Light, Story, and Soul: An Intimate Conversation with Annemarie Lean-Vercoe

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Anne Marie lean Verco and I'm a cinematographer.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Art the podcast where we get
to know women from around the world of visual arts.
I'm Chris Stafford and this is season three, Episode sixteen.
My guest this week is the British Award winning and
BAFTA nominated cinematographer and Marie lean vercou Anne Marie, most

(00:32):
recently lensed Outrageous, which follows the lives of the fascinating
Mitford sisters. The show premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival
in June twenty twenty five, and we'll be airing this
summer on UK TV and BritBox TV. Anne Marie is
a graduate of the National Film and Television School, with
film and TV credits as cinematographer or director of photography

(00:56):
spanning more than twenty six years. These include Called The Midwife, Breeders,
The Chelsea Detective, All Creatures Great and Small, The baft
winner Suffragettes with Lucy Worsley and baf denominated Is There
Anybody out There? Anne Marie was born in Devon, England

(01:17):
in nineteen seventy seven and has an older sister and
step siblings. Her parents divorced when she was just four,
but remarried locally and remained close by, providing Anne Marie
with an extended family in his second career. Her father
was a sailing photographer who introduced her to cameras and
she soon developed a curiosity as to what was possible

(01:39):
behind the lens. She enjoyed an idyllic childhood, with freedom
to explore the surrounding countryside, learning to ride ponies and
how to sail. After Yelton Primary School, Anne Marie attended
the Royal School in Bath, but left early to be
with her mother. An early interest in arts and crafts

(02:01):
then led her to a year long foundation arts course
before attending an undergraduate program at the London College of Printing,
which is part of the University of the Arts, London.
By now she had developed an interest in film cameras
and started to gain some experience as a trainee on
productions in the UK. A series of introductions and the

(02:24):
benefit of a scholarship led her to the NFTs with
an eye to becoming a cinematographer. After graduating, Anne Marie
has been consistently in demand, balancing her career with raising
her family. Thanks to the help of her mother and
mother in law. She is a proud member of Illuminatrics

(02:44):
and Women behind the Camera. Her numerous awards include Baft
Beifa and Star of Tomorrow. Anne Marie is currently in
production on the British TV drama series Bergerac. She lives
in Sussex, England with her husband and Finn and two
children and Mary. Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Hello and thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Well, you're among friends you know here and I know
you've listened to some shows with some colleagues of yours.
You've got to know a little bit better.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Absolutely, it's lovely to be here with joining the lovely
Ashley Barron and Sarah Moffatt, who are also female cinematographers
and part of the Illuminatrix, which is the female cinematography
collective that I'm part of.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yes, I noticed you were part of that. How long
have you been with them?

Speaker 1 (03:36):
I think I've been with the Illuminatrix for about five
or six years, maybe pretty much from the early days
of when they were starting. I knew Vanessa White, who
is one of the co founding members, because we were
at the National Film School, not at the same time,
but not far apart studying cinematography with the same tutors,

(04:04):
so we knew of each other and she was forming
a collective and invited me to join.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
So this is something really is for women in the industry,
this kind of collective, and what we're doing here with
the podcast is raising awareness of the work of cinematographers
and women basically behind the scenes in all departments, because
there's a been shall we say, an absence of support
in the past, and hopefully these organizations are filling that void.

(04:32):
Do you find that it is. It's helping women in
a supportive and empowering way.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
It's been a game changer. I was lucky enough when
I was studying film at various different postgraduate places, so
the National Film School is the key place that I
went to, and I had a very good friend who
studied there at the same time as me, a fellow
female cinematographer called Sarah bartle Smith. I always had her

(05:00):
as a support that worked. But suddenly when Ness said
would you like to join us? And she's also remember,
it was like we suddenly had loads of people we
could turn to and ask questions rather than just each other,
and it was amazing. It's really really changed so much

(05:20):
in that time, in the last few years that you
see so many people's careers evolving and growing, and it
feels anything feels possible now, whereas before it was a
big mountain to climb.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Well, it seems like you're keeping very busy now. Your
fresh aff Tribeca with Outrageous congratulations. That must have been
a well moment for you in your career.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
Absolutely, I'm thrilled to have worked on a project such
as Outrageous. It's done more than I have imagined a
TV show would do, and opening its global premier at
Rebecca Film Festival is a fantastic feat. And it's still
kind of having its moment, certainly in the UK and

(06:10):
in America, and I think will have its moment in Europe,
and yeah, hopefully people will see it.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Well. Talking about strong women, there is a film all
about our TV series about very strong women. But you're
used to making films about strong women and supporting and
empowering women. What was this that was different about this
particular production, Anne Marie.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
Well, I've known about Nancy Mitford, who is the elder
sister from the Mitford family has six sisters and one brother,
so I'd read Nancy Mitford's books as a teenager, and
my mother had given them to me to read, and
so I think you'll enjoy these when I was about
twelve or thirteen, and her mother had given the books
to her to read when she was about twelve or thirteen,

(06:59):
And I just found them extremely captivating because it appealed
to my sor childish sensibility. But they were also just
seem to be just daring and being bold and kind
of said what they think, when even when I was
growing up, the UK was still a place where my

(07:19):
parents' generation would say things like well, of course, when
I was young, children were told to be seen and
not heard. But I was just thinking, actually, these are
my grandmother's generation, these ladies, and they don't give adapt literally,
and I just found them thrilling and rebellious. And I've
always been extremely interested in family stories and family dramas

(07:42):
and I've always been drawn to that kind of world.
And I enjoy a kind of love touch as well.
I enjoy humor with the drama, just because I think
that's just the sort of most amazing part of humanity
is it can be in the kind of terrible situation,
but you can find some sort of light in it
or humoral, and that's what Nancy did with sort of

