MNZM
Cinematographer
Biography
Alun Bollinger - CinematographerMNZM
Born in 1948, Alun’s extensive career began at the age of 17 as a cinecamera trainee with the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation where he shot news, current affairs and documentaries for television. After leaving the Corporation, aged 20, he became a freelancer, although he didn't use the term at the time, and was involved with feature work from the beginning of the new wave of New Zealand cinema.
Alun's work features in numerous high profile New Zealand projects such as the quintessential Goodbye Pork Pie (Geoff Murphy), Mr Wrong, Bread and Roses, War Stories, Perfect Strangers and Lovely Rita (Gaylene Preston - 2001 Laureate), Heavenly Creatures, Forgotten Silver, The Frighteners and Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson), The Piano (Jane Campion), What Becomes of The Broken Hearted, End Of The Golden Weather and Came A Hot Friday (Ian Mune), and Vigil and River Queen (Vincent Ward).
Gerard Smyth's documentary Barefoot Cinema: The Art and Life of Cinematographer Alun Bollinger, screened nationally at 2008 Film Festivals and on Television One in the same year.
Alun was a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) - for services to cinematography in 2005 and received an Arts Foundation Laureate Award in 2006 .
He is a member of the New Zealand Film and Television School Trust and offers occasional master-classes and lectures at film schools. Much sort-after for his skills as a director of photography, Alun prefers to spend at least half the year away from the film business, working on other projects back at his home in Blacks Point, near Reefton on the West Coast of the South Island, where he and his wife Helen live among their extended family.
Abridged - promo for the screening of the documentary Barefoot Cinema on Artsville, TVOne (2008)
Within the film industry Cinematographer Alun Bollinger is something of a legend and yet to most of us he remains anonymous. Bollinger is a veritable icon, with a film career spanning 29 years. He is a recipient of the New Zealand Laureate Award - the highest achievement in New Zealand art.
Barefoot Cinema started as a seemingly obvious task; a potted and recent history of New Zealand film through the eyes of the man universally known as 'AlBol.' But any such tale had to be much more than this. Says the man from the remote South Island's West Coast; "There is much more to life than film making."
Barefoot Cinema is as much a tale of enduring love. Says Helen 'HelBol' Bollinger, Alun's wife of 37 years, "I always picked it would be an adventure with AlBol." And an adventure it has been. They married after knowing each other for three days. They were great grandparents whilst still in their fifties.
While managing family commitments, AlBol has forged a career in filmmaking, impressing the likes of Peter Jackson, Geoff Murphy and Gaylene Preston.
"[Alun is] quiet simply the finest cinematographer the country has ever produced," says Jackson.
Not known for following film crew fashion, AlBol turns up on film sets barefoot. Here he is regarded as a leader of New Zealand crews, who are known worldwide for their innovations and for their skills as team players...
Actor Sam Neill says, "I've known him forever, since the Acme Sausage Company days. He wasn't wearing any shoes then either. I not only know him very well, and like him very much, but also much of the history of New Zealand cinema is his history too. He is a living treasure."
Bollinger is something of a renaissance man. He draws his identity from a world wider than the film industry. He is a family man, house designer, builder, bee keeper. His mode of transport is a retired ambulance.
AlBol is also active in the politics of the industry, as president of the New Zealand Film and Video Technicians Guild. He has pioneered and today leads those who give New Zealand film crews an international reputation as skilled and innovative craftsmen.
"I like being a minimalist. I suppose it's because I've been bought up in the shoe string school of film-making."
Alun Bollinger was Cinematographer for the documentary Lovely Rita- A Painter's Life, directed by fellow-Laureate, Gaylene Preston, in 2007
