HANANIA BAER

Born: 24 September 1943, Palestine [now Israel]. Went to London, UK, shortly after the Six-Day War (1967).

Education: London School of Film Technique [LSFT] [now London Film School], London, UK.

Career: Teaches part-time at the Yolanda and David Katz Faculty of the Arts of Tel Aviv University.

Awards: Daytime 'Emmy' Award nom [1982] for 'Daddy, I'm Their Mama Now'; Daytime 'Emmy' Award [1984] for 'Andrea's Story: A Hitchhiking Tragedy'; Daytime 'Emmy' Award [1991] for 'But He Loves Me'.

'Irene in Time': Veteran Writer/Director Henry Jaglom has been making small but acclaimed indie films since the early '70s, and Emmy Award-winning Israeli DP Hanania Baer has been working with him since 1984. By his own estimate, Baer has shot 'about 12' of Jaglom's films. Their recent feature 'Irene in Time' was shot on location in L.A. over a two-week period. Baer says that the shoot typifies Jaglom's unorthodox working methods. 'The camera is just like another character for Henry and has a dialogue with the actors,' he says.

Baer shot 'Irene in Time' with two Moviecams, 'one in the studio mode, and the lighter SL version for all the handheld shots.' He reports that it's a challenge to shoot and light Jaglom's films since they don't really work with a script. 'We have an outline but things keep changing on the day, as his goal is to always give his actors as much freedom as possible, and to make them as unselfconscious about the camera as possible,' he explains. 'It's a very different method from the traditional Hollywood way of working where you break up the scenes into shots and set-ups, and you're very particular about camera angles and all the lighting. And on top of that, Henry often likes to use non-actors, so the whole approach is very loose and spontaneous.'

With all this in mind, the DP was equally as loose as he approached the lighting. 'You don't want to limit any of the actors by doing a lighting set-up that forces them to stay on a specific mark,' Baer notes. 'So my lighting approach tended to be more generalized, as there's no standard breakdown of scenes into master shots, close-ups and so on. It's more a matter of creating an atmosphere and feeling that doesn't intimidate any of the actors while they're doing a scene.'

Baer reports that the shoot didn't require an extensive lighting package, and used a mixture of lamps. 'We rented all the lights from our gaffer, and used a bunch of HMIs, the largest being 6Ks,' he says. 'And we didn't work so much with hard lights, but more with soft lights and bounce lights with a lot of diffusion. We used quite a few Kino Flo's and also had a package of tungsten lights, the biggest being some 5Ks, which I basically used for all the night shoots as well as some interiors. And with today's film stocks, you can mix every color temperature because there's now so much latitude compared with all the stocks when I began shooting some 40 years ago. There's been so many advances, and that's really affected the way you light as well.'

Baer says he always enjoys working with Jaglom and on indie films. 'You never know what's going to happen next, and it allows you to be quite inventive, which I love,' he says. 'It's always interesting.' [From article by John Law in P³ Update Magazine.]