(08:08):
with great panache. Nothing was ever that serious. So reading
about her actual life rather than the dramatized version of
her life that she'd sort of done a light autobiography,
it was incredible just to see, Wow, there was some
extreme highs and lows, and not many people come out

(08:33):
of that unscathed and then write wittily about it. So
it was extraordinary.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
And you seem to like that those period dramas you've
done call the Midwife and all Creatures great and small,
very very British. Of course, you know that speaks to
your background.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Of course, absolutely. I look back at the films that
I was drawn to as a child, and you know
merchant Ivory films. I mean, A Room with a View
is a film that I watched on repete. I won't
say where I was always got caught the moment paused

(09:11):
when my parents would come in. Nothing to do with
the lake and men dancing around it with no clothes on.
But anyway, I loved that film and I just found
it compelling and actually not not having watched it for
quite a long time, and then revisiting it relatively recently.
It's got so much in there, and yet it's funny,

(09:33):
it really is, and it's kind of passionate and romantic,
So clearly a bit of a romantic and I do
love a bit of country houses and some great costumes.
But actually I loved Rebecca Hitchcock, the original Hitchcock movie.
That was another film that I really enjloyed. It felt

(09:54):
kind of dreamy, so there was a sort of suspense
to that as well, So you know, Agatha Christie all
over as well Miss Marple. Joan Hickson as Miss Marple
absolutely loved it. So yeah, I have to say I'm
very drawn to those sorts of stories, but I'm also
drawn to some very gritty stories as well that are contemporary.

(10:14):
So but I feel like I'm having quite a nice moment,
and my tenure old self would be very pleased with
what I'm doing at the moment.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
I love that. And yeah, they are quintessentially English, aren't they.
So which takes us back to your beginning where you
were grew up in most charming and picturesque part of
England that's on the south coast in Devon, and had
something of an idyllic childhood in a way. But you
had some complicated family background, but you pulled yourself out

(10:48):
of it and did what you wanted to do. By
the sounds of things, you went off to boarding school
and you sounds to me as if you became a
strong independent woman as a girl.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, it was really interesting childhood. I definitely say I
was very privileged. So I was very lucky had loving parents.
They split up when I was four, but I was
still very much surrounded by a loving extended and step
family and we all lived in the same village, and

(11:19):
so I had, you know, lots of sets of parents
really and a sister and a stepsister, and I had
freedom to go down to the woods with my friends
and floor I have dogs. So I definitely had that
new call it childhood. And you know, very pretty villages,
but also a village that was kind of beautiful old houses,

(11:41):
but then a lot of nineteen seventy houses and we
did live in one of those for a bit. That
was a very brilliant and safe culd de sac that
you could I went down my went down the hill
on my trice to call many times and up again,
and you know, so it was sort of mixing the old,
and I knew it wasn't all very old fashioned it was.
It was definitely, you know, a childhood that I look

(12:06):
back on and go, wow, I was lucky. I was
really lucky. So that was very much the start of it.
And boarding school was quite formative years. When my mum
was breaking up from another partner, my sister was already
at a boarding school in Bath and I was asked
if I wanted to go, and I said yes because
I was quite into in Blighten and it felt a

(12:28):
bit like, you know, another version of the very English
sort of existence. And I went and had some definitely
had some adventures and scrapes and made some really good friends.
But I also left when I wanted to and when
I wanted to be back at home. So yeah, I
wanted to sort of fit into where my family or

(12:48):
well when my mum had moved to, and know the
people around me and be part of the community that
I lived in.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
So it sounds like quintessential in a charming English village life.
And I'm wondering if, since you said there were dogs involved,
where the pony's involved, since you were in Devon.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
My mum had a horse when I was about eight
till twelve, And yes, I learned to ride, so I
can say I can ride. Not a very good rider anymore.
I've tried it and it was like, well I've waited. Yeah,
there's been quite a large gap in between riding. But
it's one of those things that if you can do it,
you know, you always know how to do it, but

(13:28):
it might not be very elegant. Yeah. So I definitely
had again that very English middle class girl. I can
ride and familiar with ponies and that kind of thing,
but never actually looked after owned one. My mum had
one at a stable and she inherited. You know, that's

(13:53):
the kind of English thing. I've inherited a pony. It's
very very and yeah, but not one of those I
didn't go pony mad, but I wasn't one of those
people that was a pony person. I enjoyed it, but
sort of realize that that's quite consuming.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
Tell me you read Black Beauty though, Anne Marie.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
I did. I did, and there was a very there
was a lovely TV series if I remember correctly when
I was growing up, and another with horses that was
called Silas, which I think I was more interested in
because he would run along these massive beaches. And I'm
not sure where it was filmed, but in my memory

(14:39):
it's in black and white and it was very badly dugged.
It could have been Italian and maybe French, and he
was about ten and he just seemed to live with
a pack of wild horses, probably in the Carmargue somewhere
in France. So that doesn't remember going, that's pretty cool.
I like that.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
What was it called.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Silas or Silas Returns something like that, or maybe it
was just his name was Silas, but he was wild.
It was all kind of riding around with absolutely no sad.
I kind of look at that now and go, wow,
that was a pretty interesting exercise. It would be very

(15:21):
hard to achieve now with all the health and safety
laws that are in place with children and stunts and.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Horses exactly well, International veil Velvet was shot down on
the south coast of England, of course, and that would
be very different now if they were filming that now.
But I'm wondering what if you were sporty though? Were
you a sporty child?

Speaker 1 (15:44):
I was pretty average or a bit above average, so
I could always get along and you know, sort of
remember bowling around his team, which is like a as
you'll know, a sort of girl baseball. And I did
do a bit of lacrosse at my boarding school, so

(16:04):
that was very not jolly hockey sticks, but very jolly
lacrosse sticks and pretty I don't actually remember everyone going
for it, and so I never actually got into hockey
after that because I just didn't like the bending down.
I was like a much rather, you know, way a
stick around near someone's space. So that was quite fun.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Well what did you enjoy doing as a child in
school and with your parents? What kind of activities?

