interview and copy written for RED
In Memory, an unexpected
romance between a recovering alcoholic and a dementia sufferer is handled with
both sensitivity and lightness of touch by Mexican auteur Michel Franco in a
stripped-down approach that has been likened to that of the Dogme movement.
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“Some people are afraid of what Dogme
means but to us it just means you make own rules,” says the film’s
cinematographer Yves Cape, AFC. “What inspires us in Dogme is the idea of
devising your own rules and sticking with them.”
Franco has collaborated with Cape on
feature dramas including Chronic, April’s Daughter, Sundown and New
Order and sketched out the themes of the film to him several months
before producing a script.
“With Michel the script evolves until
the last moment and continues to change with the actors in rehearsals, the
location and on the day of the shoot.”
On Memory, there was an
initial plan to shoot the film in London before the script attracted the
attention of Jessica Chastain, fresh from winning an Oscar for her role
in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. With her commitment to the project, they
revised the location to Brooklyn.
Working with RED camera suits the
director’s workflow explains Cape.
“Michel likes to edit on the set
(Franco is a credited editor alongside Óscar Figueroa). We will shoot the
scene, take the card out, the DIT will process it and the material is fed
directly to the editor who is there with his laptop. He will make a rough cut
and as soon that’s ready Michel and I will review and decide whether he has
what he wants or whether to continue.”
From the moment the card leaves the
camera to when the media is in the computer is barely 10 minutes. “It has to be
fast, and we haven’t found any better or faster workflow than RED since we
shot Chronic this way together in 2015.”
Another reason the cinematographer
says he is very attached to RED stems from his prior work with directors like
Bruno Dumont (among others L’humanité, Hors Satan and Hadewijch)
and for whom natural colours are important.
“Bruno and Michel want the camera to
record naturalism and I don’t want lean on the grade to accentuate character.
We like working from the truth and in particular for rendering skin tones.”
In case of Memory, it
was important to the filmmakers to accurately photograph Chastain’s white skin
and reddish hair.
“For skin tones RED is the only
camera that works for me,” Cape says. “Ever since the release of RED DRAGON the
cameras have been successively better and better at color reproduction.”
Memory was
shot with the MONSTRO on a chronological schedule which Franco favors in order
to allow room for the performances to evolve.
“Michel wants to give the actors and
us freedom to explore. If we feel something needs to change, we revise the
script, or drop a scene, or add another. If you shoot chronologically then
everything from camera to make-up to performance changes organically.”
Cape adopted a no-fuss approach to
lighting. “I like to start from a position of natural light. For example, in a
room with windows I will use those lights. At this point, the picture won’t
necessarily look nice because there will be no contrast or the light may be
coming from several directions, but it is the starting point from which you I
can build.”
“RED gives me an intuitive way to
work on set. I mainly use the ISO and the color temp to adjust the look of the
image I wanted.”
Combining the MONSTRO with Leica’s
Summilux-M primes provided the image neutrality Cape was looking for.
“The image has definition but it is
not digitally too sharp, and the combination of the MONSTRO and the Summulux
allows me to go into any situation. If we decide to shoot outside at night
rather than inside, the RED allows me to do just that. Importantly, the lens
doesn’t damage the image texture and there are no distortion or flares. In
fact, I am looking for the opposite. I don’t want the audience to notice the
camera work.
He says, “I like this combination of
softness and contrast, and definition most of all for faces. Real truth is to
be found in the skin tone of the human face.”
A similar philosophy of simplicity
carries through to camera placement. Franco and Cape try to find the best
camera position for the scene and from that position try to capture the entire
scene.
“If the camera doesn’t move that is
perfect. If it has to move or tilt up, we will do so but we do this rarely. I
am always framing for a 10 percent safety inside the aspect ratio so that in
postproduction I can ‘dolly’ up and down. That’s only possible with a sensor
the size and fidelity of RED.”
He points out that a shot in a café
used for the film’s U.S trailer has been resized to a close-up of actor Peter
Sarsgaard, a shot which is not used in the film.
“We like to film performances in once
scene rather than have the actor’s replay scenes alone to camera,” he says.
“There is more truth this way.”
They attempted to film a climactic
scene when long buried family tensions bubble to the surface in a single wide
but after a few takes Franco realised it wasn’t quite working.
“But we noticed something vital about
the moment when Jessica’s character, who is sitting on a sofa, suddenly stands
up. It’s quite a violent movement, even though the confrontation is only
verbal. We were able to see this in review of the rough cut and returned to get
the shot we needed.”
Cape explains that his own
methodology for understanding how to approach the story is aided by discussion
around character and location. Typically, they scout locations together without
a production designer.
“I find it really helpful to
understand the psychology of the characters and to talk this through with
Michel on location. By achieving this understanding of the sociological
environment of each character, my work become after very easy and natural. It gives
me all the directions for lighting and for framing. In Memory, our
central character is a social worker so I need to know, for example, what a
social worker in the U.S would earn and what it would cost to live and rent
property in certain neighborhoods.”
Following this process, they found an
ideal spot for the exterior of the character’s apartment upstairs from a tyre
repair shop and on a busy highway.
“Inside the building was an art
gallery, all white walls, but we worked out with the art director how to dress
it while keeping to budget.”
They also advised Chastain to visit
Target, the type of store her character would shop at, to buy joggers, T-shirts
and other clothing for costume.
“This is how Michel works, by
involving everyone we all aim to deliver a truth to his vision, the story and
that of the characters.”
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