Benoît Debie

[on working with Gaspar Noé] With Gaspar, we don't prepare a lot of things in advance. He likes to "take advantage" of the unforeseen circumstances and imperfections that occur during shooting. He prefers spontaneity. He doesn't really provide me with a lot of direction for the image in advance, we talk about it on set and then I do the lighting... I propose things, and if he likes them, we go with what I've proposed. If not, I change it. We work according to our intuition in the heat of the moment, and now that we are beginning to know each other well, it's all become simple and smooth. [2015] Show less «

[on Love (2015)] First of all, it was shot in 3D. Secondly, there was no moving camera, there are practically only still shots. After I had finished shooting on Wim Wenders' film Every Thing Will Be Fine (2015), I suggested to Gaspar [Gaspar Noé] that we film in 3D. But he was afraid of how constraining and expensive that might be. He did some research, we did a few tests together, and he finally said yes to the 3D. It is a very sober film that is different from anything we have done together in the past. The still shots, the bodies that occupy the space like in a photograph, and the 3D all combine to give the feeling of a painting in relief. It's really breathtaking. (...) My experience on Wim's film convinced me that it is possible to use 3D to tell a story better and not just to entertain the viewer. That is also the way that Gaspar and I considered the use of 3D in this film. (...) The lighting was very natural, very sober. We didn't shoot in a studio, we had a very small crew, and I only had one grip/gaffer. It was like working on a short, with a single van and all of our equipment in it ! I didn't use any professional spots, no gelatine, just light bulbs or lamps. And newspaper to block out the outside light ! (...) I didn't want to give in to the pressure of using a closed aperture to film in 3D. Because high depth of field is what I really don't like about digital films ! So, I kept the aperture open. I adjusted the camera settings to work on the texture and the noise so I wouldn't have a polished image; on the contrary, I wanted a structured image, with graininess. (...) I saved my images in Raw format, and I was very careful on the way I set up the cameras so that the two images would be as close as possible to one another. The film was almost completely colour timed during shooting, the exposure and the colour were already there, and that enabled Gaspar to see an almost-definitive image right on set. [We used a] Red Dragon camera and Leica Summilux lenses. I had used the [Arri] Alexa on Wim Wender's film, but the Red Dragon is more compact and was better-suited to the small size of our crew on this project. This camera produces beautiful results on skin when the light is warm. We used Screenplay's German rig, which is a light rig I discovered for the first time on Wim's film. You can use a shoulder camera with it. Gaspar was really concerned with how much space a rig and two cameras would take up... I think it was when he discovered this very small rig that he decided on 3D ! [2015] Show less «