IMAGO : Annual General Assembly (2008)

by Armand Marco, AFC

par Armand Marco La Lettre AFC n°174

[ English ] [ français ]

The Annual General Assembly of Imago took place from February 15 to 17, 2008 in Amsterdam. Representatives of the European associations were invited to gather in the Dutch capital on the afternoon of Friday, February 15th.

The meeting ended the presidency of Andreas Fisher-Hansen (FDF), who had agreed, during an exceptional general assembly in Paris on December 13th, 2003, to take on the burdensome task of reorganizing Imago.

The lengthy saga of the book, Making Pictures : A century of European Cinematography, had led Imago to the brink of bankruptcy. Tony Costa (AIP), vice president and Paul Rene Roestad (FNF) general-secretary, agreed on March 1st, 2004 to join the executive Board of Imago responsible for the rescue from this situation.

The participation of the associations at this assembly was very high. Twenty-five out of twenty-eight European countries were represented, along with two invited associate members (Australia and Mexico), for a total of forty-seven participants.

Friday, February 15th

The NSC (Dutch Association), which hosted the general assembly, organized a visit from 4:30 pm on at the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam, which is rich with treasures of Flemish painting. Robert Alazraki and I joined the group at 5:30pm.

In the evening, a dinner-tour on a barge traveling along the canals, permitted us to discover the splendors of Amsterdam "by night", diffused by the fog that emanated from the many guests.

Saturday, February 16th

The Film Academy in Amsterdam hosted the 2008 IAGA.

Paul René Roestad, after welcoming us, introduced John French (BSC), the session moderator.

I - Activity Report 2007

In his report, Andreas emphasized the deterioration of working conditions he had seen in Europe during his visits to the associations, notably in Russia where the situation was extremely critical for directors of photography.

He thanked all the members of Imago for the support he had received throughout his presidency, and expressed especially warm thanks to Paul René Roestad and Tony Costa without whom nothing would have been possible.

II - Financial Report

Andreas opened this chapter by saying that the financing of Imago remained somewhat unsatisfactory. The next board will have to find new sponsors in order to be able to act more freely.

The debt to Frederick Kaczek has considerably diminished, but it still exists. The next president will have to negotiate a payback schedule with Frederick.

Line Sølist, treasurer, reviewed the accounts for 2007.

Representatives from the AFC are responsible for bringing the accounts to Paris so that our accountant, Mr. Poisson, can audit them.

III - Priority Report for 2007

A. The "European Model Contract" (Authorship Status and Working Conditions)

Dr. Christina Busch introduced and commented on the model contract. This model contract is a proposal, and not a "standard contract" that could apply to all European countries.

The intent of this initiative by Imago is not to regulate an applicable standard contract, but to establish a list of the responsibilities of directors of photography and producers, and is therefore designed to help European directors of photography who have difficulty in obtaining a decent and proper employment contract.

The AFC and the AIC noted that directors are forgotten in this project, which is highly detrimental.

Other associations also regret that there is no accounting of the working conditions that differ from one country to another in Europe.

This "European Model Contract" was presented at Plus Camerimage on November 28, 2007.

The assembly proposed that each association should inform John French of current working conditions and their actual application, as well as the various initiatives of each association. (For the AFC : The Image Charter and the standard contract).

Christina Busch advises countries that have difficulties in getting the status of author accepted, to research the status of photographers in order to consider the possibilities of legal action by this means.

Italy and Spain have succeeded in having the denomination Author of Photography figure in their contracts.

— B - Activity report of the various committees

1 - Technical Committee. Kommer Kleijn (SBC), who represents Imago in the EDCF (European Digital Cinema Forum), shared his research on projection and recording standards, as well as the comparison of different digital cameras that he prepared.

You can find all the information on these subjects on the Imago site, under the "Digital" heading.

2 - Imago Website

Tony Costa asks us to provide him with all information and documents on events that we want to publicize on the Imago site. He also asks us to send him the e-mail addresses of our members.

