Le Sorcier to life

Word has it producer Claude Heroux was so impressed with the art department’s authentic, full-size Indian chief’s headdress for Le Sorcier, he’s mounted a prominent display of the pricey prop in his office.

The ceremonial feathers are one of hundreds of props and costumes created for the 11-hour, $8.5 million historical tv drama, which will air on the TVA Television Network in January 1995.

Scripted by Robert Gauthier and Heroux, Le Sorcier is set between 1922 and 1929 in Montreal, rural Quebec and among the Cree Indians of Manitoba.

The series, a sequel to an earlier highly-rated Communications Claude Heroux International production, Au Nom du pere et du fils, tells the story of an epic battle between two men, Father Plamondon, an outcast priest who lusts for power, and Clovis, a young Metis doctor whose hatred of the priest goes back to his youth. Both Le Sorcier and Au Nom du pere et du fils are based on the popular novels of Quebec author Francine Ouelette.

Quality props and the like have always been a distinguishing feature of big-budget drama television, but for Le Sorcier, directed by veteran filmmaker Jean-Claude Labrecque, many of the props play a special role in that they have been used to mark important editing cuts, often at the opening of a new scene.

Heroux assembled a first-rate team of specialists on Le Sorcier, among them production manager Diane Arcand, production designer Francois Lamontagne, costume designer Nicole Pelletier and veteran cinematographer Bernard Chentrier.

On the last day of production, amid the packed boxes, Playback caught up with Arcand, Pelletier and Lamontagne and asked them about the job just completed.

As pm, Arcand (Au Nom du pere et du fils, Rene Levesque) plays a role akin to a general in an army.

She was in charge of logistics for the filming of a grim migration scene where sick and starving Natives are forced by a mean-spirited priest, played by Pierre Chagnon, on a long march to a new settlement in the south.

Arcand had the daunting task of moving a caravan of 40 technicians, a huge cast that included hundreds of Native extras, and a convoy of trucks filled with equipment six hours down river from Montreal to Parc Bic, located on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River near Rimouski.

In Quebec, the pm post is non-union, and many of its top practitioners are women who possess strong accounting skills and an ability to manage groups of people in intense, temporary work situations.

‘My signature has to be on everything, otherwise it doesn’t move,’ says Arcand, a former financial analyst with Telefilm Canada.

‘When you consider a shoot like Le Sorcier, which lasted 97 days, you have to be careful with actors – where they’ll sit, sleep and eat.

‘It’s like an army, people get coldÉthere are too many flies, cars have to be parked, it just never stops. It’s the same thing as kindergarten – they’re cold, they’re hot, they’re thirsty and hungry, from four in the morning to eight at night.’

Another key department head on Le Sorcier is costume designer Pelletier.

Pelletier’s team numbered up to 30 at its busiest point, building garments from scratch and remodeling clothing purchased in shops scattered across Ontario and the u.s. Other outfits and costume props, particularly batches of outfits used by the extras, were rented from specialty suppliers, Cosprop and Angels and Burmans, both located in London, Eng. All the new garments had to be carefully ‘skated,’ made to look old and worn, she says.

Pelletier, a Genie winner for Gilles Carle’s Les Plouffes, has been in the business for 25 years. Her work on Le Sorcier spanned eight months, beginning in early January.

Her department produced 600 costumes for the shoot including elaborate masterpieces such as a $1,500 bead-embroidered Native wedding dress and authentic Native children’s winter clothing made from rabbit fur. A one-of-a-kind specialist, trained in Paris, was hired for the embroidering.

In preparation, Pelletier spent the better part of a week at the National Archives and Museum of Civilization examining historical details, drawings and photographs.

She says her motto as a costume designer is to ‘do the best we can, always to help the story,’ but the nicest compliment came from a Native woman raised in the isolated mid-northern village of Schefferville, Que. The woman said Pelletier’s costumes reminded her of her youth. ‘The woman asked if she could take a picture and send it to her old mother. `It reminds me so much of her,’ ‘ she said.

Production designer Lamontagne says much of the design look for the series is closely tied to the lighting or lighting effects.

Lamontagne, whose credits include Alexandre Arcady’s Le Grand pardon ii, shot in the u.s., and Robert Menard’s Cruising Bar, says over the years he has compiled a personal directory of 400 specialized suppliers, but his approach to services is changing.

‘I try to use fewer and fewer outside services,’ he says. ‘By hiring my own people directly I can train them for exactly what is required.’

Still, suppliers like antique dealers and merchants who sell specialized raw materials get Lamontagne’s business.

Lamontagne maintains an ever-ready workshop during preproduction and shooting so he can have control over design, construction and costs.

Lamontagne, who started in the film business in 1972 and became an art director in 1980, says the old people and much of the Native population in central and eastern Canada were ravished by a plague-like disease in the 1920s.

‘As a result, there is a lack of collective memory and details and real facts are hard to come by,’ he says.

Despite the broken myths, Lamontagne says he filled in the blanks using ‘common sense.’

Two of the special effects experts hired for the shoot were Jacques Godbout of Falkor and Anthonio Vdosa.

Vdosa was asked to burn down a chapel which had been built and rebuilt three times. The trick for this late-night fire was getting some lively flame action on the chapel walls without burning the costly structure to the ground.

Another f/x sequence takes place when Clovis, the young Metis doctor played by Eric Brisebois, falls from his small boat, loses his gear and almost drowns. The filming of the underwater scenes – sinking furs and Clovis struggling to survive – took place at a large municipal swimming pool in Riviere des Praires outside Montreal.

Using this location meant the crew was able to film through a couple of large basement-level portals looking through to the lower level of the pool.

Other people on the shoot included Dominique Rankin, a Native consultant and actor, and Simone Leclerc, a researcher in Lamontagne’s art department.

Most of the French-speaking Natives hired for the series came from the Odanak reserve near Sorel.

Henri Blondeau was the shoot’s sound recordist. The sound was posted and edited at Daniel Arie’s Audio Telepoint by sound editor Louis Dupire and dialogue editor Alice Wright.

Le Sorcier is being edited on film by Jean-Marie Drot and Jean Beaudoin. The post-production has been assigned to Sonolab. Centre de Montage Electronique is handling the 16mm film-to-tape transfer. Casting was by Les Films de la Pleine Lune’s Catherine Didelot and film veteran Rene Pothier, who was also the production’s first ad. Yves Charbonneau was chief electrician, Kathryn Casault headed the makeup department, and Rejean Forget was chief hairdresser.

Le Sorcier went through two major budget cuts prior to the start of principal photography, and finally cost $772,000 per one-hour episode.

pm Arcand says, ‘It’s been a long time since I have been this pleased with the results. I’m very pleased.’