British cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, working with Lars von Trier, has again been honoured at Cannes in 2005 for their pioneering work in digital movie-making.

Von Trier’s slavery drama Manderlay, starring Bryce Dallas Howard, William Defoe, Danny Glover and Lauren Bacall, was shot on a CineAlta F900 HDCAM camcorder by Dod Mantle, repeating the innovative 360-degree shooting technique von Trier employed on the trilogy’s opener, Dogville, which was short listed at Cannes in 2003.

Speaking from his home on the Danish coast, Dod Mantle tells that the rapid evolution of digital technology had contributed to the record number of film entries at this year’s festival.

“This is a good time to be in film-making. With the technology out there, there is no excuse for DoPs not to be producing good films on a low budget,” he says.

Manderlay is the second part of USA – Land of Opportunity, von Trier’s trilogy about America. Set in the American South during the 1930s, it follows Grace, heroine of Dogville, to a plantation in Alabama. Appalled by the slavery she finds there, she vows to right a horrible wrong. Grace is played by Bryce Dallas Howard, replacing Nicole Kidman, who played the role in Dogville. American Trilogy

On Manderlay, Dod Mantle says he had put the lessons learned shooting Dogville in HDCAM to good use. Dogville’s cast had been filmed on a black floor marked out with nine acting areas, rather than a studio set. “The idea was to bridge the gap between theatre and film. In Manderlay, the concept is the same but we used a light floor which enabled me to create better areas of light and darkness. Dogville was filmed on a closed stage about half the size of a football pitch. This time we used a bigger stage to give us more room,” he says.

Filming a predominantly black cast against a black background presented Dod Mantle with a unique set of lighting problems, but it led him to discover a new effect. “Shooting with a wide aperture in either low lighting, or filming onto a dark surface, the CineAlta creates an interesting texture just before the signal becomes too weak to pick up anything.

Zentropa, von Trier’s company, owns the Sony F900 Cine Alta used to make Dogville and Manderlay. “The main reason we chose HD is because Lars shoots a lot of material. The camera is running from the moment the rehearsals start in the morning. Most of this extra footage doesn’t get used, but some does. With this kind of volume, it is better to be burning HD tapes rather than film.

“Lars had also his trademark camera rig, the ‘Lars-cam’, strapped to his back to ensure freedom of movement. It was very intuitive. He wanted to see everything in 360 degrees, which is a nightmare to shoot. We had more than 1,000 lights on the ceiling and many more around the stage, all set on dimmers.

Dod Mantle was able to decrease the depth of field on the Sony CineAlta by adjusting the lighting and recalibrating the camera. “With careful lighting and a slower shooting speed, you can break down the depth of field.

Award-winning partnership
Dod Mantle has known von Trier for 20 years. He helped research the orthodox church communities in Scotland for Breaking the Waves, which won a Grand Prix in 1996.

“Like Roman Polanski, Von Trier understands a lot about the technical side. Even when he comes to me with outlandish ideas, he is always aware of the practical complexities of making them happen. For me, that’s the sign of a great director and very few can move between technical and narrative aspects at the same time,”

Dod Mantle, who moved to Denmark in 1985, was recently awarded the European Cinematographer’ prize for best Cinematographer by the European Film Academy for his work on Dogville and Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later which was shot entirely in Mini DV.

Dod Mantle started working with von Trier in the mid-1990s, around the time of the Dogme 95 Manifesto, with its 10 rules of film-making. The Manifesto was signed by von Trier, Vinterberg and fellow Danish directors Søren Kragh Jacobsen and Kristian Levring.