Eric Gautier, AFC, about The Fence, a claustrophobic, yet outdoor, verbal duel shot on ZEISS Master Primes

ZEISS: Claire Denis has directed numerous films and worked with other cinematographers before you, notably Agnès Godard, AFC, with whom she had a fruitful collaboration for years. Did you follow in that legacy when you started working together?

ERIC GAUTIER: Not really; Claire doesn’t explicitly refer to what she’s done before. Like Desplechin, she doesn’t want to revisit her own films. For this film, which is adapted from a play, we did a script reading together, of course, but what matters to me are her intentions—what she’s really talking about—and that isn’t necessarily written down.

Is she able to articulate that before shooting begins?

Not really. She has some initial ideas, of course, but we really discover it during filming. The screenplay is different from the play. Koltès had made Claire promise to adapt it for the screen, and it took her time to feel ready to take it on. What matters is what she wants to do with it today, knowing that she doesn’t fully know what she wants—and that’s what’s great! That’s the day-to-day work. It depends so much on how the actors bring the characters to life.

What was your first step in building the film’s language? The location, perhaps?

Shooting in sequence—except that we first shot the daytime flashback, because it was on a location far from the main filming site.
The main set—the construction barracks and the enclosure—was built entirely from scratch on a vacant lot south of Dakar, not far from the construction sites of the modern port currently being built, across from a future oil platform. The bulldozers seen in the film were actually at work close to us. The location had already been chosen by the time I arrived, and I was involved in the construction—because I oversaw all the electrical work. There was nothing there, not even a streetlight, so I designed all the lighting myself, both outdoors and indoors for the house, where there were very few practicals to draw on. It’s very rewarding to design from scratch, just like in a studio, even if you ask yourself a lot of questions and still face certain constraints. At first, I thought about using mercury lamps as the main sources to light the set and the fence, but once they’re turned off, they don’t turn back on for fifteen minutes, and I’m not even sure we would have found enough of them! So, we went with LED spotlights, set to blue and green to match the mercury lighting as closely as possible. The tests clearly showed there was no contest—the mercury lights were so beautiful… But the lights had to turn off and on quickly.

The idea behind calculating the placements and distances was that these “construction site” floodlights would cover the road but not shine on the house [of the foreman played by Matt Dillon], which was lit differently. Starting from scratch, I was able to refine these differences between the road and the house, whose facade is lit in orange. It was written in the script, which described a bluish image in contrast to the warm, orange-hued image of the house.

It was the production designer, Thierry Flamand, who came up with the idea of using shipping containers as buildings. I didn’t get involved in their layout, but Thierry and I know each other well, so I trusted him. Anyway, it had to work with the blocking, so Claire was the one who decided that.

Is that also written in the script?

No, Claire has it in her head; she shares it with us, and we formalize it.

When adapting a play, the action often takes place in a unique location—or at least there are few sets—and there’s a risk of repetition. How did you get around that?

That was indeed a major challenge. We were always exploring new angles, and it was to facilitate that variation that I suggested shooting in sequence. Even for the scenes that take place on either side of the fence between Matt Dillon’s and Isaach De Bankolé’s characters, we shot in the order of the dialogue—something Claire wouldn’t have dared to ask for! I gave her the option to move back and forth across the fence, instead of covering one angle with different focal lengths and then reshooting the scene from the other. The lighting setup allowed me to do that fairly quickly. Covering one side after the other would have been such a drag! Instead, we envisioned the shots in sequence, and that’s why the coverage is so rich. What might have seemed boring on paper doesn’t come across boring at all when you watch the film. At first I was shooting with the camera on my shoulder, then we switched to a tripod, but we could decide right up until the last moment what presence to give the characters, and we improvised each time. Like Claire, the actors were thrilled that we could offer them this approach instead of classical coverage. It was a great pleasure to film all four of them.

Did you consider shooting with two cameras?

No, it’s rarely interesting, and Claire doesn’t like it at all (just as she hates zooms). We had six weeks, which was the right shooting time. And Claire and I know each other well and understand each other, so we shoot very quickly together. I like to shoot quickly, and so does she—so much so that we often finish the day early. We have such a strong rapport that with her I’m almost one step ahead; I’m already anticipating what she wants, while still leaving the choice up to her. We know each other and share similar tastes—yes, even though the three films we’ve made together are very different from one another—and I really enjoy finding a different style for each film. This is especially true for a nighttime film like this one, which I’d never done before.

Isn’t it easier to shoot at night? You don’t have to worry about the sun or the changing light of day.

