Montreal: On the feature film La Mysterieuse mademoiselle C., director Richard Ciupka is using a lot of extended dolly one-shots to get as much spontaneity out of his very youthful cast as possible.

La Mysterieuse mademoiselle C. is a family comedy about a highly imaginative substitute teacher who breaks the mold and finds herself thrown in with the worst-behaved lot in the school. As the story opens, the regular teacher is seen fleeing the delinquents’ classroom, hands raised high in distress.

While the film, produced by Films Vision 4 and distributed by Christal Films Distribution, portrays the kids in a realistic light, Ciupka says the adult roles are more cartoonish, as in the case of the terrifying school director Monsieur Lenrage (literally Mr. Enraged), played by Gildor Roy.

Marie-Chantal Perron stars as Mademoiselle Charlotte. Eve Lemieux, Maxime Dumontier and Felix-Antoine Despatie play three of the principal children’s roles. Dominique Petin plays a teacher and Patrick Labbe is a parent.

As for Mlle C., she’s a charming if rather strange sort who dresses unconventionally and wears a funny hat. Part of the story is given over to her secret visualizations of herself as Beauty in Beauty and the Beast.

As she begins to transform her unruly kids and teach them the joys of reading, she discovers the school’s director has emptied the library of its books, turning it into his own personal office. As the conflict with the crooked school boss builds, Mlle C. and the kids unite to defend the new library they’ve built themselves.

On their hands and knees

On day 12 of the 34-day shoot, on location at Ecole Ste-Cecile in suburban Lachine, Ciupka (Task Force, Le Dernier souffle, 10-07) and cinematographer Steve Danyluk are literally on their hands and knees halfway up a school hallway, the only really effective way to get a good close-up of the amazingly small leading players.

Ciupka is directing seven kids with primary speaking roles. ‘I noticed how kids always watch the same film over and over,’ he says. ‘And I thought this is such fresh material. The hardest thing with kids is the written word, so I have them say [their lines] their own way, which becomes so natural. I take a lot of time with the kids on the set.’

Ciupka says he hopes to create a fun film with Quebec content for Quebec youngsters, basically in the eight to 12 demographic.

‘And now that I know how to work with them we can improvise a lot; as soon as you do that they sparkle,’ says the director, who has a couple of kids of his own.

Ciupka, an experienced DOP, says this is the first film where he’s not operating the camera. ‘Steve started shooting] with me and he kind of does [things] like I do.’

Ciupka says he’s mainly using long, moving one-shots to tell the story. ‘It’s hard to do with kids, but we’ve managed to gain in spontaneity because we’re not breaking the flow.’

DOP Danyluk (Skulls II, Blue Murder, Falcone) is using an Arri 535 camera setup with ‘ramping’ possibilities. The lens package is a series of new Cooke S4s, from 14mm T2 wide lenses for master wide shots and close-ups to 200mm T2, plus two Angenieux zoom lenses, 17/102mm and 25/250mm.

Danyluk’s choice of film stock is the new Fuji F-250D daylight film, used for interiors and night exteriors, and F-64D for daytime exteriors. The Arri’s ramping option is used to change the camera’s film speed, for example, from normal 24 fps to 40 fps slo-mo.

Danyluk says he has more choice in Fuji film stock with new emulsions for the F-250D and F-64D, and even the F-500. Lighting setups include daylight HMIs and a lot of Kino Flo fluorescent lights.

‘For this particular project, which is a kids’ thing where things are more subtle and soft, the [film stock] gives us more contrast, and Richard loves contrast. It just has more subtleness to it with the blending of these little kids’ skin and the beautiful Charlotte. This is the perfect job for Fuji,’ says the DOP.

As for Mlle C.’s secret fantasy sequences, shot at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, she’s decked out in flowing period costumes, and many of the shots are ramped (from normal to slo-mo) using a Steadicam camera mount to capture billowing candles, veils and curtains, says Danyluk.

‘What I love about Richard is that he works very instinctively. We know each other so well,’ he says.

STCVQ craft credits go to PM Danielle Fontaine, first AD Harold Trepanier, art director Jean Becotte, costume designer Francesca Chamberland and sound recordist Michel Zabitsky. Jean-Francois Bergeron is the picture editor. Covitec/ Technicolor is handling the rushes. Camera equipment is from Locations Michel Trudel.

La Mysterieuse mademoiselle C. is budgeted at $3.8 million and is produced by Claude Veillet and Jacques Bonin of Films Vision 4. Carmen Bourassa and Lucie Veillet are the associate producers. Investors include Telefilm Canada – Canada Feature Film Fund, SODEC and broadcaster Radio-Canada. Christal anticipates a March 2002 release. *