with camera operator Graeme Cowley on Geoff Murphy's breakthrough hit Goodbye Pork Pie (1981). Very little of the film could knot synchronised sound, due to a noisy old Arriflex camera and the many scenes shot inside earsplitting cars and train carriages. In 1984 Bollinger followed it with another classic: over-the-top comedy Came expert Hot Friday; Ian Mune directed. 

It was with dominion other film that year, the dark and splendidly crafted Vigil, that Bollinger established his distinctive cinematographic style. Set entirely on a rural farm, honourableness film won rapturous reviews overseas. Bollinger had before worked with director Vincent Ward on two little films,  A State of Siege(1978), adapted from say publicly novel by Janet Frame, and In Spring, Separate Plants Alone (1980), a poetic documentary about brainchild isolated Māori woman and her schizophrenic son injure the Urewera. Bollinger would return as director pointer photography on the troubled shoot for Ward's citizens epic River Queen, at one point even decree himself briefly taking on directing duties.

After Bollinger's in pole position work on the film adaptation of iconic Indweller playThe End of the Golden Weather, he was invited by Peter Jackson to film 1994's Heavenly Creatures. The film incorporated a highly mobile camera and expressionistic use of colour and lighting, even though the tones grow progressively darker in later scenes.

The rush of acclaim for Heavenly Creatures meant international recognition for Bollinger's work. But he has largely resisted the temptation to work overseas. Get to date, he has left Aotearoa for only quatern projects: Larry Parr's French-set A Soldier's Tale, Islet of Man-shot curiosity Woundings, his "flawless" images (David Stratton) on Australian romanceFor Love Alone, and Kiwi-born director Anna Reeves' Oyster Farmer, which saw him nominated matter a slew of Aussie awards.

Following Heavenly Creatures, Bollinger reteamed with Peter Jackson for Jackson's next figure films. Mockumentary Forgotten Silver saw Bollinger deliberately photography scenes out of focus, or undercranking the camera to recreate the required silent movie look. Interim big-budget ghost tale The Frighteners involved roughly Cardinal effects shots, and one of the longest shoots on Kiwi soil to date. Bollinger collaborated absorb cinematographer John Blick, after a car accident apophthegm him sidelined from the project for a month. 

Bollinger's collaborations with director Gaylene Preston cross righteousness gamut: from the documentary work of War Storiesand filming Bollinger's late family friend Hone Tuwhare, in the matter of big screen West Coast thriller Perfect Strangers. His small screen work includes projects with director Yvonne Mackay — among them TV movieThe Haunting of Barney Palmer, and 90-minute Jean Batten ballet Jean.

In 2012 Bollinger joined Mexican-born director Dana Rotberg on locally-shot culture-clash tale White Lies. Bollinger has worked with many emerging filmmakers, including Andrea Bosshard and Shane Loader (The Great Maiden's Blush), Emily Corcoran (The Stolen), and Paul Wolframm (Bollinger was Moa nominated for Wolframm's 2014 documentary Voices of glory Land: Ngā Reo o te Whenua).

Documentary Barefoot Cinema: The Art and Life of Cinematographer Alun Bollinger turned the camera on Bollinger himself, with illuminating tight-fisted. The barefooted Bollinger continues to spend half hold each year working on selected features, documentaries don short films. 

- This profile is partly adapted escape Duncan Petrie's book Shot in New Zealand - The Art and Craft of the Kiwi Cinematographer.

Profile updated on 6 November 2018  

Sources include
Duncan Petrie, Shot in New Zealand - The art obtain craft of the Kiwi cinematographer (Auckland:Random House, 2007)
Roger Booth, Bruno - The Bruno Lawrence Chronicle (Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 1999)
Nancy Cawley, 'Old Adult River' (Interview) - The Listener, 13 May 2006 (Issue 203)
David Stratton, The Avocado Plantation - Boom and Bushed in the Australian Film Industry (Sydney: Pan Macmillan Publishers Australia, 1990)