Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/994862
32 DGA QUARTERLY Back in reality, Maddie gets what Jane was going through and turns to Celeste, who turns to Jane and I cut between perspectives and another close-up. It was beauti- ful to see these women doing their magic and their art, together in this intensity of panicking and then the violence. It was tough because when you have five strong performers like this, they all want to do good and they all have ideas. You need to hear everyone but still lead. We were tired. Shooting nights is tough, but you have to focus and be creative. So, that was quite an experience. We avoided front lighting to really feel the night but it does make it dark. It feels natural and imperfect, and that's why I like working with Yves; he controls the camera so well and has the courage to do this. We'd done 100 commercials together but with Dallas Buy- ers Club, we really went available light, handheld, with 360 degrees shooting on location to create a space of freedom. We ask the crew to hide, there are no flags, no reflectors. In that way, John Paino, production designer, becomes the DP's main guy, giving him torches or the streetlamp at the top of the stairs that we turned on or off as needed. The shot before this is the future and the women are watching the ocean. Then bang, we cut back here with the sound of the ocean, the fight starts and these women become the ocean. No sound of reality, no sound of fighting, just the piano music. I had thought I was going to do this in slow motion, so we recorded these shots at 60 frames per second (fps). But I realized in the cutting room that the violence didn't work in slow motion. That was a good thing because when I decided to speed them up, 60 fps gives it a shuttering effect when put at 24 fps. So, we sped the shots to around 18 fps and all the movements seemed more violent. Then all of our editors, all of them, I was calling them by their first name: Max, Vero, Justin, David and Sylvain. I was telling them, "You're Dave Eisenstein, you're Vero Eisenstein, I want to see amazing-stein (as in Sergei Eisenstein) cut of this moment, I don't want to see a shot more than 10 frames." All these shots are between six and 10 frames. It was nice to explore this: to go with the back-and-forth between the present and the past; then come back and play with the sound. What a fun episode to work on with the visual, the sound, the music and all these perspectives, which is one of my kicks: to embrace a strong POV. 7 8 9 10 7 8 9 10