Montreal-based cinematographer Francois Dagenais says he got the gig on the feature Between the Moon and Montevideo for his knowledge both of Spanish and the Super 16 format. These proved a boon on the Cuban set of btmam, writer/director Attila Bertalan’s follow-up to 1992’s A Bullet in the Head, Canada’s Academy Award entry that year for best foreign-language film.

Although he favors long-form drama, Dagenais is currently working on music videos.

‘It’s kind of slow in Montreal,’ he reports. ‘There’s only one [feature] shoot right now. It’s very busy in Vancouver and Toronto, though. It’s primarily a problem with winter, because we have more snow here.’

Between the Moon and Montevideo is a realistic fantasy about scrap metal dealer Tobi, played by Bertalan, who lives on a futuristic colony that drifts between the moon and the Earth. As meteors fall out of the sky in alarming numbers and the level of radioactivity grows, Tobi does all he can to scrape together enough money to buy a ticket back to Earth, which gets him mixed up in a brutal underground boxing club. The film also stars Pascale Bussieres (Emporte-moi, The Five Senses) as Juta, the woman who wavers between Tobi and vicious gangster Louis (Gerald Gagnon).

Dagenais shot btmam in Super 16 for blowup to 35mm, and offers some advice on the process.

‘The most important thing is to do tests beforehand, [keeping in mind] where you’re going to do your blowup and with which kind of film stock,’ he says. ‘Also, try to test in the situation you’re going to experience during the movie.’

Dagenais was impressed with the image sharpness maintained even after the transfer. (The movie was originated on Kodak Vision 500T 7279 stock.) Part of this can be attributed to his approach to the printing process.

‘As opposed to doing a 16 interpos and then a 35 interneg, we did a 35 interpos, which helped a lot,’ he explains. ‘The script has that kind of harshness anyway – the world those characters live in is quite hard, so the look of Super 16 didn’t bother us at all. But I was actually very surprised by the fine grain.’

Bertalan guided the dop toward a noirish style in the film’s many night scenes, enhancing the atmosphere of danger and uncertainty.

‘He said ‘I really want it dark – I want shadows because the character is hiding, and I want to feel we don’t know what’s behind those shadows,’ ‘ Dagenais recalls. The cinematographer accomplished this by underexposing the film – even against Kodak’s recommendation – which gave the filmmakers the exact look they sought.

Many in the industry are sounding the death knell for Super 16, citing the high-definition format as preferable for 35mm blowup, due to cost and more options in post-production. Despite the success of an hd-originated project such as waydowntown, Dagenais, given the option, would still opt for Super 16. On btmam he used a camera in that format from French manufacturer Aaton.

‘I’ve worked with hd twice and those cameras are not as well-suited for hand-held work,’ he says. A Super 16 camera, on the other hand, is already designed for that – it’s smaller than an hd camera. hd is still designed to be a newsreel cameraman’s camera [on a tripod].’

An hdcam would have been particularly impractical on the set of btmam, where Dagenais and his crew worked in many tight locations where they had to be fast and couldn’t be anchored by a lot of hd cable running from the camera to the monitor.

The film’s overall look impressed the selection committee at the recent Camerimage, the international cinematography film festival held each December in Lodz, Poland. The film was the only Canadian entry, playing alongside such Hollywood heavyweights as Gladiator and Nurse Betty. The dop was also thrilled to rub elbows with lensing giants Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now), Janusz Kaminski (Saving Private Ryan) and lifetime achievement award recipient Billy Williams (Gandhi). Fellow Canadian Paul Sarossy (Felicia’s Journey) sat on the festival jury.

The subject of hd vs. film was popular at the fest, especially with the Sony 24P hdcam now on the market. (btmam’s 1998 shoot predates the revolutionary camera’s release.)

‘Phedon Papamichael was the first dop who did HD 24 – for a U2 video with Wim Wenders – and afterwards he told Wenders he wanted to do the next film in Super 16 rather than hd,’ Dagenais says. ‘With the tests I’ve seen, I still think if your blowup is well done, Super 16 gives you better quality.’

The prodigal son

Dagenais, a graduate of Montreal’s Concordia University film program, began his career in 1989 directing 23 segments for the cbc/National Film Board documentary program La Course Destination Monde, whose other contributors included Genie winners Denis Villeneuve and Philippe Falardeau. Eight young directors were sent to different corners of the world for six months to shoot weekly improvised Super vhs reports, with Dagenais covering North America and Africa. It was on this assignment that he fell in love with the visual aspect of filmmaking and decided to pursue cinematography.

While filming a corporate video for the Canadian International Development Agency in Honduras, Dagenais experienced camera troubles that brought him to a local post house/commercial company to fix his footage. Impressed with his work, the company made him an offer to shoot spots for international ad agencies, and he ended up staying in Central America for the next year. He then attended the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, where he earned an mfa and shot his first feature, Mascara, starring Ione Skye, for writer/director Linda Kandel.

Hearing from fellow Canucks at the afi that business was booming in Montreal, Dagenais came home in 1998 and has begun to benefit from the increasing number of u.s. productions filming there, including most recently One Eyed King, an Irish mob story starring William Baldwin, Armand Assante and Chazz Palminteri. The us$4 million film is set in New York’s notorious Hell’s Kitchen.

The cinematographer’s challenge on set was trying to satisfy director Robert Moresco’s desired balance of naturalism and noir, and he was bolstered by gaffer Martin Lamarche (The Art of War) and key grip Jean-Maurice De Ernsted (The Red Violin). Advance clips from the film reveal scenes with dark, rainy exteriors and a reliance on long lenses. A guided tour of Hell’s Kitchen helped Dagenais achieve a strong degree of realism.

‘[Moresco] is actually from there, so the production designer and I went there with him and met the people who inspired the script,’ Dagenais recalls. ‘We went to a wedding that made me think I was in a Martin Scorsese movie. One of the actual guys commented to one of the actors, ‘That’s not the way we fight – when you’re in a fight it’s two punches and the guy’s down, then you go back to your beer.’ ‘

One Eyed King is currently in post, and Dagenais anticipates a May release for btmam in Montreal and Toronto. *

-www.camerimage.ascomp.torun.pl