In any case, it was more rewarding. You start from complete darkness, and you can build from there. I like to create a main light source—in this case, using our construction site’s floodlights—and then support the shot with bounced fill lights that match the keylight’s color temperature. The lighting is set up for a potential wide shot, and the close-ups are adjusted very quickly right after. I don’t really like it when we let up the pressure or stop because we have to reset the lighting for the close-ups: I take the time to set up the main lighting, even if it means not starting on time, but then we move on quickly. In this case, the actors all have beautiful features; obviously, you have to be careful, but it was straightforward. If framing is a matter of distance between the camera and its subject, lighting is simply a matter of contrast. That’s why I appreciate working with LEDs that can be controlled from a board: even the smallest adjustment—which used to take time—can be made quickly. It’s an invaluable level of flexibility. My gaffer, Mohan Galmy, is perfect for this, with his assistant Arthur Barrow handling the iPad. We also used HMIs bouncing off large cards to soften the shadows on the faces. It’s all about finding the right level of contrast to achieve realism.

How do you achieve realism in a space you’ve created entirely from scratch?

It’s true that it wasn’t easy to figure out which light sources to use and at what distance.

Why the 2.35:1 aspect ratio in spherical?

It just felt like the right choice. We’d shot the previous film, Stars at Noon, in anamorphic widescreen with TechnoCooke lenses. Here, we didn’t want the anamorphic bokeh, but the elongated aspect ratio suited the fact that there’s no height—everything is low. You see ceilings in low-angle shots indoors, and that contributes to the claustrophobic feel.

What camera did you use?

An Alexa Mini LF, shooting full-frame. With the 2.35 crop, there weren’t any illumination issues with the Master Primes (knowing we didn’t use the widest focal lengths). I really like the Master Primes, especially for close-ups, where I think they look beautiful. For those close-ups, we mostly used long focal lengths: we used the 135mm a lot—even though I really like the 65mm for close-ups as well. But Claire wanted us to feel the distance, and she has a great eye for that focal-length-to-distance relationship. Back in the film days, I found the Master Primes too harsh, but in digital, not at all—at least not with the way I work with digital: I always use a very light diffusion filter, and above all, I like to shoot at a very high ISO to mask the digital look. I was shooting at ISO 1600,

Did you have a DIT?

No, I never use a DIT on feature films; however, the dailies are graded every day—that’s a must. I don’t use any LUT other than the camera’s REC709, and from there I extrapolate—I imagine—like how we used to do it on film. The dailies colorist, Thomas Debauve, was at M141 in Paris. He’d send me stills regularly, and I could email him to maybe push things a bit further at times. The benefit of stills is that by quickly flipping through them, I can get a feel for the scene. I don’t watch the dailies, but the stills are very important.

The stakes are high in the toe of the curve. Do you play it safe?

Not at all!

Did you do any test shots?

For me, the shoot itself is the test. But I don’t know how to do test shots against a cyclorama backdrop… I used to do underexposure tests, but now I know the ropes. Filming a dark-skinned character in pitch darkness was a challenge. I knew I had to maintain a certain level for the faces and the eyes. It’s not an easy situation, even though the blue-green light from the LEDs mimicking mercury looks good on dark skin tones. On the shot-reverse shot sequences, I had to adjust the camera settings, because otherwise the image of Matt Dillon had too much magenta in it.

What kind of measuring instrument do you use?

I measure by eye, on a good, calibrated monitor. A light meter doesn’t make much sense anymore in digital, except perhaps when building a set.

Do you work at a constant stop?

Since I set the exposure by eye, it’s balanced—around T4, I’d say, give or take half a stop. Based on what I see on the monitor, I know what to tell the colorist, and then I let him do his thing, because I’m always interested in seeing how they interpret it. During the final DI, main colorist Richard Deusy has all the reference footage from the dailies, which saves time.

So, no retouching of the image’s texture in post-production?

No, it’s all done in-camera. The dailies were very well graded; it was exactly what I was looking for. I’d asked for two weeks for the DI, and we finished in one week—enough time to fine-tune things; the color matching was already done. Claire is always there, just like most of the directors I’ve worked with, for that matter. Amos Gitaï is different: he doesn’t want any color grading; he follows a Godardian principle that the film’s image should be the one that “comes out just like that” from the shoot, and for his films, it works pretty well.

At least you can be sure that what we’re seeing is your work… Any other projects on the horizon? How do you choose the films you work on?

I’m in talks with a director whose previous films I haven’t seen… It’s always about the connection. I’ve never chosen a film for its screenplay (except for the ones we stop reading on page 20, obviously). Making a film is like going on a trip with someone: you might know the destination and be bored to death with the other person, whereas even without knowing the destination, you can have a wonderful journey. Like with Claire.

A word about the crew?

Along with Mohan and Arthur, first AC Marie-Laure Prost was the third and last French member of my crew. Her second and third assistants were Senegalese, as was the rest of the crew—notably key grip Rone Camara, who is fantastic, and whom any Western cinematographer who has worked in Senegal knows. We had a real bond with the Senegalese crew, and that contributed greatly to the film’s strength. We were very close-knit.

Camera, lenses and main LED sources came from Transpa rental company in Paris.