A PUBLICATION OF THE CANADIAN SOCIETY OF CINEMATOGRAPHERS Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 478423 December 2003 Volume 23, No. 4 Serge Desrosiers csc Camping Sauvage: The Sky s the Limit ALSO IN THIS ISSUE AWARDS: Prix Gémeaux Winners EDITOR'S DESK: Christmas Nostalgia POST: Calibration and Communication NEWS CLIPS: Le Marais at Camerimage PRESIDENT S REPORT: Centre for the Arts MERRY CHRISTMAS
The Canadian Society of Cinematographers was founded in 1957 by a group of Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa cameramen. Since then over 800 cinematographers and persons in associated occupations have joined the organization. Our members now represent the film and video community in all ten provinces. Our aim continues to be to promote and foster the cause of cinematography and the interests of the Canadian film and video community. We facilitate the dissemination and exchange of technical information, and endeavor to advance the knowledge and status of our members within the industry. As an organization dedicated to furthering technical assistance, we maintain contact with nonpartisan groups in our industry, but have no political or union affiliation. CSC EXECUTIVE President: Joan Hutton csc Vice-President: Richard Stringer csc Treasurer: Joseph Sunday phd Secretary: Ernie Kestler Membership: Philip Earnshaw csc Publicity: Robert Brooks csc Membership inquiries: 416-266-0591 2 - President s Report - Centre for the Arts volume 23, No. 4 December 2003 Contents CORPORATE SPONSORS alphacine Applied Electronics Arri Canada Ltd. CinequipWhite Inc. Clairmont Camera Creative Post David J. Woods Productions Inc. deluxe toronto Eyes Post Group Four Seasons Aviation Fuji Photo Film Canada Inc. Kingsway Motion Picture Ltd. Kino Flo Kodak Canada Inc. The Lab in Toronto Lee Filters Magnetic North Mole-Richardson Osram Sylvania Ltd./Ltée Otto Nemenz International PS Production Services Panasonic Canada Panavision Canada Precision Camera Rosco Canada Sim Video Sony of Canada Ltd. Toybox Videoscope Ltd. Wescam William F. White International Inc. ZGC Inc. CSC OFFICE Canadian Society of Cinematographers Administrator: Susan Saranchuk 3007 Kingston Road Suite 131 Toronto, Ontario M1M 1P1 Tel 416-266-0591 Fax 416-266-3996 email: admin@csc.ca Editor: Donald Angus (416) 699-9149 email: editor@csc.ca Editor-in-Chief: Joan Hutton csc CSC NEWS is a publication of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. CSC NEWS is printed in Toronto and is published ten times a year. Subscriptions are available for $75.00 per year in Canada and $95.00 per year outside the country. Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 478423. 4 - Letter to the President - What Price Art? 4 - Awards - Prix Gémeaux Winners 1 6 - Cover Story - Camping With Serge 12 - From the Editor s Desk - Christmas Nostalgia 14 - Post-Production - Calibration & Communication 16 - News Clips - Le Marais at Camermage 20 - Action Production Notes - CSC Calendar Visit: www.csc.ca 6 12 14 COVER PHOTO: IT S CAMERAMAN! DOP Serge Desrosiers csc is flying high to film a scene for the Quebec feature Camping Sauvage.
cover story Serge Desrosiers csc Camping Sauvage Never Lose the Beat DOP SERGE DESROSIERS csc poses on the set of the Quebec feature Camping Sauvage with his Panavision camera from Location Michel Trudel. 6 CSC News / December 2003
What s that, up in the sky? It s a bird, it s a plane, it s... Cameraman! It s really Serge Desrosiers csc, Panavision camera on his shoulder, suspended from a wire at the end of a crane over a Montreal intersection. All in a day s work for the Quebec director of photography, who does his own operating, no matter how precarious a situation the shot may require. For Camping Sauvage, a French-language theatrical feature shot in Montreal and Granby, Que., last summer, Desrosiers not only flew like a Cirque du Soleil acrobat, he also got up close and personal with a raging fire, filmed bare-chested from atop a gay parade float, rigged his camera to the front of a pedalo (pedal boat), and had fun manipulating a Hot Gears remote system. The comedy, probably destined to be screened only in la belle province, was shot in Super 35mm with three-perf pull-down on Kodak film, mainly the 50 ASA 5245 stock. Desrosiers said the Panavision camera gear, from Location Michel Trudel in Montreal, was the By Don Angus first used on a Quebec feature since the award-winning Léolo of 1992, shot by Guy Dufaux csc and produced by Lyse Lafontaine, who also produced Camping Sauvage. On set, Lafontaine was given the nickname Miss Pana. Tony Roman also produced. Camping Sauvage director Guy Lepage, in collaboration with Sylvain Roy, is also the movie s lead actor. see page 8 HOT SHOT: Wearing firefighting gear, Serge Desrosiers csc takes his Panavision camera in close to shoot a controlled blaze that is key to the plot of Camping Sauvage. CSC News / December 2003 7
