ACS SA branch Committee Profile: SA President Ernie Clark ACS

Well this is going to be a bit weird, I have to ask myself the questions, give the answers and be the editor! Hope I don't ramble on too much!

So Ernie, what's your favourite film?Well there’s a few, how about Blade Runner, Amelie, Days of Heaven looked amazing.

What's your favourite TV series?Easy ? Ed. Breaking Bad, Dexter & Mad Men, oh and Game of Thrones was pretty damn good too! From another era, Get Smart was wonderfully ridiculous.

What's your favourite on set snack?Water and more water.

What are your first movie memories?When I was 5, my single mother used to take me to see the Saturday Matinee ( I think to get a break from me) at the Rivoli Cinema in Camberwell in Melbourne. I'd watch a serial like Flash Gordon or cartoons like Bugs Bunny or the Road Runner, maybe a Cinesound or Movietone newsreel or short film followed by a feature such as Tarzan's Peril. Not very deep but still entertaining to a little kid and I think it cost something like 3 pence.

And your first photographic experience?Taking (bad!) stills on a bakelite, or was it plastic, Kodak Brownie camera with a crappy lens using B&W VP127 roll film. I had no sense of composition!

Ernie assisting Volk Mol ACS shooting hand held on a 2c ARRI on a night shoot at Rennie Ellisʼs house circa 1973

So how did you start in the film industry?Well....I was supposed to be doing year 12 at Camberwell High in Melbourne but instead I was working at Arthur’s pool hall at Camberwell Junction. Eventually the headmaster offered me the choice of staying at school and working or leaving school. I chose the latter and whilst I was being interviewed at the CES (Commonwealth Employment Service) a film company rang looking for a trainee. Their provisos were, applicants had to attend the interview in a suit, not have long hair and not have been to film school. I hadn't been to film school, borrowed a suit and got my long hair cut by my girlfriend that night and went to the interview the next day and landed the job at Browning Productions! This was 1971 and it was very serendipitous!

Tell us more.Browning's was a large TV commercial production house, with 5 directors, 4 film editors cutting on upright Moviloa’s, a sound department and a camera department with the very talented Volk Mol ACS (Accreditation #31) as the DoP, his assistant was non other than Malcolm Richards, the owner of Cameraquip, there were over 30 on staff! I was trained to operate the first video split which they had invented. It was large, cumbersome and the picture quality from the big B&W camera recorded onto 1/2" helical scan video tape was pretty poor. But it got me on set where I could observe!

Of course the world was Black & White then, well at least Television was, but since we made big commercials for the cinema as well, we sometimes shot in colour. It was great starting off in B&W, using filters to alter the contrast or the colour of objects. I still remember the #'s of the B&W Kodak stocks we used - 5231 for Plus X 35mm Negative 100ASA, 5222 for Double X 200ASA and 5224 for Four X Neg 400 ASA.

Who were your mentors?Mike Browning was the owner of the business, the main Director and previously had been a very good cinematographer. He was extremely clever, he invented and built the 1st optical printer in Melb and he directed thousands of commercials. We would shoot a lot of special effects in camera, many things were shot backwards, upside down, using half silvered mirrors, different scales, nodal points, front & rear projection, double or triple exposures it was the best film school I could go to. Volk was a very precise cameraman of Dutch heritage, he was firm but fair and I learnt heaps from both he and Malcolm.

L>R back - Director Mike Browning, Derek Wynnefront Volk Mol ACS, Ernie & Prod Mgr Denis Ingram

Note the flares & the safety shoes! Shooting in Paddington.

We had a product stage on the corner of Kings Way & St Kilda Rds in Melbourne and a studio at 18 Yarra Place, South Melbourne. If you're in Melb there's a great cafe there now called St Ali, fantastic coffee and this is where my camera room was. I digress.

In the camera room we had a bunch of 35mm and 16mm cameras. Arriflex 2, 2a, 2c, 35mm Blimp, 16 BL, ST and later an Eclair ACL. We even had an old Auricon optical sound on film camera which I would sometimes shoot screen tests on. We also had various zooms (some of them could only be used for B&W) and Schneider fixed lenses. Anyway I spent

any spare time at work putting the cameras together and pulling them apart and when, after 6 months, Mal left I was prematurely promoted to Assistant Cameraman at the ripe old age of 18!

