Despite having worked with some big-name Hollywood directors, director of photography Jan Kiesser is still Canadian enough to respect the peer recognition and overall importance of a Genie Award nomination.

‘I think the Genies probably are a little more credible in terms of its selection process than, say, the Academy Awards in the U.S.,’ Kiesser says. ‘I think there is more of a direct involvement with the members of the particular branches of the [Canadian] Academy.’

His nod this year for the feature Rare Birds, directed by Sturla Gunnarsson, marks the DOP’s second Genie nomination. The first came in 1998 for Gunnarsson’s Such a Long Journey.

Born in Winnipeg, raised in L.A. and now residing in Vancouver, Kiesser began his career as an animation cameraman before trying his hand as a camera assistant on director Alan Rudolph’s 1972 horror film Premonition, for which he also handled the F/X. Kiesser credits Vilmos Zsigmond as his mentor, having served as the legendary cinematographer’s camera operator on Michael Cimino’s ill-fated Heaven’s Gate (1980) and Brian DePalma’s acclaimed Blow Out (1981).

Return Engagements

Kiesser’s first gig as a full-fledged DOP also came from Rudolph, on the director’s 1983 doc Return Engagement, which led to the lensing chores on Rudolph’s critically lauded romantic comedy Choose Me (1984). Since then, Kiesser has amassed credits including Some Kind of Wonderful (1987), Clean and Sober (1988), Rudolph’s Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994) and Dr. T and the Women (2000), which reunited him with director Robert Altman. (Kiesser served as operator on Altman’s 1979 comedy A Perfect Couple.)

Kiesser was first contacted by Gunnarsson when the director’s first choice for DOP on Such a Long Journey dropped out of the production. After reading the script, Kiesser jumped at the chance to shoot the film.

‘It was probably the most fulfilling work I’ve ever done because it was such a huge challenge,’ Kiesser says of the film, which shot in Bombay. ‘I was only able to take a gaffer, a grip and a focus puller. Otherwise I was dealing with a lot of obstacles to overcome on a technical level while managing people who don’t make films the way we do. It was very rewarding.’

Kiesser says he and Gunnarsson have ‘a healthy dialogue and collaboration’ during production and spend a great deal of time discussing how to translate the mood of a scripted scene into something visual. For Rare Birds, which tells the story of a wacky Newfoundlander who claims to have sighted a rare duck in the hopes of luring traffic to his neighbor’s struggling restaurant, the tone is that of a comedy with dark sensibilities. Kiesser felt it was important not to fall into the cliche of depicting Canada’s East Coast as bleak. He says the filmmakers decided early on to let the ‘rugged beauty’ of the province speak for itself, while keeping the film vibrant and colorful.

‘The look came out of the emotionality of the characters and the overall people and environment there,’ says Kiesser. ‘It is actually a much more uplifting place than the ruggedness of the terrain would lead you to believe. I think in looking at it as a dark and gloomy place you miss a lot of the natural beauty hidden behind the wind and under the fog.’

A fictitious restaurant called The Auk, the film’s primary location, was constructed on Cape Spear and the film began shooting in fall 2000 for a period of just over 30 days. Kiesser used an Arri BL4s 35mm camera fitted with Cooke S4 lenses and loaded with Kodak Vision film stocks. He served as his own operator – in part for budgetary reasons, but also because Gunnarsson liked the cameraman’s spontaneity on Such a Long Journey and hoped for more of the same. Kiesser’s crew included Vancouver’s Elizabeth House, his regular focus puller, along with local grips and gaffers.

Kiesser says the lighting setups for Rare Birds’ exteriors were basic, but with good reason.

‘It was a matter of survival,’ he explains. ‘It was a matter of trying to take advantage of the best light that we could get and then, when we ended up [with inclement weather], we tried to make the shots work as best as possible. [That] was about the only time we introduced much exterior lighting, which still amounted to very little.’

Sub lighting

Perhaps the most interesting lighting in the film takes place during an interior scene where neighbor Phonce [Andy Jones] leads restaurateur Dave [William Hurt] to his shed through a secret underground tunnel to look at a submarine Phonce has been restoring. The tunnel was illuminated by numerous single, glowing sheets. In the script, these are said to be the product of a technology discovered by a former Bulgarian business partner of Phonce’s that ‘actually breaks the energy equation.’ But of course, that is just fiction.

‘I was wondering what the production designer [Pam Hall] was going to come up with, but it ended up falling into my lap,’ laughs Kiesser. ‘The lights weren’t done with any effects at all. I think it probably comes across as done with some technical gadgetry – CGI or something – but in actuality we used sheets of electro-luminescence.’

The flat sheets emit a very low-level light and are along the lines of material used to light up the screen of a Palm Pilot, Kiesser explains.

The cinematographer had initially come across a German company on the Internet that offered a technology that could provide the same effect, but the supplier was unable to ship the production enough sheets to illuminate both the tunnel and the submarine interior.

‘We [force processed] the film two stops, shot wide open and did it,’ Kiesser recalls.

Up next for Kiesser is the Showtime movie Jack for director Lee Rose, which begins shooting in late January.

-www.rarebirdsmovie.com