Speaker 1 (16:32):
I was always allowed just to sort of make stuff,
So my mum would just say, oh, here's a shoe box,
because I'd always ask for like a doll's house or yeah,
there was my little ponies, and I'd be like, I
want the house that you can get for the my
little pony, and my parents were absolutely not, no way

(16:53):
you can make it yourself, though, So I was constantly
making houses for various sort of toys and camps. So
sometimes they'd be outside and it might be in a
flower bed or in some long grass, you know a
bit of a cardboard boxes, shoe boxes, wallpaper, bits of
our carpet. We were always decorating and doing up houses,

(17:16):
so we're kind of always living in a building site,
so there was always stuff to make things out of.
I was probably a bit more into the kind of
interior decoration, whereas my sister was like properly with a saw,
sawing up bits of wood and then climbing trees. A
lot of climbing trees, making camps in the woods, going
messing about in a river in wellies and losing wellies

(17:38):
and you know, getting everyone wet and getting my friends
stuck up trees that they couldn't get down, and yeah,
definitely allowed a lot of freedom. And I had a
cousin in Kent, or various cousins, and one of them
had a pony or two ponies and orchards, so we
actually did go and ride around and I was got

(18:00):
slow horse and we sort of do cops and robbers
but on horses, so kind of yeah, a bit of
mixed mixed retap there. So yeah, it was. It was
very kind of creative, but also outdoorsy and a bit
of sailing as well, So yeah, I have cousins that

(18:20):
are really good sailors. I was not a really good sailor.
My dad is a really good sailor. But I was
chucked in little optimists and to get boats and just
to get on with it. Really, so I've sort of
always been thrown in at the deep end literally and
told to get on with it. But I wasn't necessarily
the champion or anything until I was very not the

(18:41):
champion in regattas and stuff. But it was good because
I was told to have a go well.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
Being on the coast, you had access to it, of course,
and your dad was a yachting photographer. So is that
the beginning of your interest in photography?

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, it is. It was something that growing up until
I was about thirteen or fourteen, I wasn't particularly interested
in because he had a dark room at home and
it was always don't come in here when the red
light's on, so it was almost like out of bounds,
and quite rightly, he was absolutely petrifoid. We didn't want

(19:24):
us to ruin any of his work while he was
mid processing, so it was you know, also again it
was if we were out and he was doing any photography,
because often we'd be taken with him. He started out
photographing local gatters in Devon and Cornwall for the sailings.
But he managed to be in that generation where you

(19:47):
combine your hobby and make a career, which was yachting
and photography. And yeah, so I even remember a couple
of times having to drive his rib boat him I
was about twelve or thirteen because his driver hadn't surned
up at a regatta. So just being told okay, forward,

(20:07):
reverse that, go right, go this, and the shouting instructions
at me. And actually that was really probably the beginning
of how it's like to be on a film set
and direction that's just immediate and urgent and understanding what
the person needs and why they need it. And for

(20:28):
him it was getting the best angle and the best
light on shales.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
So he did that as a profession. Then did he
the photography.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
Well, we'd moved to the West Country in the first place.
With his previous career, he'd started out and was in
the Army all his life.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
And.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
He'd got a posting that was in Plymouth. He was
in the Royal Engineers and he'd done all sorts of
postings in Germany and in Salisbury, and he was in
charge of lots of tanks and then he got this

(21:09):
job attached to Royal Marines, and that's why we ended
up in that actual area because it was close to
Plymouth and during his time probably I think we've been
down there about four years, and he just decided that
he wanted to pursue his passion. And yeah, he'd sort
of grown up within an army environment because he was

(21:33):
born in the war, but his parents were both served
in the army in the war, but his father carried
on and I think he just thought, actually, I don't
want to do this anymore. I want to do the
side of things and combine it with his passion for sailing,
which he'd done a lot of in the army already.
And I was used to ask him, why did you
join the army? You know, if he liked sailing, surely

(21:55):
you joined the navy. He said, oh no, no, no,
you get more a chance to sail in the army.
So that always battled me as a child. But the
way of if you want to sail small boats during night, okay,
So that was how we ended and that was how
we ended up down there. And so yeah, going back

(22:17):
to the kind of responsibility, it wasn't until I was
a bit older He probably just trusted me to hold
the camera and not drop it and all of those
sorts of things when he was obviously starting out and
building his own portfolio and career and reputation. And yeah,
and then and I think he found it really interesting
that I was interested in the more kind of arty

(22:38):
side of things. One of the first sort of big
py projects I did was when I was about fifteen,
looking at David Hockney and his dubist photography, where he
was almost that out the image, taking a photo of
the same thing, but moving his perspective. And I did
a couple of projects like that for school, and I

(23:01):
just thought, this is really interesting. It sort of was
more than what my father had been doing with the
yachting photography. It is sort of another way of expressing myself.
I'd always been into, as I said, kind of arts
and craftsy things and drawing that I enjoyed this element
and the angle.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
So where did that lead you then? Were you able
to get a movie camera then? Where as a child
and play with that?

Speaker 1 (23:30):
No. I had a Canon Stills camera and a pretty
good fifty mil quite fast lens actually, And it wasn't
until I decided to go to art Bridge and do
a foundation art course that I discovered moving image. I
didn't really think about moving image. I watched a lot

(23:52):
of videos because it was a day of the video
player of that, and when I was a teenager, I was,
you know, watching whatever the video shop had and arguing
with friends and siblings about what we sh'd watch or
not watch. And it was also growing up they didn't

(24:13):
really have access to the cinema easily. It was quite
a long bus journey away and I didn't really get
taken to the cinema. So where I found the most
inspiring kind of films that I suppose then progressed me
into my interest in film as a teenager was watching
Channel four late at night when I was babysitting as

(24:36):
I a seventeen year old, and Channel four, a TV
channel in the UK, used to show really interesting and
collected variety of films, old and new.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
So what was the appeal then, what were you watching?
What genres were you drawn to?

