Screening ‘Over My Dead Body’

David St-Pierre, Choreographer

David St-Pierre, Choreographer

I recently saw a documentary which I consider to be one of the best I’ve ever seen, OVER MY DEAD BODY (trailer). It follows renowned Quebec choreographer Dave St. Pierre during the several year period when he waits for a lung transplant – the only way to save his life from cystic fibrosis. The filmmaker is St. Pierre’s friend and creative partner Brigitte Poupart, and this is her first film.

Brigitte Poupart, Actress, Dancer, Filmmaker

Brigitte Poupart, Actress, Dancer & Filmmaker

Several things make this film exceptional. St. Pierre is totally vulnerable.  We follow him through the trials and tribulations of the high-risk operation, several times cancelled as the deadline for survival by surgery draws nearer.  Poupart’s commentary is personal, intimate and honest. Her creative vision is remarkably layered and textured, drawing on footage of St. Pierre’s work as well as his health predicament. One has the impression Poupart is a seasoned documentarian who has developed a visual signature over a period of a few decades. But no – she is a performance artist, involved in theatre and dance shows. To top it all off, this film was made on a very small budget, with the support mainly of the Quebec Arts Council and an artist’s centre called PRIM.

Ten years ago I ran a series of screenings called the Lundis du Doc/Docu-Mondays. It was in collaboration with the Quebec Director’s Association (ARRQ), the French program of the NFB and the Rencontres du Documentaire. It was a lot of work, and I stopped doing it in 2005 at the same time as I started this blog. Now, a group of filmmaker friends want to pick up where I left off. My health doesn’t allow me to continue, but I wish them the best of luck. They gave me a carte blanche for the first evening, that’s why we’ll be screening Poupart’s film. For those of you who live in Montreal, it’s at the ARRQ, MONDAY AUG 6TH, 19 HRS, 5154 ST.HUBERT.


Thank you to Sally Rylett for help with this blog post.

Finishing ‘Ma vie réelle’

Ma vie réelle

Danny Raymond, Alex ‘Breezy’ Bryson, Mikerson ‘Swagga Kid’ Stiverne and his older brother Michael ‘da Prince Stiverne.

Last year I told you about the shooting of my film about troubled youths in Montreal-North. I have been following three young school dropouts, Alex (métis) Danny (white) and Michael(black), for a year and a half. And because Michael had a very interesting brother, Mikerson, I ended up with four main characters. The developments in their lives were more dramatic than I could reasonably have hoped for, giving us very good material for the film. (It’s  produced by Amazone film with a 90-minute license from Canal D.) Continue reading Finishing ‘Ma vie réelle’

Real Estate Development Gone Wild

Invasion Construction
Montreal documentary filmmaker Martin Frigon recently released a film called La Grande Invasion (The Great Invasion, produced by Productions Multi-Monde) on a subject which is very close to my heart: the impact of out-of-control real estate development on local communities.My father who was an artist and art school director in Sweden spent a good part of his life fighting for the respect of the character of the landscape and local communities where he lived on the Atlantic coast north of Gothenburg. But I don’t think in his wildest nightmares he could have imagined the kind of development which is now transforming the Laurentians, a beautiful area north of Montreal where I have some land and spend a lot of my time paddling and hiking.

I saw the film at the Parc Cinema, which allowed time for a substantial panel discussion after the screening. As Martin’s film shows, the development of mega-shopping-centres (‘Power Centres’) and giant housing developments is literally ruining local communities,even forcing many local residents to become refugees. I asked Martin a few questions.

Continue reading Real Estate Development Gone Wild

Kazimi on 3D and Documentaries

 

Last fall I posted part one of an interview with my friend Ali Kazimi on 3D and its potential for documentary. Here is part 2. Ali is an award-winning filmmaker and most recently author of Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru – An Illustrated History (www.undesirables.ca). He is an associate professor in the Department of Film at York University, where he has been researching stereoscopic 3D digital cinema since 2008.

Ali Kazimi

Ali Kazimi.

I feel 3D is appropriate only for certain kinds of documentaries that have both very controlled shooting parameters, such as nature, performance or travel with healthy if not hefty budgets especially for post production. Ken MacNeil from Creative Post in Toronto, likes to point out that finishing a stereoscopic 3D (S3D) film is akin to creating a Digital Intermediate for a film shot on 35mm film. i.e. one has to use a very high end S3D capable system to do the overall colour correction and stereo-grading. The colour grading ensures that both cameras are matched as closely as possible, the stereo grading involves fixing the geometrical issues between lenses, the alignment between cameras and determining where the screen plane will lie – i.e. what will be in front of the screen and what will appear behind it.

