‘The more I can work [outside] of the U.K., the happier I am,’ admits veteran British director of photography Richard Greatrex.

Greatrex’s workplace of choice these days is Vancouver, where he just completed the action-thriller Chaos, a U.K./Canada copro directed by Tony Giglio for Franchise Pictures and Vancouver’s Rampage Entertainment. Canadian producers include Michael Derbas and Gavin Wilding.

The project is a far cry from the cameraman’s big U.K. period pieces Mrs. Brown and Academy Award winner Shakespeare in Love, which garnered Greatrex an Oscar nomination of his own.

‘That’s why I was interested in Chaos – I had never done anything like it before,’ says the London-based lenser. ‘I love Vancouver and I think the Canadian crews are terrific, so when this project came up it gave me a chance to come back here.’

Greatrex worked in Vancouver last year on the comedy feature Connie and Carla, written by and starring Winnipeg-born Nia Vardalos.

Production on Chaos was slated for 37 days beginning on March 17, but due to funding difficulties triggered by a U.K. tax-shelter clampdown announced in February, the crew was laid off twice and Greatrex returned to England.

‘That has been the one thing that spoiled the experience for me to some degree,’ says Greatrex. ‘At one point we had worked for six weeks and not yet seen a penny.’

After the film was refinanced, the crew returned to work for good April 12, but had six days knocked off the original shooting schedule.

Chaos, director Giglio’s fourth feature film, tells the tale of disgraced veteran cop Quentin Conners (Jason Statham of The Italian Job) in pursuit of bank robbers along with rookie partner Shane Dekker (Ryan Phillippe of Gosford Park). As the pursuit unfolds, Dekker begins to suspect the heist was an inside job. Wesley Snipes plays the bank heist leader who has connections to Conners.

Giglio wanted a dark, film noirish yet energetic feel.

‘Tony called me and asked if I was afraid of the dark,’ recalls Greatrex. ‘I told him no, not realizing the film was going to be quite as dark and ‘broody’ as it turns out to be.’

In addition, Chaos would be shot entirely hand-held, with two cameras side-by-side.

‘It’s been a challenge for me, because filming hand-held, you’re not quite sure what might happen with the camera. It’s a very uncontrolled style, which I’m not used to,’ Greatrex explains. ‘I have two safety nets; one is if the director really wants it to be dark, things can sort of fade to blackness or disappear in terms of lighting. You just have to ignore some of your previous instincts.’

The other safety net is the film stocks at the cinematographer’s disposal, which in this case was Kodak’s new Vision2 Expression 500T 5229 negative.

‘With modern-day stocks you can take risks that 10 years ago you just really couldn’t have,’ Greatrex notes. ‘The Kodak film has such a fantastic latitude, especially in the shadow areas, that you only need to put out one light.’

Greatrex says the hand-held approach was initially met with some concern: ‘We got a bit of flack to start off [from] one of the producers… since nothing was stable in terms of look. But that’s exactly what we wanted, because it’s meant to be nervous, and the hand-held style along with the broodiness of it gave us a real edge.’

Location scouting made up the bulk of preproduction. In addition, director and DOP watched the Michael Mann films The Insider and Heat, which served as inspiration for Chaos for style, and since both involved the themes of anger and revenge.

Greatrex says working with a young director such as the 32-year-old Giglio has been a great experience. ‘Often inexperienced directors come with a set of firm ideas of how they want to proceed, and it can be tough for [them] to be open to having their ideas modified, because they don’t want their movie to be sent off in a direction they can’t control. But Tony surrounded himself with a good crew and remained open-minded, giving us a lot of freedom.’

Vancouver substituted for Seattle in the film, which Greatrex says worked out well for exteriors. ‘Many of the Seattle locations were done by the water and in downtown Vancouver, where you only have to take away the Canadian flags to make it work.’

For exterior and interior bank scenes, the predominantly Canadian crew constructed a bank within the Century City skyscraper complex in Surrey, just outside Vancouver.

Greatrex brought in his own focus puller, Dermot Hickey, from the U.K. Panavision Direct supplied the camera package, which consisted of two Panavision Millennium Panaflex XL cameras, operated by Canadians Gary Viola and Dean Hesselden.

Hesselden, a relatively new op, also manned the Steadicam. ‘He’s not been at it very long, but [he was] absolutely brilliant and I predict a great career for him,’ says Greatrex.

The DOP notes fundamental differences between crews here and in the U.K. In Britain, he says, there is a more defined hierarchical structure to film crews.

‘First off, you could never do this film in England in 31 days, since North American film crewing levels are higher,’ he says. ‘Also, in England, you feel as if the crew is slightly behind you – as if you’re up there an they’re down here. [Meanwhile], people in Canada see themselves as filmmakers even if they are lamp operators. They’re always wanting to contribute to the story and are very proud of their role in the production process.’

All of which is to say that B.C. has likely not seen the last of Greatrex.