American Cinematographer - March 2014 - 16

Short Takes

Coward on the Front Line
By Jon D. Witmer

Set on the front lines of the First World War, the 28-minute
film Coward follows the fictional characters James (Sean Stewart)
and Andrew (Martin McCann) - Irish cousins who enlist in the
British Army and serve in the trenches at Ypres, Belgium - to shed
light on a real-life tragedy: During the war, a number of Irish-born
British soldiers suffering from what is now believed to have been
shell shock were tried and executed for desertion and disobedience.
To tell the story, director David Roddham and Irish cinematographer Stephen Murphy aimed for what Murphy describes as
an "old-school visual approach. We aren't hugely enamored of the
current trend of shooting with a shaky handheld camera and using
rapid cuts." Instead, "we wanted to slow things down and distill the
visual storytelling into a simpler fashion to reinforce what these
[soldiers] had to cope with: a relentless assault, both literally and
metaphorically. We're both big fans of David Lean, and we'd love to
see that kind of cinema being made again."
Murphy came to cinematography with a background in
makeup and special effects, which he studied at the Dun Laoghaire
Institute of Art, Design & Technology in Dublin, Ireland. As he started
to find work on set, though, he "very quickly gravitated toward the
cinematographer," and before long, he transitioned into the camera
department, where he climbed the ranks and eventually notched
operating credits on such features as Hunger (AC April '09) and The
Guard. His cinematography credits include the features Porcelain and
Assault of Darkness, as well as numerous commercials and shorts
(including Fifth Street, also directed by Roddham).
While prepping Coward, Roddham and Murphy found particular inspiration in John Singer Sargent's painting Gassed, which
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March 2014

depicts soldiers who have been wounded in a mustard-gas attack.
"Its proportions are almost the same as a 2.40:1 image," Murphy
notes. "Even though the color palette of our movie is different, the
tone and color saturation are similar - sort of pastel and quite delicate. The wear and tear on the soldiers in the painting is something
we really wanted to get across in our film."
From the outset, the filmmakers planned to shoot on 35mm
film in the anamorphic 2.40:1 aspect ratio. Murphy sourced his
camera and lens package from Panavision U.K., where he liaised
with Hugh Whittaker and Lee Mackey. "They pulled everything out
of the back of the closets, and we found an old set of High Speed
Auto Panatars that I just fell in love with," says Murphy, who supplemented with a few E Series primes.
"We shot 80 percent of the movie on the 40mm and
50mm," continues the cinematographer. "Even most of our closer
shots were done on wide-angle lenses [because] we were always
trying to fill the frame either with geography or another actor. You
can't really impart the wear and tear on bodies and minds, or the
brutality of an environment, by living in close-ups. You need to see
the space the soldiers are in."
The majority of Coward takes place over the course of one
day in and around the British Army's trench, which, along with an
expanse of no man's land, was constructed over 3 acres of open field
in Hertfordshire, England. Everything in the trench, Murphy says,
"was supposed to feel cold and miserable, but I wanted to get a
sense of time passing throughout the course of the day. I used Tiffen
85, 81EF, Chocolate and Coral [filters] to vary the amount of blue
that was hitting the stock, Fujifilm [Eterna 500T] 8573."
To underscore the conditions at the front, the production
created its own weather effects. "Dave was quite keen to show the
relentless weather these guys had to deal with," says Murphy. "We

American Cinematographer

Photos by Aideen McCarthy. Photos and frame grabs courtesy of the filmmakers.

Andrew (Martin
McCann), an
Irish-born
soldier in the
British Army,
suffers the
conditions of
the First World
War's trenches
in the short film
Coward.

American Cinematographer - March 2014

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