So I had to sink or swim. I think I swallowed quite a bit of water, I was just treading water for a time but I survived and every now and then was given various things to shoot like pack shots, screen tests, pick up shots and the occasional 2nd or 3rd camera on some of the larger jobs. I didn't always achieve the desired result but my mentors were very patient and I always gave a 110%. I couldn't believe how lucky I was, we travelled all over Victoria, to South Australia & NSW, even overseas filming big cigarette TVC's, car ads, shampoo, fast food, you name it we filmed it. It was not only an education in film but also travel, restaurants, manners, dealing with people, management, responsibility - sort of a finishing school for a not particularly sophisticated young man.

The powerhouse Production companies in Melb at the time were Fred Schepsi's Filmhouse, Bilcock & Coping, Cambridge Films, Crawford Seniors and Brownings which changed it's name to Studio Corporation. There wasn't really a freelance scene in the 70's so during this time I was also hired out freelance and had the opportunity to assist many other wonderful cinematographers including Peter James ACS ASC, Peter Menzies ACS, Vince Monton ACS, Ian Baker, Peter Purvis, Ron Johanson ACS, Graham Lind ACS and Keith Wagstaff ACS. Around 1974 I also started shooting many music clips for Paul Drane from Countdown (Ace Productions) and Ron Brown from RR Productions. I shot heaps of them - Skyhooks, Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, Sports, Mark Holden and Deborah Conway to name a few, this continued well after I left Brownings.

Why did you leave Browning's?After 5 years at Brownings a small TVC production house called Total Film & Video in Prahran offered me the job of Lighting Cameraman. Volk reluctantly but kindly encouraged me to take the job, telling me I was capable and my first shoot was a Honda motorcycle TVC in Adelaide & Perth. It was then I realised how much I hadn't learnt whilst working at Brownings. I must have been looking too much at the female models or something because it seemed I'd missed quite a bit. I quickly had

My first shoot from a ʻtracking vehicleʼ in Ballarat, in the fog, 6 degrees, with Mike watching on!

Shooting at Total. The hair grew back!

to lift my game and I did learn quickly at Total because there were only 6 people working there so I not only shot, but sunk up my own rushes (that teaches you to shoot slates properly!), edited on flatbed Steenbecks (no more crossing the line!), found locations & props and Directed when the in-house director, Don Fitzimmons, would go on holidays. It was like doing my Honours in Film. Every now and then the advertising agencies would want to use freelance Directors and one of these was George Miller (The Man from Snowy River George Miller not the Mad Max one) and I got to shoot a few ads with him.

You shot Val Morgan ads?Another of my roles at Total was to shoot 20 second Val Morgan Cinema Ads on 35mm. These were sold, conceived, written, produced and Directed by Nina Syme and we'd shot them in 2 hours trying to do 3 to 4 a day to spread the cost of the camera hire. So with a crew of 3 (sheer luxury, I had an assistant cameraman) I'd light them myself with whatever gear we had at Total and learnt heaps by working with this creative woman. After 2 years at Total I decided to go freelance as I was missing working on the bigger productions that I had become used to at Brownings. Whilst freelance I got to shoot my first bit of drama, 2 episodes of a kids series called Coast Town Kids filmed in beautiful Lorne on the Victorian coast. I also began shooting a few commercials in Adelaide for a company called Directors where a beautiful and smart Production Manager named Julienne Webb worked.

Somehow, when I was at Total, I must have impressed George as not long later he offered me my first big drama about the outlaw Ned Kelly “The Last Outlaw”, a 4 episode mini-series on the life of Ned Kelly, directed by George and Kevin Dobson. This was a large undertaking, shot in country Victoria near Seymour, with a whole period township built, a very large crew and a budget in the vicinity of $2 million - remember this was back in 1980! It was fortuitous that I'd shot the pilot in Lorne or otherwise I wouldn't have had a drama piece on my reel to show the producers that a TV commercial cameraman could shoot Drama. I still had to convince the rest of the crew, a lot had come from Crawford Prodn’s.

