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March / 2011
Serge Desrosiers csc Talks about His Work on Marécages by Lance Carlson
Pascale Bussières Photo credit: Guy Edoin
Serge Desrosiers csc, who was born in Montreal in 1968, has been a cinematographer for almost 20 years. In 2005, he was given the CSC Award for best cinematography in, a dramatic short for Guy Édoin’s Le Pont, and that same year was nominated for a Prix Jutra for best cinematography for Claude Desrosiers’s Dans une galaxie près de chez nous, le film. He has received two Prix Gémeaux nominations, for best cinematography: video for the series Diva (1997) and best cinematography: dramatic or documentary for Jean-Claude Lord’s Quadra (2000). His filmography also includes Lord’s Station Nord (2002) and eight episodes of the hit TVA series Taxi 0-22. In the fall of 2010, I spoke to him at the conclusion of shooting Marécages (Wetlands), a family drama set in Quebec’s Eastern Townships written and directed by Guy Édoin and starring Luc Picard and Pascale Bussières for Roger Frappier’s Max Films. In an age when
most “films” are now being shot digitally, for Marécages Desrosiers opted to stick to a basic natural anamorphic film, but with an Ektachrome look and avoided going to a DI. LC Tell me a bit about the story of Marécages. SD It’s the story of a family who live on a dairy farm in the Eastern Townships. They have financial problems during a drought, as well as a 14-year-old boy who is growing up to be a man. An event turns the life of the family upside down. Forced to confront one another, they have to learn how to forgive. We did do a nice shot near the wetlands with the main actress, Pascale Bussières, walking toward the swamp with the Techno-crane out to 55 feet, but it’s not a major character in the film. LC The film sounds dark. Is it? SD There’s a major accident about half way through it that could be considered a bit dark. There’s also nudity and a 14 year old masturbating in a tree, so perhaps there are some things that you don’t see in every film, but basically it’s a family drama. LC What is your history with Guy Édoin? I understand he is a first-time director? SD Yes, it’s his first feature, but I had shot three short films for him previously. One of them, La Pont, won a CSC award. When he called me to shoot his first short film, I suggested that it would be a really good idea to shoot anamorphic. That was eight years ago, and I had never shot anamorphic before. I called Panavision in Los Angeles and said, ‘Give me a hand,’ and they sent everything up to us for the four days. It was great. We wanted to shoot Marécages on film, so we rented the equipment from Clairmont Camera. Not only did we shoot it on film, but sort of Luc Picard the old-fashioned way, no DI, just interneg and interpositive. It will involve neg cutting the anamorphic, which not a lot of people do these days. LC I understand you used the Hawk anamorphic lenses. Was it difficult to get the lenses you wanted? And how did they perform? SD I used the C-Series lenses previously on the short film and I was quite impressed with their sharpness. For Marécages, Denny Clairmont told me that he had purchased the new Vseries, and that I should have a look at them because he was impressed by their quality. So Clairmont was able to provide us with the Hawk V-Series lenses for our tests. We found that those lenses have outstanding sharpness and precision when used wide open, which was a big consideration and it made the decision to keep them easy. And the ACs like them. They are smooth and easily changeable without breaking down the lens accessories or supports,
except for the 25 mm, which is more complex. But to be honest, we did not use the 25 mm for Marécages because it was too wide. The preferred lens on the film was the 50 mm, but my own favourite was the 250 mm. I love that lens. LC How long was the shooting schedule? SD It was 30 days, but most of the scenes were shot at or around the farm, so it wasn’t too bad. LC What was the look and feel of the film and how did you achieved it? SD The look is really naturalistic, nothing complicated. Every time someone wanted to put something complicated in a shot or scene, it didn’t work. The lighting needed to be very natural; if you can feel the light, then I would say take it away. Because we were shooting film, and I was using 5219 and 5213, we were going for a slightly softer look. There were about seven days of night shooting. At one point, we were shooting in a barn with about 55 cows and it was a nightmare for the ADs, the ACs and the grips. We made up what we called ‘shit deflectors’ around the camera, but I think everybody got hit at some Director Guy Edoin. “Not only did we shoot Marécages point, even the actors. An actor and on film, but no DI, just interneg and interpositive,” actress helped a cow in labour. They Serge Desrosiers csc. actually did it themselves on-camera, which was something very interesting to watch. It was my first time, and for the crew also, and it was like, “Wow, the actors are there pulling the calf from the cow.’ They were being coached off-camera by veterinarians. LC Did your naturalistic approach work well for the production design? SD The production design is perhaps a bit subdued. It’s a rural setting with tractors and other farm equipment that is a bit dated, but it could be today. Probably typical of a poor farm even now. We also shot at a small-town fair, and I think it will be the funniest part of the film – cows, livestock farmers of all kinds. LC Was there much moving camera and how was that accomplished? Steadicam? Handheld? Dolly? SD We had everything, including a small 24-foot Techno-jib, thanks to Denis Paquette from Cinepool, for the entire 30-day shoot. We also had a Steadicam and dolly. We did several long sequences – continuous three-to-four-minute takes – that were kind of tough on Jacques. We did a 180-degree shot with actors coming in at 75 feet and out at 4 feet, so it was a nice choreography, but at T2.8-and-a-half on the anamorphic, it was a challenge for him. LC What film stocks did you use?
SD I selected 5219 and 5213 for exteriors because I like the slightly milky look. Because we were not going to a DI, I was trying to keep softer look for the daylight shots as well. There’s not much contrast, which was my intent for the film, almost like the old Ektachrome, with a subtle bluish tint and not much contrast. We shot over 2,000 feet of tests with various filters and ended up with a Coral #2. That was it, nothing else and not much manipulation in the lab. We even tried bleach bypass in the test, but it wasn’t what we wanted. LC It must have been nice to go back to the basics. SD Yes. We did this in a traditional way, so the lab had to be consistent from the beginning to the end of the shoot because we needed to keep corrections to a minimum and some people freaked out. In the end they all pulled it off. Taking this traditional approach was actually a bit complicated for a lot of the crew. On the third day of shooting I called everybody together and said, ‘Look guys, this is not a conventional DI-production process. We will not be able to scan the negative and erase a wire or a boom or a stand or stuff like that. Every department should look through the camera or from the camera viewpoint, because that is what we are going to get.’ This helped get everybody onside from the get-go.
“Taking this traditional approach [to shooting the film] was actually a bit complicated for a lot of the crew,” Serge Desrosiers csc, seen here on the left with Guy Edoin.
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