Then again, I’ve always tried not to lean too hard into this defensiveness, because, well, I don’t think it’s my better instinct. There is a high risk of getting certain things plain wrong. Committing it to film is a tricky exercise, and one that’s sure to set off an overwhelming amount of discourse. France, you see, also happens to be the country where I was born and raised. Here is where my Spidey-Sense would usually start waking up. The French Dispatch, as its title would suggest, is set in France, a country Anderson loves dearly, and where he has spent a good amount of time. A charming, whimsical, gently existential tightrope, but a tightrope all the same. We figure it out.The French Dispatch, Wes Anderson’s new film, is a tightrope.
#WATCH WES ANDERSON FRENCH DISPATCH HOW TO#
“Many times he’ll describe what he wants to do and I’ll think to myself, ‘Man, that’s impossible – how are we going to do that?’ But I can honestly say there’s never been a shot where we say we don’t know how to do this. “He challenges everybody, from the camera guys to every department, actors, to kind of think outside the box and come up with a new way of doing it,” Yeoman says. ”Īnd, as in “Grand Budapest,” the film screens mostly in the boxy Academy aspect ratio of 1.37:1.
At first some actors have difficulty with that – but then they come around. But, says Yeoman of working with Anderson, “If the actors are blocking each other or they’re not where they’re supposed to be, we shoot another take. Many actors would chafe at being directed to hit so many exact marks to allow their performances to land just right in a careful composition – and most directors expect DPs to follow them at least somewhat. Hippolyte Girardot, Steve Park, Jeffrey Wright and Mathieu Amalric in “The French Dispatch” Courtesy of Searchlight Picturesįor “The French Dispatch,” the team, typically, opted to film their carefully choreographed cast, including Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Saoirse Ronan, Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Timothée Chalamet, Benicio del Toro and Elisabeth Moss, with Arri ST and LT cameras, Cooke S4 prime lenses and the occasional zoom. “We can make it darker or warmer or cooler very quickly,” he says of the super-bright, lightweight, flat illumination. Luckily, LEDs and SkyPanels are permitted, say the veteran DP. One advantage of shooting single-camera, says Yeoman, is that lighting can be perfected for each composition, something that generally must be compromised if two or three cameras are covering a scene. Meanwhile, each shot is carefully composed and lit, often with perfect symmetry, for shooting with 200-ASA Kodak 35mm film, which requires strong light. Instead, “The French Dispatch” relied on scaffolding, with crews hauling equipment up on ropes. Modern Technocranes and multi-camera filming, standard tools on most sets, don’t interest Anderson, says his eight-time collaborator. We don’t use camera cars – we use golf carts for our cameras. “He wants us to find old ways of doing it. “Most of the time, Wes kind of rejects new technical things,” says Yeoman. This time a former felt factory in the real French town of Angoulême in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region served as prison, gangland hide-out, courtroom and newsroom, says Yeomen – that is, once they managed to punch holes in the floors and ceilings to allow for a multi-story camera drop. (Bill Murray), the film called for nearly a month of prep time and building sets into a vast, unoccupied building, says Yeoman, as did the team’s previous effort, “Grand Budapest Hotel.” Filmed in five episodes, four of them built around a writing assignment overseen by dyspeptic American editor Arthur Howitzer Jr.
0 kommentar(er)