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Well, I suppose after kind of my original excitement with
period drama as a child and interesting that I remember
watching performance the Donald Camill and Nick Rogue. It was
a cinematographer on it, but he obviously was become to
become a director in his as his career evolved. And

(25:19):
I think I watched walk About as well when I
was sort of a teenager and about to think about
what I wanted to do in the future. And I
didn't watch it going oh, I want to make films,
but I just remember watching her going wow, I really
had to think about what that films about. And it's
not kind of it's not just a beginning of middle
and an end, you know. I kind of left with

(25:41):
more questions. And when I started watching it, and I
enjoyed the cerebral side of it combined with the visuals.
And my sister had gone and done a foundation art
course and Exeter and she was the one that said, well,
I'm living in London now. She'd moved to London by
that stage, why do you do a foundation art course

(26:01):
in London and be near me? And she sort of
just said, why don't apply to St Martin's. So I
just did. And it wasn't until I got to Art
college that I sort of explored the possibility of moving
image and collaborating with people in a kind of greater way.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
And then you went to the NFTC the National Film
and Television School in Beckersfield, Hertfordshire, So you were close
to London already. Was that a natural progression? Was that
easy for you to move from one to the next.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
I actually did a degree course in between, which was
still in London in the same building. So I did
the one year course at St Martin's and then a
three year course at the London College of Printing which
is now called the London College of Communication and I
think it's now under the umbrella of University of the Arts.

(26:58):
So that was my from the foundation and going I
want to work with like film. Yeah, from the foundation
and wanting to work with film, that was my gateway
into going, oh there's other you know, there's other students
who are making film in the same building and that

(27:19):
would be interesting to work with them. And I think
someone said, oh, why do you apply for the film course.
It's upstairs. So I did and again they said, well
if you if you in your interview, if you talk
about politics and feminism, you'll get a place. I was like,
oh really, So it was quite interesting that there was

(27:43):
quite a radical course through a radical course upstairs that
I didn't really know about. So that's sort of what
opened my eyes up to more political thinking and how
filmmaking can change people's way of seeing and way of thinking.
And I did three years on that course and really

(28:03):
kind of honed down to saying I want to pursue
in the camera department.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
So how did your politics develop, then, Nane Marie in
those formative years, as college life is where we start
to get opinionated, don't we.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Absolutely, And I'd sort of been in a very non
political sort of world in my parents were interested in,
you know, world politics, but it wasn't their main thing.
So it was really eye opening, a really interesting meeting

(28:39):
a lot of different people from all over the world
who are international students. Obviously, London is a fantastic hub
of meeting a lot of different people from all over
the world. And you know, we had a tutor who
was who'd spent many years making documentaries in Cuba and

(29:00):
was extremely politicized about that, and then we had students
who were from all over the Middle East and they
were kind of having dialogue with each other, and I
just felt like I was just surrounded by very incent
people that I wanted to listen to. So it wasn't
like I was sort of at the forefront of it.
But I think I was just absorbing it all and

(29:21):
getting quite excited, and again about the feminist side of
the kind of debate, I was like, oh, yeah, I
haven't really thought about that. Oh yeah, okay, that's interesting.
So it was a sort of slow emerging for me.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
And did it inform the genre of film that you
were gravitating towards?

Speaker 1 (29:43):
Then?

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Did it politicize you in a way in your creative
approach to filmmaking.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
Yeah, well, I think the whole sort of thought of,
oh I could work on documentary. That's interesting, I can
explore a sub and go deeper with it that hadn't
really ever occurred to me as a sort of genre. So,
you know, you on the degree course, you was just
told to go out with a camera and make a

(30:13):
documentary about something. And it was very easy to do
in London and go to different areas that I think
I was living in the East End and film the
street and all the different businesses on my street and
all the different people in the market, and again look
at a bit of the fabric of the history of
the area. So other people were making interesting films about

(30:34):
their squats that they were living in and how they
were being redeveloped for the King's Cross Eurostar terminal, and
how that that was an erosion of local history and
looking at kind of historic films that have been made
in this tiny area of London, and so yeah, it

(30:54):
was it was very exciting times in that way, and
London was moving fast in its development as well, so
that was an interesting angle to look at. I'm like, oh, okay,
we're living in quite fast times. Is sort of the
late nineties in the noughties. It's like London is changing

(31:15):
quite fast of the city and it's like kind of
looking back but looking forward as well. So that was
that was eye opening to me and interesting. And I've
got my antenna going for oh what else is out there?
And I did. I didn't really know what I wanted
to do when I left that degree course, so I

(31:35):
realized I needed more training on how to work with
a camera, and so I decided I'm going to go
and work in the camera department trainee. So that's what
I did for a year and a half. And it
was whilst I was doing that that I met one
of the first female cinematographers that I worked with, who

(31:57):
there was only about three working out there at time,
and she's called Cinders Foreshow and I was her semi
trainee on a kid in the corner and she had
been to the National Film School and said well we
should li there. So again it's it's been very much
people that have led me down these kind of routes.

(32:19):
It's not like I've had that vision from the beginning.
It's been a bit of a windy road for me
and exciting because it's sort of unfolded in quite an
organic way.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
And I'm sure that people ask you, well, how did
you finance this? Well, we all have to find our
way through college, and you did quite a bit of studying.
Spent quite a few years though, what three how many
years in total were you studying for a long time?
Six seven, eight?

