Peter Baker
Cinematographer and film maker, Freelance
Written by Natalie Brown on 2009-10-09
Peter Baker is a freelance film maker and Director of Photography based in Brisbane.
How did you start working in the Media and Communications Industry and what was your first position?
My first job was working with a wildlife documentary unit at Channel 9 Perth. It was great, we worked with 16mm and I was doing something I love!
Why did you decide to pursue a career in the Media and Communications Industry?
I knew pretty early on I wanted to do something with film & cameras. I fell in love with stop-frame plasticene animation in late primary school, and I loved the excitement of putting the little Super 8 cassette of Kodachrome in its yellow mailing bag and sending it off to be processed. Then it came back, you projected it and voila – magic! I got an AFC (now Screen Australia) grant to make a short drama in mid high school. During the making of that film I met Ray & Keith Wagstaff, who were friends of the family & they took me out on a Holden car TV commercial. Keith is a fantastic cinematographer (most famous for shooting the Man From Snowy River) and I could see what fun they had at work & how much they loved it. It seemed to be too good to be true, not the dour and daunting idea I had in my mind of what work was like. I bought a Super 8 camera and made a surf travelogue in Indonesia and then studied Film & TV at Curtin Uni in Perth.
What has been your most memorable achievement or experience working as a part of Brisbane’s media landscape?
I’m only a recent addition to Brisbane’s media landscape, I’ve done most of my work in West Australia. While I lived there I worked on a series of Lotto commercials on which we travelled to the UK, Germany, Tuscany, Venice, New York, Los Angeles & Fiji and that was a memorable experience. I was DP on a short film called ’Michelle’s Third Novel’ and it opened the New York Film Festival as the short before Pulp Fiction and it got high praise from Tarantino and Spike Lee, which was exciting as they were very prominent at the time. Screening a surf film that I made with my brother in Peru, Chile & Brazil to fairly rapturous applause was a fairly proud moment. I won an award for best cinematography in a TVC at the Perth Art Directors Awards for a 35mm commercial I shot for the WA Department of Energy and I felt good about that because it was up against some good work by other DP’s from WA. A couple of music videos I’ve shot have won awards and I suppose it’s nice to receive recognition.
Who are the most interesting people that you have worked with in the industry?
I worked with Miles Davis on a film called ‘Dingo’ which Rolf De Heer directed. I was a Camera Assistant at the time. He had this phenomenal presence and mystique about him, everyone including me was in awe of him. I’ve worked with some of my surfing heroes like Kelly Slater, who is a fantastic guy and amazingly down to earth and generous of himself despite being by far the most gifted surfer ever. Mark Occhilupo is an amazingly charismatic character, freakishly talented & seems to be adored the world over, I enjoyed working with him and getting to know him. I have loved working with film heros like Jack McCoy, who has a fantastic work ethic and incredible passion for making beautiful images, he is a continual inspiration to me. He is the sort of person I would crawl across broken glass on my stomach to get good pictures for and he inspires that from many people who work with him. I love working with all sorts of performers and artists: actors, dancers, surfers, circus performers, comedians, singers & bands. I was priveleged enough to attend a cinematography Masterclass with DP’s I really admire: Peter Greenaway’s cameraman Sacha Vierny was the one who impressed me most because he had such an artistic approach to using light and composition. I worked with Ben Nott as a Camera Assistant on some TVC’s with Ben Nott and camera operated for him and he is a really talented cinematographer, who is thoroughly professional and brings a sense of humour and integrity to what he does.
What are the most important/valuable skills that graduates can bring to your industry and what advice would you give them?
Enthusiasm, dedication, perseverance, passion, ability to be a team player but to contribute & maintain a unique vision. As a freelancer starting out it can be hard to maintain the faith that your turn, your big opportunity will come – it will if you persevere and keep being enthusiastic. My advice would be to find a person who is doing the kind of work you’d like to be doing and make yourself indispensable to that person. Offer to go out & work for nothing with them so you get some experience until you know enough that they will want to hire you.
In your opinion, what is the most prominent trend in the Audiovisual Production industry at the moment?
Delivery of media via the web.
What changes do you see happening over the next five years in the Audiovisual production industry?
The last few years have seen the rise of the IT geek and I expect we will have an increasing reliance on people who have a handle on how the new technology works. The traditional division between the sacrosanct film world and the world of video has narrowed, the technologies have converged and will continue to do so. You can shoot on film and bring the images back from telecine on a hard drive or have rushes sent via the net. There have been huge advances in digital scanning of film images. Taking images into the digital realm makes effects achievable that are really only limited by your imagination and of course non-linear editing of images which originate on film makes the old style pin bins and film editing on flatbeds by literally cutting and splicing seem prehistoric.