Technical and artistic references from Focal about DPC II seminar in Lisbon

This foundation for professional training in cinema and audiovisual media is directed by Pierre Agthe. The DPC II seminar was created, among other goals, to give the methods to deal with the most recent workflows.

At the end of 2016, in Lisbon, we had the pleasure to analyse three different films and their workflows :
- Cartas da guerra, a Portuguese film - Director : Ivo M. Ferreira - Cinematographer : João Ribeiro, AIP
- King’s Choice, a Norwegian film - Director : Erik Poppe - Cinematographer : John-Christian Rosenlund, FNF
- Jesus, a French film - Director : Fernando Guzzoni - Cinematographer : Barbara Alvarez, SCU.

The reasons of presenting these films are related to different topics :
- For Cartas da Guerra, a great cinematography in Black and White, with a simple Sony Alpha 7S II, but a very clever workfow designed by Sandro Aguilar (producer/ editor), improved by the colorist Paulo Americo.
- For King’s Choice, a very interesting workflow designed by the cinematographer, through his company - Drylab- which gives power back to the filmmakers and the DP’s. We saw a very skilled hand-held parti-pris in terms of cinematography to deal with the economic constraints.
- For Jesus, we didn’t have the luck to see the film, but we analized the multiple deliveries with Konstantina Stavrianou, the post-production coordinator.

In Cartas da Guerra, and King’s Choice, we can find in these films, very different in terms of aesthetic and budget, the same passion and the same interest from the cinematographers in controlling the image. With two different methods ans approach they have succeeded in giving the audience what they had decided with the directors in short schedule situations.

To return to this seminar, it is designed for producers, production managers, post-production managers and, recently, for filmmakers and cinematographers.
This seminar is organized by Paul Miller, Head of Studies (producer, Escape Pictures, Netherlands/US) and Sophie Bourdon, Delegate to Head of Studies (training consultant, Bourdon Film Consulting, France/Switzerland),.
The other experts are : Martin Hagemann, producer, Zero Fiction Film, Germany ; Florian Rettich, BVK, freelance DIT & Workflow Supervisor, Germany ; Tommaso Vergallo, post-production consultant, Noir Lumière CEO, France.

For me, this seminar is a good opportunity to meet other methodologies and to try to give participants answers to requests which are, sometimes, very unusual. The seminar presents its expertise on several projects submitted by participants.
We find, in Europe the same issues with the increasing array of recording formats and, regarding the post-production, the proliferation of ‘’home lab’’. The seminar analyze all the new tendencies in production, post-production as well as distribution.

You will soon find on the Focal website in the ‘’Making of 2016’’ Martin Hagemann, Florian Rettich and Tommaso Vergallo presentations, a good occasion to discover all these tendencies.

So, thanks to Pierre Agthe from Focal, I have the pleasure to share all the documents I deliver to the participants, ready for download here below.
I hope it might be of interest to the Imago members.