Speaker 1 (32:46):
Yeah, it was the time. I was lucky to be
part of that generation where your local education authority would
pay for your sort your further education. So my foundation
and also your degree and my parents helped me pay
to live in London, and I also got jobs, one

(33:09):
of them being at the Prince Charles Cinema, so that
was another landmark of cinema in London which has showed
reruns and famously the Rocky Horror Picture here every Friday night.
So yeah, between sort of living in London or not
much money, but also having parents that did help fund that.

(33:33):
I won't lie at all. It was a mixture of that,
and I suppose my wages were probably more like pocket money. Really.
I also got a scholarship to go to the National
Film School, so yeah, I don't know how I would
have funded that now, and I do advise people that

(33:53):
that's not the only route if they're looking into how
do I do this? How do I get my hands
onto a film set and get involved? So it was
a route that was available to me at the time,
and I mean I obviously had to earn the places
to get there and do the interviews. But yeah, I
was very, very fortunate that that was that window in

(34:14):
time where a lot of it was paid for by
the government.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
What year would that have been then, when you graduated
from your three year college degree in London before you
went to an.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
FT nineteen ninety nine, and what kind of student were you?
I was definitely a sociable student. I was enjoying what
London had to offer at the time, an alternative culture
and going out to clubs and drum and bass was

(34:46):
a massive music scene that was emerging at the time,
and yeah, so I did. I worked hard and I
played hard, so it was. Yeah, it was definitely kind
of a creative time in London and lots of ideas
is buzzing down and interesting music and fashion and it
felt like, Yeah, London was quite electric at that point

(35:09):
and lots of places were at the beginning of their regeneration.
And I lived in Camden as well. For a year.
I lived in Marlin in the East End, and like
bands like Pulp were singing about living in that area,
so I kind of britpop was big. There was also
electronic music and music videos going with that that were
really exciting, And it was at the time where small

(35:31):
cameras were also just coming out, like small digital cameras,
not necessarily fantastic quality, but people were starting to kind
of make stuff that they didn't have to get all
the kits, so yeah, it was. It was. It was
a really quite exciting time to be a student in London.

(35:51):
And I was also friends with a friend from boarding school.
Flat flat shared with someone he's become a good friend,
and we both lived down the corner from each other.
In Camden's Matt Whitecross, who's the director, and he had
when he graduated at the same time as my film
Calls from an English degree UCL, he got a job

(36:14):
at Michael Winterbottom's production company, so I used to sort
of hang out with them and do a bit of
second unit and pick ups and just get to know
Michael Winterbottom, who's a prolific filmmaker, and really embrace the
sort of digital format. So yeah, it was exciting. I
sort of felt like I was in a bit of

(36:34):
a world where things were happening.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
Were you starting to get ambitious then when you realized
what was possible?

Speaker 1 (36:44):
Well, I think because I was around people who were
doing things that were exciting. And another friend who's a
dop who was at London got age of printing as
a deer people called blash Bogo, who he very much
knew that he wanted to be a cinema when he
started that course, and he went straight to the National
Film School as well, and I the first student shoot

(37:05):
that I ever worked on was his graduation film there,
and he was great at going Okay, this is how
you lad the film, this is what you do, and
so I learned a lot from other students when I
was there, and he's still somebody that I ring up
and go, oh, I'm about to do this. What do
you think? Have you got any bits of kit that
you'd recommend? And so so, yeah, and other gops. David

(37:28):
Radeker was around it. I think he was shooting stuff
at London Film School and I think I might have
assisted or ran on one of his student projects. So
there was there was quite a lot of groups of
people that you could move around in and not necessarily
start the fact just within your film school. If you
just put your radar out you could. You can meet

(37:49):
other students and tag along. So I did a lot
of crewing on other people's shoots, and probably not the
academic work wasn't focused on in quite the way. They
was a bit of a split between the academic side,
and I found the academic side interesting, but I was
hungry for just being on set.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
But these were mostly with men. Then, did you collaborate
at all with women at those early stages of your career?

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Not in the camera department really. I had a very
formative friend who was on my course in the same year, Karen,
and she was from Sweden, and there's quite a lot
of Scandinavian students and they seemed to have quite a
lot of support, more and more support than our government,
so they were they really got kind of backing. And

(38:40):
Karen was very good at kind of saying, look, I
need I need this for my student film, and so
she was a big influence. But she made me dissect
her script with her and go how would we shoot it,
how could how could we emphasize the emotion here and
what's going on in the character's mind to again, it
was a really exciting time just to kind of meet

(39:01):
other people who made me think more deeply about what
I was doing and kind of go, oh, I can
push this, I can take it further. It's like sharpening
a pencil, you know. So yeah, just learning not just
from from the tutors, but mostly from the students. And
she had sort of lived in Italy and was a

(39:23):
bit older than me, not much, but she'd lived a
bit of a life beforehand and lived in Naples, and
so I just felt, oh, that's exotic. You know, you've
lived You've lived in various countries, not just one like me.
So yeah, exciting.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
And then what when you were graduating did you know
what next?

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Well, I got the big there's a book called The
Knowledge that you could look up people's details before everything
was online, and so I just got this book and
looked at the dop or cinematoph section and I just
started at a and I think Cinders Foreshow and John
de Borman the DPS were the only ones that returned

(40:10):
my answer see message and said yes, so I am
looking for a camera trainee. So since I got the
job as I mentioned first with Cinders, and then I
got the job afterwards the Jonder woman and he was
shooting features and he said, well, I'm filming in Manchester.
We've got a trainee, but it's a football film and

(40:30):
we were doing that trainee. So I went up there
and I was at that point in time where I
had my sister's car. I didn't have a flat. I
was staying on her so because I graduated by that time,
and you know, the parents' support had s of stopped
by that point. And I was lucky enough that I
had grown up in an area where I had to

(40:51):
learn to drive, always able to learn to drive, being
in rural Devon. I think if your parents can afford
get you lesson. It's kind of convenient for them, so
they didn't become a taxi service, and so I was
just like, Okay, I'll drive to Manchester for luncheon and
he said, oh yeah, carry on. And the crew were amazing.
They paid my wages and I was sleeping on the

