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INTERVIEW : Peter Robertson The Man Behind the Camera

9th Annual Irish Film & Television Awards

11th February 2012
9:40pm RTÉ One

This year cinematographer Peter Robertson (Garage, Inside I’m Dancing) has been nominated for an IFTA for his work on RTÉ Waterways in the new TV craft category for Director of Photography. During his long career Peter has worked across film, television and documentaries and is no stranger to the IFTAs having been nominated three times and winning in 2003 for his work on Song for a Raggy Boy.

IFTA caught up with the cinematographer to talk about his nomination, how he got into cinematography in the first place and what it was like to work on Waterways nearly twenty years after the first series.

IFTA - Firstly congratulations on the IFTA nomination. How does it feel to be nominated this year?

Peter Robertson- It’s great. It is always good to be nominated for anything.

IFTA – You’ve had a long career in the industry, what drove you to become a cinematographer in the first place?

Peter Robertson- I opened a business selling upmarket hi-fi and video equipment and the business went down the tube. I took some of the gear and started making corporate type videos and it was sort of out necessity that I got into the business. I never really dreamt or had a dream of becoming a camera man.

I have to say in the early or late seventies the thought of becoming a camera man and earning a living was like, I might as well have become an astronaut in Ireland! It just was not an option. So I sort of fell into it (Laughs).

I came to cinematography quite late. I was in my late 20s when it all happened. I had a seasonal business before that which enabled me from the age of 18 to earn a certain amount of money, but it was never what I wanted to do. I was travelling a lot; I was living in the States in Los Angeles. I worked with people who did music videos and I was helping them. I suppose that is where the bug came from. They were making pop videos on Venice Beach and the Hollywood Hills and that sort of stuff and I just thought ‘Jesus! This is ok and I am getting paid for it’ but I was just hanging out to be honest.

Now I wasn’t exactly on Venice Beach when I came back to Ireland I have to say. (Laughs) The first video I did was a carpet sales video for a friend of mine but I did enjoy it and I liked. So I did a course in Carr communications which is gone now I think. They ran a training course at the time which was the pre-runner to FÁS. Most people wanted to be directors and producers, there were few who wanted to be camera men and editors. I did both. I obviously had a bit of talent and they recognised it. They kept me on after I finished on a freelance basis; that was my first paying job. I learned a lot very quickly because I was shooting and editing my own material. So that was a very fast learning curve.

From there I started doing more upmarket corporate videos. I got into news. At the time Northern Ireland was going on so I got a lot of work from that for the BBC and UTV through Windmill Lane. Then I did sports and documentaries and magazine programmes. I suppose my first break out of that, because I always wanted to shoot drama and film, was when I started doing steady. It was around the same time I got the first ‘Waterways’ in the early 90s. ‘Waterways’ was shot on 15mm film which was, at that time, most unusual because most television at that time was shot on digi beta or tape. It was a big break for me and it was a high profile show. After that I started doing steady cam on dramas and I started lighting commercials and lighting dramas, so there you go. Certainly the first Waterways was a milestone in my career. It’s nice to be nominated now, twenty years after we did the first Waterways.

IFTA - What do you enjoy most about your job do you think?

Peter Robertson - Well the people and the variety. Obviously I don’t just do documentaries, I do dramas, feature films, TV, commercials, whatever. I like that variety of it. Generally the people I work with it are like minded people. Working on Waterways there was a crew of about three or four and then I worked on a film in India and there were 200 on the crew. So it is just really diverse.

IFTA - Speaking of ‘Waterways’, what was it like to work on that show again after so long?

