Adrien Bertolle looks back at the filming of the series "The Deal", directed by Jean-Stéphane Bron

Geneva, April 2015. High-tension international negotiations begin between the US and Iran, which is suspected of secretly developing nuclear weapons. Alexandra Weiss, head of the Swiss diplomatic mission, tries to maintain a fragile balance between the parties maneuvering behind the scenes. The unexpected arrival of her former lover, Payam Sanjabi, an Iranian engineer whose life is in danger, complicates her task dangerously...

What was the challenge for you on this series ?

Adrien Bertolle : The first challenge was to recreate the Grand Rivage hotel—which doesn’t actually exist—from five different locations. We had to make the locations and lighting match, filming successively in Geneva, Lausanne, and Montreux. For example, the hotel’s facade and exterior shots were filmed in Lausanne, but the city in the background had to be removed afterwards. The thing is, even though these three cities seem quite similar in terms of their location, all on the lakeside, they are very sensitive to sudden changes in weather. Montreux, for example, located at the eastern end, closest to the Alps, is subject to extremely changeable light, a bit like what you find in the high mountains. So I quickly learned not to count on stable days and to make do with whatever the weather gave us. Finally, other locations in Luxembourg were used to recreate the press room and the basements. So the shoot was organized almost entirely around this series of locations, with the different scenes of each episode filmed one after the other.

How did you work with the director ?

AB : Jean-Stéphane Bron comes from a documentary background. So he wanted to recreate something very close to the truth in the relationships between the characters, and in this context of negotiations in a neutral country, which is really characteristic of Switzerland. So, on paper, it was an extremely well-written, exciting script, full of details, but one that would mainly involve filming people talking in living rooms... To give you an idea, we spent nearly 20 days in the main set where the talks take place ! In this kind of situation, you inevitably try to vary the positions, the angles... Every day, you ask yourself what the weather is like, what time each scene takes place, and you try to find an idea for each scene so as not to fall into monotony. For example, when we started discussing the shot list with Jean-Stéphane, we were thinking of shooting everything handheld. But then we gradually moved on to a dolly, then a slider, and then fixed shots... This allowed us to juggle the images, each of us sensing the direction in which each scene or exchange was taking us...

The film is almost a closed-door drama in the end...

AB : That was naturally a concern for the writers and the production team. I remember that the shooting script included other character arcs that allowed us to leave the hotel and the negotiations a little. But in the end, during editing, the series was tightened up to maintain this kind of unity of place, which fits the subject perfectly.
And in the end, I think the hotel became almost one of the main characters ! With the façade for the press and everything going on behind the scenes... You mention the closed setting, which is true. And in that genre, we inevitably think of Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men. That film is a source of inspiration for any filmmaker who is about to film people talking around a table ! In terms of the choice of focal lengths, positions, and choreography... that film is truly a model. But "The Deal" is also part of the family of political films dealing with recent history, where you find yourself having to explain quite complex things or concepts to the viewer. I’m thinking, for example, of everything related to uranium enrichment, which is one of the important themes in the series. To help us with this, we rewatched Adam McKay’s The Big Short, which recounts the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, and Marco Bellochio’s Italian series Esterno notte, about the kidnapping and execution of Aldo Moro in 1978 by the Red Brigades. I could also mention Margin Call by J. C. Chandor (on the same subject of the 2008 financial crisis) and The Social Network by David Fincher, which inspired us a lot for all the scenes of meetings between lawyers discussing among themselves... I think our credo for this series was really to choose this kind of naturalism common to all these references, to preserve the natural light, to respect the actors’ skin tones, and to make everything come through in their bodies and in the dialogue...

And in terms of lighting, what was your approach ?

AB : From a technical standpoint, we relied heavily on the lighting for the extras. These large hotels are often filled with light fixtures, and much of the lighting work involved using Astera bulbs and controlling all these sources in the field remotely via a console. On the large chandeliers in the negotiation room, for example, we made sure to install new bulbs everywhere at the beginning of the shoot in order to optimize the light. My team sometimes covered them with diffusion when they were out of frame so that we still had a lot of flexibility in terms of angles and could set up quickly. There was very little on the floor, because Jean-Stéphane wanted to keep a lot of freedom in terms of coverage for each dialogue.

