American Cinematographer - March 2018 - 24

SHORT TAKES

A Stranger's Actions
By Lauretta Prevost

Cinematographer Velinda Wardell, ACS traces her work
behind the camera to when she was 10 years old and helped to
demonstrate VHS camcorders in her father's hi-fi and video store. As
a director of photography, she's been recognized with numerous
awards from the Australian Cinematographers Society, as well as a
Golden Tadpole nomination from the Camerimage International Film
Festival. She's currently focused on shooting features and Australian
television series - but between those projects, she regularly returns
to short-form productions.
Wardell notes that shooting shorts offers a great opportunity
to build relationships with new storytellers and different directors,
often while working on proof-of-concept pieces. When collaborating
with first-time directors, she enjoys being able to establish a professional set and a safe space in which the director can experiment. "I
think it's really important to try to show the director what they want
to see, and to achieve their vision," Wardell says. "If someone is trying
to do something experimental, their voice can get stomped down by
people saying, 'Oh, that's not how to do it,' or 'That's not going to
work.' I don't think it reflects badly on anyone if someone tries something new, it doesn't work, and they have to go to an alternative. It's
important to give directors the opportunity to let their unique viewpoint shine."
Among Wardell's most recent shorts is director Alex Ryan's Red
Ink, which received the Lexus Australia Short Film Fellowship in 2016
and screened at the Sydney Film Festival in 2017. The short's troubled
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March 2018

protagonist, Gideon (Oscar Redding), believes he is on a mission to
purchase a packet of biscuits. He enters a supermarket, where a
slow-moving express checkout triggers his anxieties and sets off a
chain of escalating consequences. The story touches on issues of
mental health, the danger of well-intentioned police intervention, the
interconnectedness of humanity, and the delicate balance in which
our lives hang each and every day.
Working with a budget of approximately $50,000 Australian
and a shooting schedule of three days, Ryan and Wardell committed
themselves to a thorough preproduction. Wardell's method of preparation focuses heavily on conversations around the characters, script,
and storytelling intentions; she enjoys discussing what the script is
about, scene by scene, from the director's perspective.
"I don't spend as much preproduction time on planning the
lighting, as I tend to do that fairly quickly," the cinematographer
explains. "I'm looking to understand what the director likes and
doesn't like. It can be especially helpful to have directors tell me the
kind of camerawork they don't like. Often the actors will improvise,
and I want the camera to be free to work with the characters. I'll
already know the boundaries [because of those preproduction
conversations]."
Red Ink's production team knew there would be restrictions to
shooting in a real supermarket location with practical set pieces -
such as shelving, cash registers and conveyor belts - that couldn't
be moved. Wardell and Ryan talked extensively about the use of
background actors and mapped out extras' actions to give layers to
the story.
One story beat involved stunts, an armorer, and prop Taser

American Cinematographer

All images courtesy of the filmmakers.

In the short Red Ink, Gideon (Oscar Redding) finds himself in a perilous situation after his anxieties get the better of him.

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