FILMS

1977	Massa alunkot/Paratroopers/Journey of the Stretchers [Yehuda 'Judd' Ne'eman] cs/c
1978	Fyre [Richard Grand] c
1978	Fantasia al noseh romanti/Fantasy on a Romantic Theme [Vitek Tracz] c
1979	Dracula Sucks/The Coming of Dracula's Bride/Lust at First Bite [Philip Marshak] p/c; 2uc: Bruce Markoe; 3uc: Titus Moody
1979	Up Yours - A Rockin' Comedy [John Hayes & Eddie Ryder] c
1979	UFO's Are Real/Flying Saucers Are Real! [Howard Hunt] c; doc/150m
1980	Ha-pachdanim/The Cowards [Avi Nesher] c
1980	Alligator [Lewis Teague] c; co-2uc; ph: Joseph Mangine
1980	The Being/Easter Sunday/The Pottsville Horror [Jackie Kong] c; or ph Robert Ebinger
1980	Echoes/Living Nightmare [Arthur Allan Seidelman] c
1981	Choices [Silvio Narizzano] c
1982	Revenge of the Ninja/Ninja II [Sam Firstenberg] c; addph; ph: David Gurfinkel
1983	Magash hakessef/Fellow Travellers [Yehuda 'Judd' Ne'eman] c
1983	Treasure: In Search of the Golden Horse [Sheldon Renan] V/c; 69m; ph 'Wilderness' & 'Forest' seg; other ph: Dennis Matsuda; addph: Harry Dawson & Christopher Gray; spph + dir sfx: Kees van Oostrum; sfx ph: Ted Rae; film invited viewers to search for a buried treasure and win a huge prize; released (also a book) in 1984
1983	Night Patrol [Jackie Kong] c; cph: Jürg Walters; co-addph: Toyomichi Kurita
1983	Maria's Lovers [Andrei Konchalovsky] c; 2uc; ph: Juan Ruiz-Anchía
1983	Ninja III - The Domination [Sam Firstenberg] c; 2uc: Karen Grossman
1984	Breakin'/Breakdance [Joel Silberg] c
1984	Breakin' 2 Electric Boogaloo/Breakdance 2 Electric Boogaloo [Sam Firstenberg] c; 2uc: Karen Grossman; spec c.op 2u: Jacques Haitkin
1984	American Ninja/American Warrior/American Fighter [Sam Firstenberg] c; 2uc: Freddie Conde
1985	Roman behemshechim/Again, Forever [Oded Kotler] c
1985	Always (But Not Forever) [Henry Jaglom] c; wedding home movies ph: Taryn Power & James Frawley
1985	Someone to Love [Henry Jaglom] c
1985	Bad Guys [Joel Silberg] c
1986	Assassination [Peter Hunt] c; hph: Jack Cooperman
1986	Masters of the Universe [Gary Goddard] c; addph: Michael Hofstein; vfx ph: Bill Neil
1986	Blues lahofesh hagadol/Let It Never End/Late Summer Blues [Renen Schorr] c; or ph Eitan Harris
1987	New Year's Day [Henry Jaglom] c; co-addph; ph: Joey Forsyte
1987	Seven Hours to Judgment [Beau Bridges] c
1988	Elvira, Mistress of the Dark [James Signorelli] c; addph: Matthew Leonetti; optical ph: Jerry Pooler
1988	Eating [Henry Jaglom] c
1989	Diving In [Strathford Hamilton] c; add cam: Carl Pope
1989	Venice/Venice [Henry Jaglom] c
1991	Ernest Scared Stupid [John Cherry] c; 2uc: Mark Van Loon
1992	Lucky Ducks/Duck Souffle [Henry Jaglom] unfinished sequel to 'Sitting Ducks' (1980)
1992	Rescue Me/Street Hunter [Arthur Allan Seidelman] c
1992	Babyfever [Henry Jaglom] c; addph: Frank De Marco
1993	Dark Tide [Luca Bercovici] c
1993	Last Summer in the Hamptons [Henry Jaglom] c; addph: Frank DeMarco
1993	Chuppa: The Wedding Canopy [Laurie Zemelman & Sascha Schneider] c; doc/80m; + co-prod
*1994*	*The Ram-Bow Kids: Soldiers of* *Peace* [Nicholas Amendolare] announced for February start; status unknown
1994	Storybook/Adventure Land [Lorenzo Doumani] c; 2uc: Ken Blakey & Moshe Levin
1994	Summer in Ivye [Daisy Wright & Tamar Rogoff] b&w-c; doc/72m; addph: Harvey Wang
1994	Inner Sanctum II [Fred Olen Ray] c
1995	The Misery Brothers [Lorenzo Doumani] c; 2uc: Ken Blakey; + co-assoc prod
1995	A Nice Italian Girl [Kostas Iannios] announced for August start; status unknown
1995	The Beast [Rhoderyc Charles Montgomery] c; short/12m
1996	Cuba [Martin Kove] unrealized
1996	Follow Your Heart/Not Your Ordinary Girl [Lorenzo Doumani] c
1996	Déjà Vu [Henry Jaglom] c
1997	The Prince [Pinchas Perry] c/V
1997	Bug Buster/Blattella/Some Things Never Die [Lorenzo Doumani] c
1997	Chronika shel ahava/Chronicle of Love [Tzipi Trope] c
1999	Festival in Cannes [Henry Jaglom] c; addph: Yasha Sklansky
1999	Caminho dos sonhos/Um sonho no caroço do abacate/The Avocado Seed [Lucas Amberg] c
2000	Vegas, City of Dreams [Lorenzo Doumani] c/V
2001	Going Shopping [Henry Jaglom] c
2004	Hollywood Dreams [Henry Jaglom] c; add set ph; ph: Alan Caudillo
2005	Nuzhat al-Fuad [Yehuda 'Judd' Ne'eman] HD/c; + co-prod