(41:15):
sound trainees sofa I think up there. So it was
kind of just a big adventure of sofa surfing and
being on set and learning and being given some cash
to sort of live off, and I was being fed
and I just needed petrol money really. So then the

(41:36):
jump came when I got a my last trainee job
after a few other sort of smaller jobs on tomb
Radar the first one, and kind of worked on that
for a year and with some of the same camera team,
and amazingly got taken to Cambodia and Iceland because often
the camera trainee isn't taken to the athotic locations, and

(41:59):
made a coffee for the camera crew. I didn't manage
to do much loading on the film or anything at that.
I think it was that everyone was just like, no,
we'll we'll do our jobs and you can just support us.
But I learned a lot by looking and that was
how I got most of my money to pay for
the National Film School. And I've been off for the

(42:20):
place by that point and done the interview process, and
that was I ended up. I ended up as on
a big bang on my kind of camera trainee work
before kind of going into the sort of deeper work
of learning about lighting and cinematography at the National Film School.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
So what was coming next then after you graduated, because
that's a big moment when you realize you're really out
in the world. Now.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah, that was quite That was quite a sort of
big moment of going, Okay, what now, because it wasn't
like I think it's a bit more lined now. And
of course I had a fantastic tutor in the second year.
It was brand Defaro, the cinematographer of brain Spotting and
challow Grave, and he was great. He really just was.

(43:10):
He believed in me, so I knew that I could.
I felt like if he believed in me that I
had an eye and imagination and quit thinking to be
a cinematographer, well I'm going to just keep pushing. So
I did a lot of music videos and a lot
of short films, and it wasn't really until I don't

(43:35):
know how long afterwards, but it was a good couple
of years and doing kind of stuff with the Michael
Winterbottom production company and Second Unit and things like that.
I yeah, sort of. I then got in my first
of TV job, which was a documentary series filming teenagers

(43:56):
with gambling problems. So that was another like oh okay,
that was where I felt like the door was open
for me at that point in time. I'd tried to
get into music video but it seemed difficult. The doors
were not always that easy to open, but documentary seemed
to embrace me, so I kind of threw myself in

(44:17):
with both feet. Really.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
What was that called?

Speaker 1 (44:23):
It was called Teenage Gamblers and it was a strand
that was for new directors. So there was quite a
lot of good schemes at that point in time where
it was like giving placements to sort of new people
out in the industry. And there was also some short
drama little slots as well. And that was it all

(44:46):
on Channel four.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Because I've noticed you had some early credits in early
two thousands for some shorts Voyagers, Lost and Fair and
after walking.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yes, after years of walking, was with a director that
I've met at the National Film School who was in
the documentary department, and she was from Belgium, Sarah Van
Act and she's still doing really interesting work in Brussels.
She does sort of documentary and video art and she

(45:26):
was looking into the colonial the effect of colonialism on Rwanda.
So our graduation film was in Rwanda and we looked
at ow the I suppose the kind of divide and
conqueror that had been happening in Africa and especially in

(45:50):
Rwanda by the Belgians had been the precursor to the genocide.
So it's pretty heavy subject. Two students going out with
a little camera. We went out there and filmed in
some quite incredible places, rehabilitation camps. They were people that

(46:11):
had been the yeah, the killers in the on the
Huta tribe'd been killers in the genocide. And this is
eight years after the decide, and we got access to
some pretty incredible places, I think because we just looked
like young students and what weren't taken very seriously. And

(46:31):
then we went out again after we graduated to another
film that was looking at children and how their play
and their imagination had been completely I suppose the world
of war was just immersed in their imaginative play.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
So how are you feeling about other genres? Then? When
you realized at the beginning that documentaries was something that
you had a passion for and a talent, how did
you regard other genres and how you needed to branch
out as a cinematographer.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
Well, I remember saying to Sarah when we were filming
on our last day of filming in Rwanda and going,
this is really been an incredible experience. I've been places
and seen things that I just couldn't have even imagined.
And it's all because you turn up with a fild

(47:28):
camera in your hand and people want to talk to you.
And it made me feel very grounded and just very privileged.
And it made me go, well, I need to hold
on to this feeling in whatever I do, because it's
a real gift. And I think, yeah, that has sort

(47:52):
of been something that I've got to find an intention
and a reason for what I'm doing. So even in
my moments of doubt where I'm like, oh, I'm not
necessarily working on big dramas, this is a long time ago,
and other friends were sort of moving up the ranks
in the drama world a bit faster and I'm maybe

(48:12):
doing smaller documentary projects. I was like, but this is
where I probably need to be right now, and it's okay,
And so i'd have one that the voice of doubt,
and then my inner voice just reminding myself, Okay, this
is okay, this is part of my journey and I'm
really enjoying it. So beyond this journey.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
So would you consider yourself an extrovert then? And I'm
fairly confident about your abilities at that time in your
formative years.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
I think I've always been someone that just gets on
with it, and if I start thinking too hard, I
might start thinking myself out of it. So I just
shut that part of my brain off. So I yeah,
I'm an extrovert for sure, But I do, of course,
like most humans, have that imposter syndrome that goes, oh
what or are we looking over my shoulder? Going but

(49:07):
they're doing that? Why aren't I doing that? And then
I need to just redirect my brain and say that's okay,
it's you know, it's yeah. So there is a little
bit of conflict, but I think I've learned it's learned
not to listen to that actually, because I didn't find
it very helpful.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
How about now, because obviously you've had a string of successes,
it would seem, and you're fresh off outrageous back from
doing the film festival circuit and you're back at work.
Does it seem now that you're not ever not working?
Is there always something?

