Leon Narbey: Illustrious cinematographer...

Acclaimed Director of Photography Leon Narbey has had a hand in many of New Zealand’s best known films. He directed the feature film Illustrious Energy in 1987, and has been the DOP on other major film projects such as Desperate Remedies; The Price of Milk; and the smash hit Whale Rider. More recent films include the Topp Twins doco Untouchable Girls and Samoan language feature The Orator.

In this ScreenTalk, Narbey talks about:

• How directing Illustrious Energy was one of his greatest achievements
• Resisting attempts to shoot the film in a studio
• The challenges of filming Desperate Remedies in a wharf shed
• Chaos caused by the number of sets that had to be built
• The difficulties of creating realistic whales on the set of Whale Rider
• Taking a long ‘organic’ approach to filming Rain of the Children with director Vincent Ward
• Working in freezing conditions on the set of Dean Spanley

This video was first uploaded on 6 September 2011, 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