As part of the Visegrad Film Forum 2024, ace director of photography Peter Suschitzky held the audience in rapture and awe during a masterclass held at the Film and Television Academy, Bratislava.
As part of the 11th Visegrad Film Forum, held at the Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and Kino Lumiére film theatre, Peter Suschitzky hosted a masterclass for cinematographers and film enthusiasts on March 15, 2024.
A British cinematographer and photographer, Peter Suschitzky is known for his work on The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975), The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980), and Mars Attacks! (Tim Burton, 1996) and the later films of David Cronenberg.
Peter minces no words and is very honest with his opinion for the youth who were present in large numbers in the audience. “As long as you have the passion to work, love telling stories and love films, then you are in the right career choice, but otherwise don’t think of coming into this profession.”
If he had to choose between professions, Peter states that this would not be his choice, although he was always passionate about the camera and photography.
“It was a mistake for me personally, I don’t like horror films, but somehow most of the films I got were either science fiction or horror films.”
At the masterclass, Peter took the audience behind the scenes of three films, The Empire Strikes Back, Mars Attacks!, and Tale of Tails, with anecdotes and different ways of working with directors.
“I try to avoid repeating myself and always look at any new project with a fresh view,” said Peter. Today it is much more flexible, but earlier it was not that easy, as everything was done in-camera. Peter highlighted how he worked with a limited production budget on The Empire Strikes Back, and still created beautiful photos.
Peter reminisced about being taught by his professor in his film school about dissolves and fades, which were done in the laboratory. “This teaching gave me a lot of respect for silent films. It imposed discipline then,” he added.
When comparing films which are dialogue-heavy, Peter likes to shoot films that tell a story visually. “I love digital technology and it never bothered me to transition to the new medium. Three cheers to modern technology for making it easy for making pictures more beautiful.” It is very important for Peter to work with people who are skillful and good to get along with. “I hardly ever have an argument with anyone on set,” he added. “Each director presented a different challenge. Each was quite different from the previous one. I found them all very stimulating to work on. For me, the key is to be stimulated by the project regardless of whether it’s going to be successful or not in terms of the final film”.
Peter also said that making mistakes, sometimes they teach you to do better. “I think I must have invented a lot of mistakes that nobody had ever thought of. I can only imagine, looking back, I wanted to be the one who decided what the film was going to look like. One must be very lucky to shoot good movies.”
Peter is a firm believer in the importance of the context of what cinematographers do. He finds it pointless to think that one can do beautiful work on a bad film. “Perhaps you can do good work on a bad film but it’s not going to have much meaning. Whereas if you do quite good work, maybe not great work, on a good film, people will think you’re great and at the same time you’ll be stimulated. I have found that I’ve done my best work on the most challenging films.”
Film Fest Report is a proud media partner of the Visegrad Film Forum 2024.