Speaker 1 (49:48):
No? I do have little periods where I'm not working,
but I really embraced that because I've got a family,
a husband and two kids, and sometimes you just go, well,
this is me being able to have this family time.
I've got to cherish it. So yes, I'm fortunate and

(50:09):
very fortunate that I've got a husband who also works
in the industry, and he's got a staff job, but
he's in post production sounds. So I very much oh
the fact that I can take little breaks in work.
I don't often turn things down, so I'm not in
that much of a demand. But I'm very fortunate that

(50:30):
I've been able to grow my career and I've very
much focused on the drama side of things. In the
last ten years. We're doing a little bit of documentary
work because the schedules are finite, and having a family
and needing to know your timetable with something that was

(50:51):
very clear in the early days of having my son,
who's now about term fourteen, when the documentary work would
expand and I couldn't really work that with the childcare.
So that's why I kind of went Okay at this
point in time, I think I need to just focus
on the drama and then I'll know where I am

(51:11):
with what I.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
Need to do with the childcare, because that is a challenge,
isn't it, having a career and balancing family life as well,
especially with the travel that you need to do and
you're on location now.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
Yes, it really is. And I couldn't have done it
without my husband and my mother and my mother in
law like that. My career would not be possible without
their support and kind of just absolutely willing to help
with the childcare and be there for my children, and yeah,

(51:47):
really be second kind of and third mothers. So I
feel like I've been so fortunate to have that support
because without it, I wouldn't have been able to do it.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
So you told me your husband is in the business,
But how did you meet.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
We met through my best friend from school at secondary
school in Devon and she went to the Conservatoire in
Birmingham and it's a four year course, so she was
there a similar same amount of time as me or
my degree. She stayed back a year because she had
an injury, and she said, Oh, there's this guy I
think you'll really like and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(52:27):
And a few months later cut to we're together and
we've been together ever since. So he knew me very well.
So you've known each other how long since nineteen ninety nine?

Speaker 2 (52:41):
And when did you get married?

Speaker 1 (52:43):
We were married in two thousand and eight, So yeah,
we we didn't. It wasn't an immediate thing. We just
sort of evolved and lived together from early on and
lived in shared houses like lots of different friends. And
then we were like, maybe we should live by ourselves
for a bit. And after about a year of living
by ourselves, it's sort of accelerated that we've got cats.

(53:05):
And then he proposed so yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
And so was he then particularly supportive of you going
into the industry doing what you wanted to do as
a cinematographer. Then if he was in post, he was
in a different on the different side of things. But
how how much did that help you having a partner
at the formative stages of your career.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
Well, he wasn't in that. He wasn't in that industry
at that point in time. So he was doing a
music degree with my friend and he was doing viola
sort of for cler called performs and orchestral work, and
then I think he realized he didn't want to go
into that, so he ran a bar in South London

(53:51):
for several years while he worked out what to do.
When I was at the National Film School and it
was my friend that I'd slept on their sofas on
the Manchester job, there was two sound trainees on that
who said, oh, there's this job working in post production.
Are you interested. And because he's kind of got the

(54:11):
musical side and very musical, it was a sort of
really interesting and very easy transition for him to go
into the world of sound editing. And he's also from
a family where his father is an actor or was
an actor, because he's now not with us, and I
suppose he was very used to the fact that his

(54:32):
dad had done and his father of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
So I met him and I was very kind of like, wow,
your family are all so busy. This is exciting. So
that was another kind of strand of meeting very sort
of supportive people that were friends of his who were
also in the industry and actors and new directors and things,
and they were always interested in what I was doing

(54:55):
and what stage I was at and what short films
I was working on, and you know, so I had
another kind of side of the family that gave an
extra level of port and yeah, in kind of insight
into the industry.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
So now at this point in your career, what are
you looking for in your work?

Speaker 1 (55:19):
I suppose I've got to really connect with the characters
that I'm going to be filming when I'm reading the script,
connect with the story, and feel like there's an angle
that I can really go. I understand that, and I
can express that through the lighting and the camera movement

(55:39):
and really pull out this story. So that's that's what
I always kind of look for, is just like, do
I want to carry on reading this? Do I want
to see this world? And it is this sort of
making my sign ups buzz. And it's the same with documentary.
It might not be like I'm kind of going, look

(56:03):
this is this with well presented you in a script.
I met the director Ela Glen Dinning must be five
years ago now, maybe six, who's a documentary director, and
she was introduced to me through Vanessa White from the
Lulminatrix's mother, and she lived on the South Coast close

(56:24):
to me and was looking for a dop to work
with to film her in her sort of journey looking
at She basically wanted to find somebody else he'd had
the same sort of experience in the world as her.
Because she's a wheelchair user, she has got very short femurs,
so her experiences of the world has been very different

(56:47):
from anyone who's sort of I suppose the class is
able if you like. And it was an amazing meeting
and I just went, wow, I want to know more
about this interesting room I met her, and I want
to hear what she has to say about her experience
in the world. And we shot a film that was

(57:08):
only take a few months but ended up taking four
years because of COVID and various other things. But it's
a film that I've feel extremely passionate about and I've
learned so much working on it. So again it's I
just have to be drawn into the subject matter. For
the main character, whether that's a real person or one

(57:31):
on paper.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
How would you describe your style and your work now,
Anne Marie, And how do you think other people describe it.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
I suppose there's always been an emotional element and an
energy to it, and I think variety. But I've worked
with a male director a couple of times who just said,
I just think, yeah, there's a differ different You've got
a different eye, and I think that's partly being a

(58:04):
woman and how I emotionally connect to a story. But
it's really hard to say it's I think I would
say it's very character led. It's taking you on a
I'd like to say that you take your audience with

(58:25):
you on a journey that they didn't expect, and it
has wrist turns and highs and lows. So I think, yeah,
there's there's a real emotion and energy to it and
sort of zoning in on maybe the small details as
well as the massively broad tapestry or landscape that you're

(58:46):
looking at.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
Where do you think now that your most satisfaction comes
from creatively?

