LMGI COMPASS
|
Summer 2020
•
23
TV series, commercials and music videos. From
action to romance by way of Bollywood movies and
from period to contemporary movies.
Stevie: WHAT CHALLENGES DO YOU FACE IN YOUR JOB?
AK:
The administrative side of the job is getting more
complicated and time-consuming. There is more
paperwork and the meetings with authorities involve
more different administrative services. On Dunkirk,
I had to organize meetings requiring the attendance of
15 different entities, each represented by 1-3 people.
At the end, we were about 40 people around a table to
discuss the feasibility of a shoot.
Stevie: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CHALLENGES TO FILMING
SPECIFICALLY IN PARIS OR IN YOUR GENERAL FILMING TERRITORY?
AK:
Like most heavily populated cities, Paris is congested.
The areas where to set up base camps and park trucks
are harder to find, especially for big movies. The large
increase of the number of shootings (almost 5,500
shooting days in 2019 compared to the 3,000 shooting
days in 2015) does not make things easier.
In addition to this, there is a political will to carry out
an ecological transition (which is basically a good thing)
which will, among other things, result in the halving of
the number of parking spaces to create cycle paths, the
ban on the use of small generators, or even the ban
on the circulation of trucks running on diesel fuel. All
of this will force us in the coming years to rethink the
logistics of filming.
Stevie: WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITES OR MOST MEMORABLE
FILMING EXPERIENCES?
AK:
Among the memorable filming experiences, the
filming of Dunkirk was a real challenge. This shoot
combined land, sea and air elements simultaneously.
This film was shot in IMAX and director Christopher
Nolan, as a purist, did not want to alter the quality of
the images with CGI effects, wanting to shoot as much
as possible on location. Pretty much what you see in the
picture was actually filmed on location. We were very
far from studio shooting with green screens. We came
back to an old-style shoot using painted trompe l'oeil
elements and scale effects. It was an adventure I'll never
forget.
