Reprinted from Indie Slate magazine Issue #25 Winter/Spring 2002
Running on Indian Time is a featured short in the Native American category of the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. Director/writer Duane Humeyestewas film short is about reconciliation between a fallen tribal leader and his son. The 21-minute film was shot on 16 mm for about $15,000. Director of Photography John Golden Britts last two films, Running On Indian Time and Storyteller, have been accepted for screening at Sundance. Britt spoke recently with Indie Slate contributing writer Ronnie Clifton and shared some of his techniques for making a low budget film look bigger.
It's 8 am and the low winter sun illuminates a 200-foot red sandstone wall on the edge of the Laguna pueblo in New Mexico. Railroad tracks thread beneath the cliffs where a man is standing patiently with a camera on a tripod. John Golden Britt is waiting for a train, peering through the eyepiece of a 16mm motion picture camera. His truck is hidden in a bottom nearby to avoid attracting attention here on the reservation. See, the producer of this short, Running On Indian Time, may not actually have the necessary permits today.
"This is a shot of Amtrak barreling over this Indian-owned landscape, Britt says. It's all working, and I don't see any need to wave any flags with the locals. I remember as a boy in southwest Louisiana, you could wander onto land maybe owned by Esso or Mobil Oil and shoot some squirrels. Now Im just shooting pictures.
Pretty good ones, too. This is cinematographer Britts second independent film in a row to be screened at Sundance. Howd a DP tucked away in Albuquerque manage that?
I grew up with a house full of American Lit. -- Jack London, Faulkner, Twain, Britt says. And most of the people in the neighborhood could tell as good a story as theirs, so I had to keep up with everybody.
That storytelling ability led to college in Lafayette, Louisiana, majoring in English. To pay for it, Britt got a job there with KATC-TV3 as an $8 an hour videographer. It was the typical small-town footage of fires, freaks, festivals and football. All the shooters for the two stations in town started an informal competition to see who could get the coolest angle or best edit of a package. Everything was done on the fly, so I got used to shooting on hellish deadlines while keeping the story and the look interesting.
Britt shot his first music video in 1990 for a Cajun roots-rock band, The Bluerunners. It was also where a pattern emerged: Make as much as you can with the budget you have. One scene required a Steadycam low-angle shot running behind some cows in a pasture, but the rental was too expensive.
I mounted a camera to a two-by-twelve board suspended with ropes we held while chasing after those Holsteins, Britt laughs. We called it the Cajun Cam. Britt and The Bluerunners had the last laugh -- MTV ran the video on its influential 120 Minutes program, leading to a national tour for the band.
Britts style was soon noticed in 1992 by Nashvilles Scene Three. With Scene Three at the time arguably the busiest music video production house in the country, he went through what amounted to film boot camp. Cranking out music clips during 16-hour "flailathons was commonplace, so Britt quickly learned how to work within the film medium. By 1997, he became a freelance DP and moved to Albuquerque for the famed New Mexico light.
Scene Three hired the top music video directors of the day, so I apprenticed with the masters of the craft, Britt says. My forte became camera trickery and making things look pretty, but doing it really fast and efficient. Scene Three further taught me how to stretch a quarter into a dollar, which comes in handy on indie shoots.
Britt was approached last year by Hopi director Duane Humeyestewa and asked to do Running on Indian Time. Humeyestewa had seen Storyteller at Sundance the year before and liked the way the actors in the film were photographed, particularly Native Americans Fredrick Lopez and Adan Sanchez.
While the whole film was beautifully shot, there was this particular scene in Storyteller that had frenetic, handheld camera work that reminded me of the beach landing in Saving Private Ryan, Humeyestewa says. It had this hyper-real look that was dazzling, and I knew I had to have this DP for my film.
That was done by adjusting the Éclair cameras shutter down to 60 degrees as opposed to the normal 180, Britt comments. It captures a tiny slice of time and action in each frame for that staccato feel.
Humeyestewa wanted film, but with about $15,000, he was on a video budget. The look he sought was similar to All the Pretty Horses and Thin Red Line.
Duane really wanted the highest quality look for the least money, and there was never any question about whether or not to shoot film, Britt says. I immediately suggested the Kodak 7248 stock. Its a finely grained, versatile color negative that Ive used for years, but its pretty slow, which meant we would definitely need a suitable lighting and grip package to do night exteriors and day interiors.
But again, budget was an issue. Serious Grippage in Santa Fe really worked with us, and we had just the right tools for the job -- nothing more and nothing less. We also rented a Zeiss zoom and a Canon telephoto prime from Monarch Broadcast right here in Albuquerque.
The art gallery scene in Running on Indian Time presented an interesting challenge: Light a large interior location and 30 plus extras, but do it on chump change. Britt burned the midnight oil experimenting in his garage and came up with a $100 lighting rig that normally rents for over $1000.
The Rivera Gallery is a big room, 24 feet wide and about 60 feet deep, Britt explains. The 16-foot ceiling was ancient tin, so we couldnt anchor to it. Using speed rail and high-roller stands, we built a sort of clothesline on wheels, with paper globes hanging below, so that everything was adjustable for their placement in the room. The 1000-watt photofloods in each globe gave us plenty of soft, cosmetic light that caressed and enveloped everyone in the scenes. After looking at the dailies, youd swear we had a big lighting package.
No doubt Britt has become one to watch on the Indie circuit. Will Albuquerque be able to hold on to him if he keeps batting a thousand at Sundance?
The sunlight in New Mexico is stunning, no secret there, Britt says, but the moonlight is just as remarkable. Its essentially bounce light from the sun that isnt reduced by dirty air or light pollution.
Sounds like John Golden Britt wont be moving to Los Angeles anytime soon.
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