CAMERA PRIDE: Serge Desrosiers csc gets into the spirit of things from atop a gay pride float. from page 7 Desrosiers told CSC News that the story revolves around a broker who witnesses a hit-and-run on his way to work one morning and tells the police the licence number of the truck that ran down the male pedestrian. At the end of the day his car explodes, and the police reveal that the truck driver is a big motorcycle gangster. Our straight-arrow hero agrees to testify in court when the police promise to hide him for a couple of months in a mobile home at a remote camping site. The DOP called the production s Panavision Platinum the Cadillac of camera equipment, and we had everything, like the 135-to-420 mm zoom, the 4:1, which is absolutely Your meter has to be set perfectly all the time beautiful; it s like four feet long. One day, he added, we had both the Platinum and the Millennium cameras. I shot the whole day with the Millennium, which is something rare for us Canadians, here in Quebec anyway. Normally you only get to shoot with the Millennium on American features, but for a Canadian feature it s rare to get hold of a Millennium that costs US$2,000 per day. Another day, we had three Arri 435 cameras to shoot high-speed car chases, explosions and stuff like that. Desrosiers said he chose the Kodak 5245 because I really wanted some sharpness, since we were shooting in three-perf and we had a lot of exterior scenes especially at the camping area. It s not an easy film stock because I d say by 7:30 at night, that s it; you can t shoot anymore even in the summer. It really needs a lot of light, but for me that was the challenge of trying to get the most sharpness available with the three-perf. It ended up with a nice look that I called the Florida look. I tried to make the camping site look really contrasty, with a lot of sunshine and a lot of colors, and a lot of saturation. When shooting in Montreal, he shot day exteriors with 5274 200 ASA, to change the look from the camping scenes, and he went with the Vision2 5218 500 ASA stock for all my night exteriors and night interiors. It s an see page 10 8 CSC News / December 2003
HOT GEARS: In a shaded break from his hand-held photography, DOP Serge Desrosiers csc runs the controls of the Hot Gears remote system from David J. Woods Productions. from page 8 incredible film stock. I would say it s probably a 600 ASA and not a 500, with no grain, which was really great for us, especially for digital transfer. Camping Sauvage was transferred to an HD digital intermediate then back to 35mm film. I wouldn t go with the 5218 on a film-to-film transfer because it s a low-con negative, the blacks are really high, but if you bring it through the digital process it really looks good. Desrosiers said the weather in the Granby area was bright for the first couple of weeks, but it poured rain the last week, making it difficult to match the sunny look of the early footage. The crew had to wait for the rain to stop, then light everything. Because of the moisture on the ground, extras with garden hoses pretended to be watering their lawns to fake what the DOP called the wetdown look. The 5245 did a great job but it s a really hard film stock. I mean, your meter really has to be set perfectly all the time. There is no point of return. We had one shot in which my meter was set with the wrong ASA, so we were two stops under and we had to shoot again. Two stops under with 5245 is absolutely useless. There is no way we can even think about taking that image. He explained that shooting threeperf Super 35mm was not only about saving 25 per cent of film-stock cost, but going hand held, I could operate with a 1,000-foot mag, giving me a lot of time before we had to reload, and just never lose that beat. For us it was really important on this shoot: never lose the beat and just go with it. Desrosiers said Camping Sauvage was his first comedy feature, and he found that what s surprising in comedy is that you always have to think about whether what you are doing is funny. We would take a lot of time to figure out angles and to determine really bizarre shots that would be funny, like shooting actors with a 10mm lens at two feet. Their faces go fisheye, and the motorcycle gang members look especially bizarre. We also had a lot of POVs where the actors would talk to the lens. They would talk to each other on a two shot or on a wide shot, but in the close-ups we would shoot them like they were talking to themselves. That s why shooting with the 14-minute, 1,000- foot mag was really important. 10 CSC News / December 2003
FLOATING CAMERA: This remote-controlled Panavision camera takes a cruise on the bow of a pedal boat ( pedalo ) in a scene for Camping Sauvage. When Desrosiers wasn't operating hand-held, or supervising Daniel Sauvé's and Yvan Bourdages' "incredible" steadicam work, he shot with the Hot Gears rig provided by David J. Woods Productions of Toronto. "With two directors on the production," he reasoned, "I was afraid of being with the camera 100 feet or more away from them while they sat in front of a monitor with the script. I thought they might invent another movie than the one I was thinking of at the moment I was at the camera. With the Hot Gears, I would always be sitting with the directors and the script and I would always be there to get the information they were discussing and to help them evaluate the scene." He never "put a foot on the dolly for 35 days," except to use it sometimes as a tripod. "My first assistant was on the dolly alone." Hand-held, he explained, the directors were almost always beside him, except when he was dangling from a wire. Editor s note: Desrosiers was DOP for Lance et compte - La nouvelle génération, the revival of the 1986 hit Québec series Lance et compte (He Shoots! He Scores!). See CSC News, September/2001 or search Archived Articles on www.csc.ca. CSC News / December 2003 11