The Last Outlaw. L>R Loader Warwick Field, Continuity Julie Bates, Ernie and Cam Assistant Harry Glynatsis

Why did you move to Adelaide?In 1981 I was invited to shoot a miniseries, Sara Dane, for the SAFC and Adelaide became my aDoPted base. This was my chance to chase up Julienne Webb again. Now she's known as Julienne Clark! Besides a gig as Director/DoP at Great Southern Films back in Melbourne in 1985-86, Adelaide has been my home since. The early 80's were a prolific time for me, I was Director of Photography on many films & mini-series including, The Term of His Natural Life, Robbery Under Arms, Under Capricorn and Indecent Obsession.

When Julienne and I decided it was time to have kids I gave long form projects away so I could be home more and therefore in 1987 I became a partner with Elspeth Baird in Great Southern Films Adelaide, a commercial production company, which in 1997 changed its name to e.films. Here I shot thousands of TVC's. Over the years many crew have had their induction into the film industry at GSF & e.films

In 1998 I directed the feature film Spank for David Lightfoot - David Foreman ACS DoP'd it for me and later in 2000 established my own company, Ernie Clark Films. During the first half of 2003 I was DoP on the feature film Peaches and in 2007 I was B unit Director/DoP on the ABC series Rain Shadow, now I was working under David Foreman ACS.

What are you shooting now?In recent years, in between working on commercials, I have been doing a lot more 2nd unit Director/DoP'ing including on the feature films Red Dog, Wolf Creek 2, Healing, The Water Diviner & the mini-series Deadline Gallipoli as well as shooting a few short films including A World Away and more recently Injury Time.

On the set of Sara Dane

2nd unit Camera Crew on Red DogRussell “Rusty” Marrett, Ernie & Maxx Corkindale

What are some of the special memories for you?Well besides all of the wonderful crew I've met and become friends with and the amazing locations and places I've been some of the accolades that resonate with me most are receiving Australian Cinematographer’s Society Accreditation #145 in 1983 and receiving two National Golden Tripods and two National Awards of Distinction. In 2003 the Adelaide Art Directors Club presented me the President’s Prize (The Silver Watering Can) for services to the Advertising Industry and in 2006 I was inducted into the ACS Hall of Fame. I was awarded the AADC Master’s Chair Craft Award in 2010. This year I was thrilled to receive the Ron Windon ACS Contribution Award for Outstanding Service to the ACS and the Australian Film Industry as well as Life Membership to the ACS.

Over the years I have been lucky to be involved with lots of clapper loaders, camera assistants and operators careers. Many are fantastic DoP’s in their own right including David Foreman ACS, Martin Turner, Wayne Aistrope, Brian Breheny ACS, Garry Phillips ACS, Geoffrey Hall ACS, Warwick Field (Victorian ACS President), Robert Murray ACS.

Why did you join the committee of the ACS?Milton Ingerson OAM ACS got me to join, years back, I couldn't get to a meeting in that first year but little did I know Milton had a plan. He worked on me for some time (my company were a Gold sponsor for many years) Milton was grooming me for the role of President and in 2003 I became President of the SA branch and continue to be, except for 2 years off in 2005-6 when David "Wooly" Woolford took over the reins.

Since my great mate Ron Johanson has been National President I said I would help him so I became National

Vice President in 2007 and am actively involved at the National level including being on the Accreditation Panel, I'm Chair of the Awards committee and on the Hall of Fame committee. I have judged many cinematography awards, designed our current judging system and served on numerous Accreditation panels. I’m extremely proud to have ACS Accreditation and try to give back to the industry and society that has given me so much.

Any other interesting facts?I had to watch Neighbours for 4 years because my son was an actor on it. Things you do for your kids!!I’m extremely proud of my daughter Ineke, the only Clark to get a Uni degree!When shooting Term of His Natural Life the American Producer, Wilton Schiller, would walk onto set, look at me & exclaim "I've got a damn school kid shooting my movie!"I've never met, or known of, another Clark relative other than my Mother.We didn't have television at home until I worked in the film industry and then I bought one.My favourite after work snack is a glass of wine!

Some wonderful mates. Linda & Ron, Rita & Graeme, Julienne & Ernie