[Left] with dir Henry Jaglom and 1st c.asst Don Presley

"Irene in Time" [2006]

2006	Irene in Time [Henry Jaglom] c; released 2009
2006	Dim'at Shekherezada [Yehuda 'Judd' Ne'eman] dv/c/V; doc/81m; + co-prod
2008	Queen of the Lot [Henry Jaglom] c; filmed 2008-09
2010	Just 45 Minutes from Broadway [Henry Jaglom] c

TELEVISION

1979	A Special Gift [Arthur Allan Seidelman] tvm/60m; an ABC-tv 'Afterschool Special'
1980	Schoolboy Father [Arthur Allan Seidelman] tvm/60m; an ABC-tv 'Afterschool Special'
1981	Daddy, I'm Their Mama Now/The Night Swimmers [Jeff Bleckner] tvm/26m; an ABC-tv 'Afterschool Special'
1981	The Wave [Alex Grasshoff] tvm/44m; an ABC-tv 'Afterschool Special'
1982	Between Two Loves [Robert C. Thompson] tvm/60m; an ABC-tv 'Afterschool Special'
1983	A Killer in the Family [Richard Heffron] tvm
1983	Andrea's Story: A Hitchhiking Tragedy/Did You Hear What Happened to Andrea? [Robert Mandel] tvm/30m; an ABC-tv 'Afterschool Special'
1984	The Cartier Affair [Rod Holcomb] tvm; 2uc: Sam Gart
1984	Obsessed with a Married Woman [Richard Lang] tvm
1985	Prince of Bel-Air [Charles Braverman] tvm
1986	Brotherhood of Justice [Charles Braverman] tvm
1986	Samaritan - The Mitch Snyder Story [Richard Heffron] tvm
1987	The King of Love [Anthony Wilkinson] tvm
1987	Poker Alice [Arthur Allan Seidelman] tvm
1987	Strange Voices/72 Hours [Arthur Allan Seidelman] tvm
1987	An Enemy Among Us [Arthur Allan Seidelman] tvm
1988	A Friendship in Vienna [Arthur Allan Seidelman] tvm
1989	Murder in Paradise [Fred Walton] tvm
1990	The Kid Who Loved Christmas [Arthur Allan Seidelman] tvm
1990	Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean [Richard Michaels] tvm
1990	Moe's World [Kevin Rodney Sullivan] pilot/60m
1990	But He Loves Me [Strathford Hamilton] tvm/60m; a CBS-tv 'Schoolbreak Special'
1991	Battling for Baby [Art Wolff] tvm
1991	Please God, I'm Only 17 [Strathford Hamilton] tvm/60m; a CBS-tv 'Schoolbreak Special'
1992	Body Language [Arthur Allan Seidelman] tvm
1997	Deep Family Secrets [Arthur Allan Seidelman] tvm
2004	A Christmas Carol [: The Musical] [Arthur Allan Seidelman] tvm

MISCELLANEOUS

1968

Sunday Saturnalia [Tirosh Feldman; short/9m] c.op; ph: Oscar White; prod LSFT

FILMS AS DIRECTOR

1996	Lethal Games [co-d: Tzury Mimon; feature] ph: Jeff Baustert
1997	Win or Die [feature] ph: Jeff Baustert; 2uc: Jayma Koerner