My Silent DoP: Cameraman John Harris, BSC, talks

Falk Schwarz: You worked with Bob Krasker on many films. When you first met him, he was already a well-established DoP. How did you get to know him?

John Harris: I was 24 when I first became assistant to Ted Scaife who was Bob’s operator on State Secret in 1949. Everything was new to me, I had to load and reload the camera, I made sure the batteries were charged, I had to get all sorts of things and was not really aware that the slim figure, always with a tie, was the DoP. He did not talk very much, sometimes he would sit behind the camera, look through the finder and then talked to the gaffer. Only later I got to know that the man behind the sunglasses was Robert Krasker. He sure had a reputation in the industry.

Your second film with him was Cry, the Beloved Country which was filmed in South Africa.

I was still an assistant. And also on the second unit. I remember we had to carry the heavy equipment up the hills in Zululand very early in the morning only to shoot the sunrise – in black and white. While the others were still asleep. I said to myself: never again on the 2nd unit. But the film industry does not take those complaints seriously. I hated the dirt and the rain and the mud and Bob and the rest also hated the director Zoltan Korda. In that we were united. But sometimes Bob really looked strained. He really did.

You became his operator two years later with the film Another Man’s Poison. Were you very nervous?

Oh, indeed. There was this first long shot on the station at night. I was sitting on the crane, Bob came up, looked through the lens, found it OK and went. I was up there compeletely alone with the focus puller and we had to do the whole long track shot in one go. From the station to the phone-box. And, you know, that was Bette Davis acting, one of the big stars from America. Not just nobody. It was bitterly cold. The motor of the camera would not work, so we had to take the film out, let the motor run for some minutes, then put the film back in and try again. It worked but I learned a lesson from that.

Was Krasker helpful?

Not really. He asked me if I wanted to become his operator on that film, I said “yes” and those were the consequences. I never had the slightest doubt that in a very serious situation Bob would help me out. But he was a hard taskmaster. And somehow I grew up to the challenge.

What was he like?

The first thing one realized was that pan glass he always wore round the neck. Later he had it worked into his sunglasses and so he wore them constantly and saw everything eight points too dark. But I think it had to do with his diabetes – he was terribly sensitive in the eyes. He also had a bag of coloured filters, bits of old glass he would stick paint on, also he used to have his own cloud filters. It looked tatty but it sure worked. Then there was the meter. It was an old one, looked somehow worn. Although he had it on a leash, he frequently put it down somewhere. And when he needed it, he shouted, “meter, meter, meter”. He held it always directly into the light of the brute to establish the density. But sometimes when he could not find it, he said, “never mind, I do the balancing anyway by eye”. When things got more complicated Bob would sometimes rely on Ronnie [Maasz] or me to work it out. He used to like to fine “tune” his lighting by watching a rehearsal through the camera, I would do the operating necessary by using the side viewfinder. It would mean that sometimes I would only get one rehearsal with the camera myself. Used to be a bore sometimes if it was a particularly difficult shot for me.

 In the old black-and-white days – how fast was the film and which lenses did you mostly use?

Negative film was slow – mostly ASA 64, later a bit better. Bob wanted me to shoot mostly with a 35mm lens, sometimes 40mm. But we used the wide-angle lens at 25mm on many occasions – for example on the shot in the cathedral in Romeo and Juliet when the Duke of Verona discovers the two dead bodies.

Were there many arguments about his tendency to make too dark pictures?

There was always the tendency to say, “it it is too dark, we reshoot it”. If Bob said, “we can’t shoot, not enough light”, the director came forward and said, “let’s try it. If it is not working, we’ll do it again”. But in most cases it somehow worked and it was not done again – and that angered Bob. He was such a perfectionist! However, there were exceptions. Tony Mann took every word he said seriously. But I have never seen Bob bossy or difficult to work with or shouting or swearing at others. He was always calm and most of the time rather shut within himself. Sure he was very well in track. But he was a silent DoP.

Bob loved “day for night” shots?

I don’t think so. But he sure could use those effects if he had to. He was brilliant with filters. For such a scene we used the red filter No. 72, closed the aperture and possibly even had a dark net over the scene so as to make it look absolutely realistic. And when we saw the rushes on the next day, we knew it had come out well.

Were you nervous when you looked at the rushes which showed how successful the photography of yesterday was?

Not really. Should there be blame, Bob took it very coolly. But mostly it was the other way round: the director said, “how beautiful”, Bob smiled and the work continued.

When did you learn about Bob’s diabetes?

We knew it all along. When we were shooting The Quiet American on location in Saigon he suddenly realized that he hadn’t got enough of his insulin. He looked grey and weak. We had to suspend shooting and if it had not been for our mixer, Basil Fenton-Smith, whose mate was a BOAC pilot and who flew the medication into Saigon, Bob would have been in trouble. It was a grave situation. And as I worked with him every so often, I had a good look if he had his medicine with him.

You photographed in your day many a “leading lady” – I assume it was not always easy-going?

Well, we – the camera-team – could always hide behind the camera and were a bit off-focus while the DoP and the director had to take all the blame and the misgivings of actors and actresses if something did not go the way they would have liked it. Ted Scaife once made a remark which really blew us off. “That leading lady”, he said, “does not need a lighting director, but a plastic surgeon”. Well, in those moments Bob looked at us, not knowing why we were laughing, with some misgivings.

Why do you think had he got a legendary reputation in the industry?

He was deeply involved in every film he did. He knew the script intimately, he knew the dialogues, he sometimes even suggested alterations to the script. So his lighting always came from within the story. And if you look very carefully you will see why his films are so extraordinary: his backlighting of a scene. It is something that you really don’t see – unless trained – it is the light you feel, that creates the atmosphere in a picture, it is indirect, sometimes magical, hard to realize where it comes from. On that he worked very diligently, it sometimes took him longer than anyone of us would have had patience for; the result was that the actors in the film seemed to have by some magic a third-dimension to them.

You think he was more of an artist than a technician?

Bob was a modest man, fair and he always knew quite clearly the effect he wanted, and moreoever, knew singlemindedly how to achieve the best possible results. He was also extremely generous, as many who were in need will testify, a lover of children, and greatly beloved by them. He was a man to look up to. Very restrained. Not easy to get to. But he was by all of us held in great respect.

Interview recorded in February 2009 and March 2011 in West Wittering, Sussex.

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