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Julie Delpy, Director: 2 Days in Paris
By Jon Silberg
Jul 30, 2007, 03:56
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Though 2 Days in Paris—a comic feature written, directed and
edited by Julie Delpy, who co-stars with Adam Goldberg—was tightly scripted
and blocked, Delpy wanted her romantic story of two confused lovers’ Parisian
sojourn to have the feeling and emotional truth many people find in the Dogme
95 films. The story of the loving, bickering pair is covered with a roving handheld
camera that seems to single out the most significant details of a scene with
long lenses and selective focus.
French cinematographer Lubomir Bakchev shot in high definition using a Sony
HDW-750 camera, operating mostly with it on his shoulder. The 20-day schedule,
multiple locations and limited funds dictated that they had to work quickly.
Bakchev lit by eye, just checking his scope to make sure he wasn’t losing
highlight detail, and his 1st AC pulled focus based on marks, as would be done
on a film shoot. He did not have the resources to carry around a big high-definition
monitor either to light to or to fine-tune focus.
“We shot in real apartments and on the street and in restaurants, and
I would try to light mostly from outside windows for day interiors. For night
interiors I would have some lights inside, but I would try to put them on the
ceiling so I could follow the actors around for 360 degrees.”
When Delpy saw some tests of the 2/3-inch-chip 750 with a normal HD zoom,
she was not delighted with the way the images looked, particularly the sharpness
of the format. “We shot some tests of me,” she recalls, “and
there was so much definition! Well, you know I am an actress, and when
I saw them, I was like, ‘Aaahhhh! The horror!’”
She also had an issue with the depth of field in the scenes, which was much
greater than if the scene had been shot with 35mm film equipment. She wanted
the cinematographer to have a greater ability to limit focus in the shots. To
give her the more cinematic DOF she wanted, he tested the P+S Technik Pro35 adapter,
which allows for the use of cinema lenses on HD cameras such as the 750. The
adapter and some Zeiss Superspeed primes gave them the filmic DOF they wanted,
and coincidentally helped with Delpy’s other concern.
“The Pro35 has some aspects like a Pro-Mist filter,” the cinematographer
notes. And though he warns that the adapter could cause people an unwanted degree
of resolution loss, it wasn’t an issue on this film. In fact, its Pro-Mist-like
effect, he says, “would bring down the white of the sky a little bit if
we were shooting outside during the day. That was helpful since there was so
little time to control the light. But this adapter was tricky to use. You lose
some light, and then, if you close down further than about T/4, you can start
to see the elements of the adapter in the shot.”
Though the 750 and a very minimal lighting and grip package enabled the production
to work quickly and keep a low profile, there was one sequence, in which Marion
and Jack are menaced by a fellow metro rider, that required the use of even more
compact gear. For this, Bakchev’s own Sony HVR-A1 HDV camcorder came to
the rescue. “I wanted the subway scene,” Delpy recalls, “but
it was too expensive to shoot in the subway in Paris. I knew there was almost
no dialogue, so we stole it.”
“We just went into a regular subway car with the three actors, the 1st
AC, the sound man and Julie’s assistant,” the cinematographer recalls. “It
worked very well. The shots don’t look exactly as good [as those with the
750], but they do look good in the final film—and with just this small
HDV camera.”
“It was much more fun to steal the shots anyway,” Delpy adds.
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