I take it there is a real learning curve involved here ? You can’t just improvise.

A fundamental knowledge of S3D basics combined with basic knowledge of human perception is essential. For example one of the things that cannot be fixed in post is the depth in shot – this is determined by the Inter-Axial (IA) distance between the two cameras, hence the IA determines the depth in a given shot, in simple terms the greater the IA the more the depth (note: if one pushes this too far you get miniaturization, an effect specific to S3D). What one can adjust in post-production is the point at which both cameras converge – Convergence determines where the screen plane lies. If your depth, as determined by the IA has not been calculated properly, the scene may be unwatchable and the only way to fix it would be either to loose one of the camera images and keep it in 2d or to go for a 2D to 3D conversion.

And how accessible is the equipment ?

Currently at the lower end there are many tools both in terms of cameras and post-production that are making it S3D more accessible. I have been playing around with the new Sony HDR-TD10 S3D consumer camcorder. It is the first affordable true HD camera, with 1920×1080 resolution for each eye. There is now a prosumer version, HXR-NX3D1, but unfortunately the codec used by Sony will only work on their proprietary Vegas Pro system, there are complicated workarounds to edit the material on other NLE software such as FCP, Avid, or Premiere.

On the one hand it is amazing to have these tool, on the other hand it, I go back to the steep learning curve necessary to learn stereoscopic 3D, it would be a mistake to think that this camera can be used to shoot an entire film in the same way that a 2D prosumer camera such as the Sony PD150 or the Sony Z1U was rapidly adopted for docs in the past. The new S3D cameras are good for many kinds of shots, but filmmakers will also need to keep using mirror rigs – i.e. two cameras mounted at 90 degrees with a partially silvered mirror at 45 degrees in between them. I have also seen the Sony shoulder mounted TD 300 camcorder – it offers greater control but again is limited by the fixed Inter Axial (IA) distance – the distance between the two cameras.

A documentary package for S3D production could consist of a Genus Hurricane mirror rig with a two Sony EX3’s and at a Sony TD10 or NX3. Of course, this is already two cameras more than a 2D package.

This sounds quite complex. Is it really compatible with the kind of flexibility and agility we associate with typical docs ?

I do think it is an exciting time for documentaries and the possibilities S3D offers, however I do feel it will be sometime before we start seeing lower budget films that offer more than just depth, in which the true potential of S3D is exploited. At the moment most S3D films need to work on both 2D and S3D screens. Many including myself feel that S3D on its own requires a different language – slower editing pace, wide angle lenses, more movement, deep focus. Pina is a great example of this, and Wenders has said that the film was designed with only S3D in mind and does not work in 2D, I have to agree with him.

Given the dismal state of documentary financing in Canada today, it is unlikely that anyone would make a film solely designed for S3D. Realistically you are looking at a budget that is significantly higher. Unlike the US and Europe where there are now dedicated S3D television broadcasters, in Canada there are none. Bell and Rogers have been running test channels for the past couple of years with the same compilation reels endlessly looped.

I have met several people who are eager to jump into S3D productions, they are typically focused on rigs and workflows, I do have to keep reminding them that they cannot bypass the fundamentals. Our 3DFlic research project at York has been renewed for another two years, so while I continue to explore content, form and technology for S3D docs, we will also be holding seminars, workshops and the second stereoscopic 3D conference next year.


 



 

 

Blog Changing Its Skin

Chutes Montapen

The other day I went to see spring arrive at the Montapen falls north of Joliette, an hour and a half’s drive from Montreal.

 

Dear subscribers and other readers,

As you may or may not have noticed, with the overwhelming influx of messages which afflicts most of us, my blog has not been active for about six weeks – except for an old post which went out the other day. The immediate reason for this was a nasty malware-infection which has now been cleaned up thanks to my friends and colleagues Kim Gjerstad and Barry Greenwald and our hosting service Web Hosting Canada. However, it was time for the blog to change anyway. I am facing some serious health challenges, and will not be able to write as frequently as I used to. There was a time when I attempted to cover most significant developments in the world of documentary as well as presenting some of my own work, posting every week. From now on, I will write less frequently, and will focus on issues which are very close to my heart, or on people with whom I have a special relationship.

One of my upcoming posts will deal with La grande invasion, (the great invasion) a film about the devastating impact of real estate development gone wild in the Laurentians north of Montreal. Also coming soon, an interview with my dear friend Ali Kazimi about 3D and documentary – he is an authority on the subject and we have been fine-tuning this interview for several months.  And I will have a chance to report on the editing of my own film on the troubled youth of Montreal North.
All the best
MI

Thank you to Sally Rylett for helping with this post.