Professional life

Luc, your filming friends from those films that take months, years, to film, just the right amount of time to forge friendships. We are all here, all united in thinking about you.

Last Indian summer of the 20^th century – Northeast United States – first meeting with Luc Drion. A few centimetres away from his camera the Canadian geese of Winged Migration were flying in formation over a brilliantly coloured forest. They flew in all weather, under the rain and the snow, in the fog, full speed ahead.

Belgian cinematographer Luc Drion, SBC, left us on 2012 October the 25^th, during the shooting of Nicolas Vanier’s feature Belle and Sébastien, in French Alpes; a wasp stung him. Eric Guichard, AFC talks about his friend Luc.

Chris Marker chose the day of his 91^st birthday to leave us, discreetly and without a sound, in his typical style. I was lucky enough to have known him professionally and personally. I travelled with him to Japan and to Cape Verde to film L’héritage de la chouette (The Owl’s Legacy). Chris adored Japan, the Japanese, cats, and new technologies. He used to tell us about his big philosophical theories regarding the values of Japanese civilisation and its cat myths.

May 1985, filming Level Five on Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost island. Extremely small team: Marker and me, him with a Walkman-style tape recorder modified by Antoine Bonfanti, and me with an Arri 16 SR, a Zeiss 11-110mm zoom lens, a backpack containing a magazine, film, and changing bag.

In June, we announced the death of British director of photography Christopher (Chris) Challis, BSC, on May 31, 2012. He was 93 years old. Marc Salomon, a consulting member of the AFC and “doctor of biofilmography”, decided to explore this DoP’s career and the work of this cinematographer who was respected by his peers, this good-humoured and charming character, who accomplished over sixty films over his career spanning more than four decades. (Photo BSC)

The professional organizations ACID, AFC, ARP, CST, FICAM, SACD, SRF welcome the decision rendered by the President of the CNC on the issue of silver screens during the last colloquium of the CST on March 7, 2012.
Movie theatres have been given five years to update their equipment in order to ensure that films are shown in the best possible conditions and that their integrity and the work of the director and his technical assistants is respected.
We are pleased that this shared cause has been broadly taken up and that artistic and cultural interests have prevailed over profits.

In 2009, motion picture production activity remained at a high level, close to that of 2007. 230 features had CNC regulatory approval, 4.2% less than in 2008 (- 10 films). This slight decline only concerned French-initiated films (182 films in 2009, against 196 in 2008). On the other hand, the number of features funded by a majority of foreign monies increased slightly (+ 4 films). In 2009, French production counted 195 features, 30 documentaries and 5 animation films.

Director Jacques Baratier left us very discretely, almost as if he had hid for a joke, or as if he was worried about the disorder that would result. He was there, but he still is, to mark his difference by his humor, his impatience, his pleasure in loving and being loved without allegiance or dependence, convinced that he could, that he would enlighten his era again and always with that elegance, lightness, carefree irreverence, and extravagance mismatched with the conventional milieu of French cinema.

With Andre Dussolier, Sabine Azema, Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric

French release: November 4, 2009

For our second collaboration (after Hearts released in 2006), Alain Resnais offered me the film Wild Grass (the title is his), which refers to those blades of grass that manage to grow in a crack in the asphalt of the street or in a stone wall, where there should not be any life at all. Somewhat echoing his characters, who fall madly in love, without knowing each other...

The British cinematographer and director Jack Cardiff died at his home in Cambridgeshire, Kent, on April 22, at the age of ninety-four. Passing away in his 95^th year, Jack Cardiff, became during his lifetime, a legendary cinematographer the mere mention of whose name immediately evokes in the cinephile several major works shot in Technicolor.
Among the legendary films photographed by Cardiff, excluding three shot in with Michael Powell, we can list Under Capricorn for Hitchcock (with Ingrid Bergman), Pandora and the Flying Dutchman for Lewin (with Ava Gardner and James Mason), The African Queen for Huston (with Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart), The Barefoot Contessa by Mankiewicz (with Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart), The Prince and the Showgirl by Laurence Olivier (with Marilyn Monroe), not to mention War and Peace by King Vidor (in VistaVision) and The Vikings by Richard Fleischer (in Technirama).

Developed by the FICAM (Federation of Cinema and Audiovisual Industries) and the French National Film Commission, an amendment favoring foreign producers shooting in France has just been adopted unanimously by Parliament in the framework of the 2009 Finance Act.

This measure, adapted to the budget of foreign — including American — productions is in the spirit of existing European incentive systems. It is a tax rebate in favor of the executive producer established in France participating in the production of foreign works (fiction and animation) that are not eligible for financial support by the CNC (French National Center for Cinema).

It is with sadness that the AFC has learned the passing of director of photography Alain Levent, AFC.
Among the many stories in memory of our colleague and friend, here is one by N. T. Binh, a member of the editorial board of the magazine Positif, as written by Yann Tobin.

At a meeting of the Board on Saturday 14^th June 2008, Sue Gibson BSC was elected President of the BSC.
New Vice President Chris Seager was also elected and the Board were delighted to welcome three new Governors, Sean Bobbitt, John Daly and Nic Morris. The Board extended a grateful vote of thanks to Immediate Past President Gavin Finney for his tireless efforts during his 2 year term as President.

He was associated with the renewal of British cinematography in the 1960’s, along with his colleagues Walter Lassaly, Billy Williams and Chris Menges - all of whom had done their apprenticeship outside the traditional path of assisting and operating – when he started working with Richard Lester and Tony Richardson for Woodfall Film Productions *. Watkin quickly imposed a new way of lighting, favoring indirect light, broad and diffuse sources, and backlighting, which would quickly become his trademark.

I met Sven on Schlöndorff’s A Love of Swann, in 1983. This encounter was to me like one of those amazing gifts that filmmaking sometimes unexpectedly gives us. Like Bertolucci with Storaro, Truffaut with Almendros, Bergman and his films always seemed to follow Sven. When you met him, you met more than just a man. Dominique Le Rigoleur, Volker Schlöndorff, Sven Nykvist, Balthazar, chef machiniste (photo Georges Pierre) This was for me one of the most wonderful and enriching experiences of my life. Sven wanted the cameraman to (…)

I trained with Nykvist after graduating from IDHEC. His simplicity and his wisdom were heartbreaking; everything was related with him, and he was poles apart from the histrionics of filmmaking, passing on his knowledge without affectation nor ulterior motive.

« I was greatly saddened to hear that Sven Nykvist died. He was a brilliant photographer and a wonderful man. My whole young adulthood was full of dazzling cinematic images that he was responsible for. It was an honor to have worked with him and a treat to have spent time in his company. »