Teach Solais’ Chief Cian de Buitléar tells IFTN about the company’s recent lighting jobs on big profile productions such as ‘Leap Year’ and ‘The Runway’ and explains how he has come to understand the role of the cinematographer.
In business now for just under three years Teach Solais has been providing all lighting and generator needs for recent large scale productions such as ‘Ondine’, ‘The Runway’, ‘Love and Hate’, ‘Jack Taylor’, ‘The Guard’ and ‘Leap Year’ which wrapped in July of this year.
“They had to actually build their own studio on the Dublin docks,” de Buitléar says of the 'Leap Year' production. “They completely took over one of the old, empty Cuisine de France fridges.” The operation called for Cian and his team to provide 6 articulated trucks full of cables, equivalent to 17 miles, to power the lights for the film.
Teach Solais has facilities in both Connemara and Ardmore Studios in Bray which has helped them to facilitate the various productions around the country, something which Cian says definitely gives the company an edge, as an example of this he explains how he is able to drop into the set of Magma Films’ new project ‘Jack Taylor’ everyday, a hands-on opportunity afforded to him by the location of Teach Solais’ Galway office.
Teach Solais also enjoys the advantage of having an award winning director of photography in charge – Cian has been a the head of cinematography on projects such as Paddy Breathnach’s ‘Man About Dog’, ‘Blow Dry’ and ‘I Went Down’ and was the underwater director of photography for Steven Spielberg’s ‘Saving Private Ryan’. When asked about the advantages of his dual position Cian tells IFTN: “After 25 years of shooting I know a thing or two. It’s very helpful because as a lighting technician I know what will work to create a certain mood and I know about new products coming in – something other cinematographers might not be aware of.”
Where the advertising world is concerned, Teach Solais’ high-profile clients include Guinness, Bord Failte, ESB, Vodafone, Meteor, AIB, and Bank of Ireland. But Cian holds firm to the rule that a good company should get involved with filmmakers and TV makers early on in their career. “We cavort a lot with short films,” he explains. “We lend them equipment free of charge and when these producers and directors reach the big time they remember us and use us again and again.”
And this is reflected in the company’s filmography – they’ve worked on more feature films this year including Colin McIvor’s ‘Cup Cake’ and have seen the progression from shorts to features in the form of Ian Power with whom they worked on his short film ‘Dental Breakdown’ earlier this year and have just finished work on his new feature film ‘The Runway’.
Cian leaves us with his thoughts on what good film and television lighting comprises of: “The lighting has to suit the script, you have to read the script and get inside the mind of the director – the mood he wants to evoke in the scene for example and work out how to create that through the lighting. As a director of photography you’re not just moving a camera, you’re creating a mood which sells the scene and it’s the exact same when it comes to lighting.”
For more information about Teach Solais’ current and previous projects visit www.teachsolais.com/