Did you shoot with two cameras ?

AB : Only the negotiation scenes, with the two delegations and a large number of actors, when it really justified it. But everything else was shot with one camera. This may seem a little strange in a series, as you’re tempted to cover the angles and move quickly. In fact, we often find that setting up a second camera, which becomes something of a necessity, gets in the way more than anything else. And it wastes time when it’s not absolutely necessary. As for movement, there was no Steadicam on this series, just a little bit of Ronin that I framed myself. Thanks to the Alexa Mini LF, equipped with the Hugo series from Leitz, we had an extremely compact camera setup that allowed us, especially in all the scenes filmed with the camera on the shoulder around the character Alexandra, to sneak around with her, between doors, from passageway to passageway... Discovering this place that she knows by heart. A camera very close to her, which contrasts with the negotiation scenes, which are more sedate and more distant from the actors. There, we’re in a confrontation. One side against the other, staring at each other, sizing each other up... On either side of the table. We even play with the camera angles at times, starting in the third episode, during this negotiation in which we, as viewers, are drawn in.

And the format ?

AB : There was always a lot going on in the background. Assistants watching, security, hotel staff... In many sequences, we film groups of people, which is why we felt that the 2:1 format was appropriate. It’s a good compromise between 16:9 and 2.4:1 when you have quite a few actors in the frame at the same time.

In episode 1, an unexpected event disrupts a secret pre-meeting organized the night before the official negotiations. It’s an important sequence that really launches the story and the main character, Alexandra Weiss (Veerle Baetens)...

AB : It’s actually very common in negotiations like this. A kind of preliminary meeting is often organized discreetly between the parties to iron out the official negotiations. As everything has to remain top secret, it’s often done behind the backs of certain people, and of course the press. I remember that during the preparation, we found an example that we really liked visually, a completely surreal meeting in the middle of the night at a gas station in Geneva on the eve of a major negotiation between the American and Russian representatives at the time. Jean Stéphane thought about incorporating it into the series, but he finally gave up, thinking that no one would believe such a scene !
So we ended up in a large bourgeois mansion, which belonged to Baron Pierre de Coubertin, in Lausanne, in the middle of a beautiful park. A providential rain accompanied us that evening for the few exterior shots when the delegations arrive, which adds to the spy atmosphere of the scene, with the Israeli secret service tailing them.
In the narrative, it’s one of the first scenes where there’s a lot going on at the same time, with the uncertainty of the meeting, our protagonist keeping watch to ensure discretion and the success of the event, and of course the Mossad team watching from their hideout in the rain as people leave the building. The editing speeds up, we move into a different rhythm, almost a different genre within the scene. And it’s a style of scene that will come back regularly throughout the series, to give it rhythm and bring back the thriller and espionage aspect as the relationships between the characters become increasingly complex.

What stands out for you from this shoot ?

AB : I really didn’t want the images to take precedence over the story. My aim was to find as many variations as possible within each scene, but without over-stylizing anything on camera. And then I remember the extremely variable lighting conditions caused by Lake Geneva... Which can sometimes take you through all four seasons in a single day. For example, I remember this beautiful sunshine coming out in the late afternoon when the sky cleared... These very strong rays of light reflecting off the lake, after shooting almost everything in the rain since morning... When you’re based, like us, in working hotels, the comfort and peace and quiet of the guests is non-negotiable. It’s out of the question, for example, to set up camera cranes with 18kW HMIs. In short, a luxury hotel is really not compatible with the habits of a film crew ! So we often had to adapt, for example indoors, by working with false colors rather than blocking everything off, creating airlocks, or placing powerful light sources outside. A good example was the restaurant set, where Alexandra discreetly passes a note to Payam without his entourage of bodyguards noticing. I lit this set mainly with helium balloons, placed just above the windows to maintain the direction of the light, and adjusted the intensity and even the color in real time using the console, depending on variations in the outside light. This setup didn’t bother anyone, there were no projectors outside, no offsets, no lines connecting to a generator... Everything was done using only the connections available in the hotel, in a spirit that was ultimately almost documentary, light... But with resources.

(Interview conducted by François Reumont for the AFC)

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