Mark Kermode | BFI Player Choice

Through initially discovering Mark Kermode's works as reference for both my College and University essays, it was only until I pursued further personal reading into Blade Runner (1982) where I saw the impact Kermode had on Cinema.

In his documentary, On the Edge of 'Blade Runner' (2000) Kermode interviews Ridley Scott and asked him to, for the first time on camera, explain if Deckard was a Replicant. His explanation was one of the most significant answers I personally sought after.

Filming Kermode on a regular occurance for the BFI has not only been a personal honour to do so, but still serves as a very educational endeavor. Despite my knowledge of historical Cinema, Mark Kermode always reminded me of just how little I know and is still even today introducing me to hidden Cinematic feats.

The set up for the weekly BFI Player Choice series, is a clean and minimal frame on our white-infinity backdrop. Kermode's ability to speak without interruption allowed our workflow to only run 2 takes of each segment; a 35mm wide and a more focused 50mm frame, to give Nick Archbold Jones some dynamism in his edits.

There was only one issue we had to overcome each day of filming with Kermode: lighting his face with the priority of casting the least amount of shadows on his face from his iconic thick framed glasses. Each day we filmed, we thought of a potentially new method to overcome it and found ourselves joyfully always improvising new angles and placements of lights to combat this.