Richard S Long: a lifetime of shooting pictures…

Interview – 2016

Veteran cameraman Richard S Long has captured images everywhere from Singapore to the Southern Alps. He began by shooting news for state television in the mid 1970s. He then moved on to filming for Fair Go and The New Zealand Wars. Long also did time directing commercials in Asia, and wrote and directed movie thriller Not for Children in 2015.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Long talks about:

Feeling nervous during his early days filming news in the 1970s
How former Prime Minister Keith Holyoake shared unusual details of an accident on camera
Being horrified by what he saw while working on Springbok Tour doco Patu!
The use of ‘cover vans’ while doing covert filming for Fair Go
Rearts showKaleidoscope enacting a major truck crash for Heroes
Filming from the bonnet of a moving car for the same series
Literally going of a cliff while filming documentary series The New Zealand Wars
How an article on global crime inspired his ambitious movie film Not for Children
Using locations in Auckland to depict London and Libya
Hoping to take the film to the Cannes Film Festival

This video was first uploaded on 22 February 2016, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside

It was horrendous. I remember retreating up a driveway. I think I had about 60 feet [of film] left . . . All the time I'm thinking 'where is my other mag? Where have I got more film? . . . do I continue rolling on this, or is it gonna get worse?' And that was always the dilemma.
– Richard S Long on the chaos of filming the Springbok tour protests for doco Patu!

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