Peter Robertson – Just to be transported back, as I said, it had been twenty years since we did the first one. Now during the first one, we were all much younger and it was very gung hoe. We would work 20 hour days without even thinking about it. When I think back at the amount of work we did and what we did… I suppose this time we were a lot more experienced and things had changed. There was a lot of night work in the first series which was very difficult because we didn’t have a big crew. Trying to achieve those big canal shots, oh like Shannon, trying to light the Shannon with three people c’mon!? but we sort of did it, which was even more amazing. I probably shouldn’t tell you this but one day we shut down half of Cavan because we jammed into the electricity supply in Coot Hill and we blew it up. (Laughs) Well we tripped it, I should say, and the whole of Cavan went out. Then instead of having one electrician who didn’t know what he was doing, we had about 15 down and they were all over the place. It was fine though, they had a sense of humour, just as well. This time it was funny going back because you were working with people who you hadn’t worked with since then. So it was just like a time warp really, here we are again kind of thing. Brendan telling the same jokes again, but it was great fun.

IFTA - What are your favourite techniques to use in your work?

Peter Robertson - I like lighting things. I get a lot of satisfaction when I light things simply and they turn out well. That is what gives me the most satisfaction actually. When you do something without a huge amount of hoo-ha and it looks really good. I think that is great.

IFTA - Who has been some of your favourite directors to work with and what were those working relationships like?

Peter Robertson - I can’t even think of any directors I have worked with. (Laughs) Aisling Walsh I really enjoyed working with and we got on great; the whole Raggy Boy experience. I mean some of them have been horrible; some of them have been ok. I am talking about the experience now, not how the films turned out. That one was just a really good experience. I really enjoyed working with Damien O'Donnell on Inside I'm Dancing and Andy de Emmony on West is West’. I also had a really good working relationship with Thaddeus O Sullivan who I worked with on Amber and Proof.

IFTA - How important do you think a ceremony like the IFTAs is to the industry in Ireland?

Peter Robertson - To be honest with you I think it is great that Irish talent is celebrated. I think it is good that this new category is there because I won an IFTA before for drama and now I’m doing this for television and there are a lot of people who do television and never touch drama. Why should they not be recognised? They are very good in their own right; in what they do. They make great documentaries and great documentary dramas and they deserve to be recognised.

IFTA - You’ve been in the business a long time, over thirty years. What do you think has changed in that time?

Peter Robertson - When I started this job it was very difficult to get into. There were very few freelance cameramen. There were about eight freelance cameramen and most of those came out of RTÉ. So there were very few that came out of left field like myself. Apart from the dynasties like the Corcorans and the Deasys, Cian De Buitlear and his father, who were steeped in the business, all of that. Now it is completely different, there are 1,000 cameramen in Dublin working on different things, independent projects, their own stuff, shooting stuff for the web. I would say it is probably very difficult to make a living although there are a lot more opportunities.

IFTA - You were speaking earlier about your IFTA win for Song for a Raggy Boy. What did it mean to you to win that at the time?

Peter Robertson - It was really good for me to win that. It was difficult because I was up against a really good friend of mine and we have remained friends since, Ciaran Tanham. It was almost like I didn’t want to win it but of course I did. I was really pleased. Raggy Boy was a small film. It just proved to me what a lot of people said, that you have to have a lot of pain to have something turn out well and that, for me, proved it. I enjoy my work, I enjoyed the people I worked with and the things we were shooting. I was talking to a young AD yesterday who said it was one of his favourite films to work on, it was great. We both did really good work and we both enjoyed ourselves. It can’t get better than that. Well it would if you got paid better, but you can’t have everything (Laughs)

IFTA - So what is next for you Peter?

Peter Robertson - Well currently I am working on a new BBC drama which starts shooting next week for 12 weeks. It is a comedy drama Vexed and it is fantastic to be working at this time of the year. It is also shooting in Dublin, which is fantastic.

 Peter is nominated for Director of Photography in Television along with Richard Kendrick for Two For The Road, Michael O’Donovan for The Writing in the Sky and Kieron Skyne for Departure Days. The 9th Annual Irish Film and Television Awards take place on the 11th of February 2012 in the Dublin Convention Centre and will be broadcast live on RTÉ One at 9.40pm GMT

 For further information visit www.ifta.ie or follow IFTA on Facebook and Twitter