Speaker 1 (58:52):
I think satisfaction comes from exploring a story and seeing
if I can kind of surprise myself and not just
go oh, I did that on the last project, and
just like just constantly evolving and pushing my own boundaries
and going, oh can I even do that? Or you know,

(59:14):
building a really interesting team of people around me if
it's a drama and being surprised. I think, and.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
Are your children interested in what you do?

Speaker 1 (59:27):
Yes and no for about ten minutes and then you
know it's okay, and they're too interested in what they're doing.
So I don't blame them, but I think I think
they I think they are. I think it's just normal
to them, Like anybody who has a parent in kind

(59:48):
of the arts, I think it's like, yeah, that's just normal.
They go off and do this and oh yeah, I
can see it on the television or oh yeah, this person.
Because when I'm working with them more, I think as
they get older, they'll have that hindsight. But I think
children are just children. You don't really reflect for quite
a long time.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
So now, what do you do to relax at the
end of the day, if there is time beyond the family?
Is it going to the movies.

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
I'm a member of BAFTA, so if I can get
to the movies. I live in a semi rural area,
so I've definitely turned into my parents. And after the
years of living in London, I'm really lucky that I
live close to the Opera House blind Borne and kind
of have access to that amazing world and landscape. So

(01:00:41):
going to the opera is a new found and incredible
thing that I love doing and just somehow gives me
something else that satisfies me that's immediate and live and
very different. My son's getting really into going to gigs
as so as my daughters are going to see life

(01:01:02):
music is really exciting because that's sort of new on
the horizon. But walking from the sea, being in nature.
But yeah, definitely watching what I want to watch on
TV as well.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
And does that mean that you get to play what
you want to play in the car?

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
Not always. It has to be a long journey by myself,
so it depends. But there's a lot of music choices
that happen in the car a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
You have quite a variety of music tastes, don't you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
Definitely eclectic, it's you know, I love classical music. My
husband has really introduced me to a very broad world
classical music. It's really into the Romantics. We went to
Finland recently because of Sabelius and listen to all of
his well while we were out there for eight days

(01:02:03):
and we also saw the ice melting or heard the
ice melting on the lakes and it was incredible. It
was sort of a mixture of whale song and ambient
music and understanding the majesty of his work. I love
I've always loved a bit of disco. I think that's
from my mum, so that sort of evolved into kind

(01:02:27):
of modern pop singers like I saw Julipa last weekend
it when believed with my daughter and loved it. And
like dance music, drum and bass back from the nineties
that was a big thing. Didn't listen to it so
often these days, but it's definitely like, definitely presses a button.

(01:02:49):
And I love real Americana as well, So you know,
can Niel Young to Cosby Stills and Nashed a bit
of Bully So yeah, Lakuti as well. I went and
filmed at Calicuti in Nigeria for a documentary for Ajazira
English back in two thousand and eight, and that was

(01:03:12):
long filming with Bellicutti's son Shane and filming him perform
at the Shrine. That was an amazing experience. So Afroby
I was just like Wow. Why haven't I heard this before?
So yeah, very eclectic.

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
Well, finally, can you tell us anything about what you're
working on now or in the future or is that
still under wraps?

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
No, I can talk about what I'm working on now.
It's series two of the remake of a TV show
that was around when I was growing up called Bergeract.
So it's a detective show.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
And oh yes, I loved Bursuaak.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
Yeah, so I have very fond memories of watching that
and its new incarnation is really exciting and the lead,
Damian Maloney, is wonderful, so I'm very much enjoying that.
And I'm filming back in Devon don't tell anyone a
bit of Devon and Jersey gets mixed up, So I'm

(01:04:10):
revisiting some old haunts at the moment, which is pretty exciting.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Yeah, sounds wonderful. Yes, that was a lovely series that was,
wasn't it. We're going back a while.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
Though, absolutely, yeah, in eighties into the nineties.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
Well that must be fun to do. I envy you
that and some lovely scenery as well.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
Absolutely. Yeah. I feel like there's a bit of a
full circle moment happening, which is Yeah. Again, my teenage
self is probably smiling at me quite excitedly.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
Wonderful. Well, the best of luck with that and future projects,
Anne Marie, and thank you so much for taking time
to come on the podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
So nice to meet you, Chris, and thank you very
much for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
And don't forget to hop over to our YouTube channel
where Anne Marie and I continue our conversation. You'll find
us at the art podcast That's Art with two a's,
And while you're on your podcast app, don't forget to
scroll down, where you'll find the show notes and links
to Anne Marie's website, to her social media, and to

(01:05:11):
her imdbef profile. You'll also find a link to our
Instagram account and also our email address. If you'd like
to reach out to us with any suggestions for guests
on the show, we would love to hear from you,
and as always, we'd love it if you spend a
moment to give us a five star rating and review
on your Apple podcast app if that's where you're listening,

(01:05:33):
and if you're on Spotify, you can also leave a
review there too, And if your world is film and television,
you can find us on a separate podcast. Now Call
Time is just for women behind the camera in film
and television. We go behind the scenes to get to
know these women, from camera operators cinematographers of course, to

(01:05:55):
make up artists, to casting directors, stunt women and costume
any of the thousands of women who work behind the scenes. Again,
that podcast is called Call Time, and you'll find it
on any podcast app. Be sure to follow this podcast
or Call Time with anyone you think might enjoy these shows.

(01:06:16):
As always, we appreciate you taking the time to support us,
because we know how many podcasts are out there from
which to choose. Once again, my thanks to my guests
this week, Anne, Marie lean Vacou, and to you for listening.
I'll be back in two weeks time when my guest
will be the Hawaiian based muralist Jana Reggio. So I

(01:06:36):
do hope you'll join me then

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