3 - Making Pictures

Roger Sears, who did not reply to a letter sent by Imago’s lawyer, has lost all his reproduction rights (10%) on the book. The film elements, ozalids, used in the printing of Making Pictures were found at the printer in Singapore. They can therefore be recovered for an eventual reprint. Any subsequent edition will require corrections.

4 - The Imago Master Class

The committee responsible for organizing the "Imago Master Class", whose theme is "inspiration", met on September 22nd, 2007 in Copenhagen. This event will take place in the autumn of 2008 (November) in Copenhagen. The AFC is invited to organize the next one.

— C - Election of the new President of Imago

Nigel Walters, BSC, the sole presidential candidate, was elected unanimously. He began his statement of intent by saying that he was very honored to apply for the position of new president, and was aware that following Andreas, Tony and Paul René was no easy task. He thanked the founding members, the associations of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom for having dared to take up the challenge of creating Imago.

Four years ago the existing board was elected, at a time when the publication of the excellent Imago book Making Pictures resulted in a huge deficit of 150 000 Euros, while the annual income of Imago amounted to 12 000 Euros.

Today, not only have we virtually settled this debt, but also, thanks to Andreas and Dr. Christina Busch, Imago is now legally free to recoup its investment by publishing a revised edition in different languages.

The enormity of the work accomplished by the board is breathtaking.

Since the creation of Imago in 1992, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge. The election of a new board gives us the opportunity to formulate our wishes for the future.

My first idea is that we should come back to the aspirations and goals of the men who created Imago. In the first statutes drafted by the AFC it was declared that the goal of Imago was to :

A. Promote the activity of Directors of Photography while respecting their cultural identity.

B. Define, improve and enforce the technical, artistic and ethical conditions in which they exercise their craft, in order to preserve the quality of the images, which they have authored.

C. Ensure adherence to the authorship rights and the obligations of the creative collaborators known as Directors of Photography, and to do this as much in the creation of images, as in their reproduction or representation, whatever the distribution means and formats etc...

Composition of the new Imago Board

— Nigel Walters (BSC) : President
— Tony Costa (AIP) : Vice-President (responsible for the Imago web site)
— Ivan Tonev (BAC) : Vice-President
— Louis-Philippe Capelle (SBC) : General Secretary
— Paul René Roestad, Kurt Brazda (AAC) and Robert Alazraki (AFC) are the other board members
— Kommer Kleijn (SBC) and Joe Dunton (BSC) form the Technical Committee.

Nigel believes that Germany must join Imago, because without Germany Imago is senseless.

Nigel ended his speech by thanking Luciano Tovoli for having participated in the meeting and asked all participants to stand up to show their appreciation for the outgoing board. The meeting ended with a warm and lengthy "standing ovation".

— D - New Member IMAGO

Romania is a new active member of Imago and Australia, a new associate member.

— E - Suggestions of activities for 2008

1. Collaboration with the eDIT Filmakers Festival Frankfurt and Imago. Nigel has contacted them.

2. Collaboration between Imago with EU-XXL, Krems in Austria.

At 8 pm dinner capped the day, during which Luciano Tovoli was celebrated for his career and for his efforts in Imago.

Sunday, February 17th

From 10 am to 4 pm : Seminar organized by the NSC on Dutch lighting. The participants were invited to the screening of two films in the presence of the directors of photography.

— 10 pm : Hollands Licht (Dutch Lighting) directed by Pieter-Rim de Kroon, photographed by Reinier van den Bos (NSC). The film examines the quality of natural light that is so special in Holland.

— 2 pm : Nightwatching directed by Peter Greenaway, photographed by Reinier van Brummelen (NSC)

In this film, Peter Greenaway and Reinier van Brummelen, starting from the famous painting by Rembrandt, "The Night Watch", decided to change the light of the painting using virtual (computer-simulated) sources. Based upon this experience, they used virtual lighting for many scenes in the film. Reinier screened various excerpts for which they used this process and commented on them, describing the different stages of their work.

Reinier van Brummelen was the gaffer who worked with Sacha Vierny on many Peter Greenaway films, before becoming himself a Director of Photography, and electronics enthusiast.

4 pm : end of the IAFA 2008

Translations by Benjamin and Kim B