June / 2010

Passion and Dedication:
A Conversation with Kim Derko csc

by Robin Phillips

DOP Kim Derko csc

Working for 20 years as a female cinematographer is no small task, but Kim Derko csc faced the challenge with passion and dedication. She’s had an impressive career, spanning both film and television. Some of the notable films she’s served as DOP are Chris Grismer’s Clutch (1998), John Greyson’s The Law of Enclosures (2000), David Mortin’s Youkali Hotel (2004), Chris Abraham’s I, Claudia (2004) and Su Rynard’s Kardia (2006), in addition to the series Dark Oracle and as operator on 18 episodes of Rent-a-Goalie and eight episodes of This Is Wonderland.

She has come a long way from what she wanted to do as a child. Growing up in Vancouver, Derko was on track to becoming a professional dancer. It was a turn of fate at the age of 18 that set her off that path. “I was in a car accident. I had to stop dancing for six months while my back healed,” Derko said. “While I was doing that I took an interest in still photography. I started reading a lot of other arts things that weren’t related to dance.” Thus began her journey into the arts world, but it would be a while before she discovered cinematography.

After a brief return to dance, she took a year off for travelling. She went to Africa and the Middle East with her Canon FTb 35-mm camera in hand. “I guess that was when I started looking at pictures more seriously. I was actually surprised that some of them were okay.” She had no grand plans to pursue photography seriously. She was just exploring the art form. “I don’t see it with any kind of linear lead-up to where I am now. Everything contributes to what you end up doing, but it wasn’t like I had a plan.”

When she returned to Canada she had to decide what to do next. She set her sights on the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver. “I was interested in art. I wanted to be a curator, actually,” Derko said. She applied to the art school with her travel photos and was accepted. She was 21 years old. “I was shocked that I got in based on a little portfolio that I’d made of my travels.”

While attending Emily Carr, Derko experimented with many different art forms such as collages and found-object sculptures. “It was part of the process. I was trying all new things while I was at art school. Photography was just one of them. But I liked it.” In her third year, Derko’s film instructor, Jan-Marie Martell, helped her move towards her future career. Martell saw an experimental film Derko had made of Eadweard Muybridge’s photographs. She had re-animated them and shot them on Super 8 film. She processed the film herself with a G-3 developing tank that the school was going to throw away. Martell suggested Derko try out for a program at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) in Montreal. “I applied and I got into this film apprenticeship program. It was organized to instruct women in unconventional roles in film production. I went into cinematography because I just picked it. I could have picked anything.”

The NFB was her major education in film. “I didn’t know how much was involved until I got to the NFB. How much studying and how much you had to know,” Derko said. She completed her fourth year of art school at the NFB. Then she left Montreal for Toronto. There she found her love for cinematography in filming art installations. “Especially in the early 1990s, a lot of artists were doing video and film installations for art galleries. When I came to Toronto, I had all of these connections from the art world rather than the film world. And a lot of artists asked me to shoot their art projects for them. I think that’s when I knew that I really loved doing cinematography. That’s when it really became not just working in the film industry and being a technician, but using it as an art form.”

Derko’s artistic background was particularly useful on Youkali Hotel, a feature-length production that aired on CBC’s Opening Night in 2004. She describes Youkali Hotel as a modern opera shot in an impressionistic style. “I was able to do a lot of things creatively that I wouldn’t be able to do in a regular feature film. A combination of an artist background and a video background made me the suitable DOP for that job.” Derko won a Gemini Award for her work on Youkali Hotel.

John Greyson’s The Law of Enclosures

She is also able to bring these artistic talents to more serious dramas; however, the overall aim is often different. “With a feature like The Law of Enclosures you have to surrender a little bit more to reality to make it work. You’re still dealing with making it look beautiful, but realism is something you’re going for more,” she said. The Law of Enclosures tells the story of Henry and Beatrice and their journey from young idealism to the cynicism of old age over a span of 40 years. Instead of using traditional flashbacks to tell the story, John Greyson had the characters co-existing with their younger selves, stuck in the year 1991. “They all take place in the same time, but they are played as though 40 years has past. It’s this wrinkle in time that has them frozen,” Greyson said. Being able to get across the feeling of the past within the present was a creative challenge for both Greyson and Derko. “Kim was crucial in interpreting that through the lenses, lighting and gels and rendering that idea into film,” he said.

Kardia a film by Su Rynard, DOP Kim Derko csc

Kim Derko has not limited herself to doing one thing. “I’ve been lucky because I haven’t been totally pigeonholed into just one type of cinematography.” Her filmography includes television shows such as Dark Oracle and smaller, artsy projects like I, Claudia, a film adaptation of the one-woman show by Kristen Thomson. “One thing that happens to cinematographers is that people see something you’ve done, and they like it. So you are hired to do the same sort of thing. I’ve been really fortunate to be able to do a whole range of diverse things.”

Derko also flexes her creative muscles outside of work by doing experimental and artistic films in her own time. In 2008 a one-minute short she co-directed with Su Rynard, the director of Kardia, was shown at the Toronto Urban Film Festival. The film, called Coronation Park, was about the environment. Currently she is working on another self-generated independent project. She recently received a Canada Council grant to complete a gallery piece called Sum of the Parts. “I’m making a film with medical archival footage of amputees who have had operations performed on them in the 1960s,” Derko said. “It’s an art gallery installation rather than a theatre presentation.”

As well as a varied filmography, Derko has accumulated a lot of solid working relationships. Derko and director Greyson have worked on two features and three shorts over the past 14 years. “I think everyone should work with Kim,” Greyson said. “She is an amazing artist and a wonderful collaborator. She loves telling stories through photography and the ones she tells are important ones. Her passion is putting images together that tells a story in new ways.”

Chris Grismer’s Clutch

However, she still encounters gender discrimination from time to time. Even with all of her experience and skills, some directors don’t think she’s capable. “I’ve had the experience, very sadly, of going for a job interview and looking at the person who’s interviewing me, and it’s as if I can see a big veil come over their face. They’re looking at me and they’re giving me a chance to have an interview, but I just know they don't see a cinematographer on the other side of the table.” Occasionally she’s been hired by someone who assumes she’s a novice. “I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years, and I still bump into directors who look at me and it’s like they feel as if they’re giving me my first big break and I don’t really know what I’m doing.” She doesn’t enjoy being singled out as a woman cinematographer and prefers to be seen purely for her work. “But I can’t deny for a millisecond that it doesn’t play into the whole picture.”

Looking forward, her only plan is to keep working. “I’m definitely not going anywhere. I’m going to keep shooting. I am constantly trying to work on larger projects. So my plan is to do the best that I can to reach out to the people who are producing these shows.”

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