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"Violet" Partly Photographed in 8-perf 65mm |
Read more at in70mm.com The 70mm Newsletter
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Written by: Bas Devos,
director, "Violet", in an e-mail to the editor |
Date:
14.04.2014 |
Director
of photography Nicolas Karakatsanis and director Bas Devos next to the 65mm
camera.
We shot in an 8-perf format to approach the 4:3 ratio. A huge negative
indeed. The camera we used is the 65MM 8-perf Mitchell Todd-AO. Our DOP
Nicolas Karakatsanis bought the camera on eBay. We wanted
to achieve a heightened reality for certain shots. The film is about
observing, the action of watching. So the large format was almost logic
- even though it was hard on our small production. Approx. 12 min in the
films final cut is 65mm footage. This includes a monolithic ending
sequence of 6˝ min. Due to the length of an 8 perf 65mm reel, we had to
cut the shot in two parts and stich it together in post to have one
fluent 6˝ min shot.
Bas Devos, director,
"Violet"
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More in 70mm reading:
Various Large
format and 70mm Films
Internet link:
violet-film.com
mindsmeet.be
augusteorts.be
How They Achieved This Stunning 4:3 Film’s Most Stunning Shots
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From The Media
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65mm
8-perf frame blow-up
theupcoming.co.uk:
Talking about lenses – Violet has a 4:3 ratio and exceptional
cinematography. What was it shot on?
Bas Devos: I had my mind made up on the ratio from the very
start. It’s because we’re so used to the Cinemascope nowadays that a
different ratio immediately prompts a different way of looking. It’s a
photographic format. Our approach to cinematography was more
photographic than cinematographic – especially in search of the light
and the way we used lenses. Most parts we shot on Arri Alexa, another
ten minutes – the whole ending sequence – was shot on 65mm. We found an
old camera with eight perforations – that’s like the Hasselblad format
within 24 frames a second, it gives you a very strange focal depth.
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theskeletonherald.blogspot.dk
Fries Todd-AO 65mm 8-perf camera with Mamiya 645 24mm lens in Maxi
PL-mount (without 1000ft mags on this picture). Prepping a Bas Devos
feature film.
hollywoodreporter.com:
Emotionally specific despite relying mostly on images rather than dialog
to tell its story, this evocative and atmospheric feature, which was
shot on both 65mm and the digital Alexa by co-producer and ace
cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis (Bullhead), should appeal to
upscale festival and arthouse audiences and might even score some niche
theatrical action in other European territories. The film’s boxy Academy
ratio helps lend the proceedings a claustrophobic edge, as if the screen
can’t contain the churning undercurrents of emotions, while the images
in 65mm make the film look almost hyperrealistic at times, suggesting a
heightened sensitivity to Jesse's experience of his surroundings.
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Synopsis
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65mm
8-perf frame blow-up
On their way home early one summer, Jesse and Jonas get into an argument
with two youngsters, whereby Jonas gets stabbed. Jesse is the only
witness of the murder. In shock, Jesse, is taken care of by his parents.
They are at a loss for words. All Jesse’s circle of friends, a group of
young BMX riders, can come up with is questions – questions Jesse is
unable to answer. The group do their best to take care of him, taking
him to the skate ground and to concerts. Feeling the weight of their
looks, however, Jesse increasingly isolates himself to get over the
loss. At nights he sneaks towards Jonas’s parents’ house. He takes a
certain amount of comfort from observing those who share his grief. When
Jonas’s father catches him in the act one day and gives him Jonas’s old
BMX as a present, Jesse gradually starts realizing what is happening to
him. He realizes that a visit to the scene of the crime will be the only
way to get over the loss and confront his loneliness.
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Director's Statement
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The way the formal aspects of
film and films materiality can dictate the
content has always intrigued me. The way light and dark, noise and
silence and time and space alter the meaning of what is shown is vastly
enigmatic and seemingly beyond comprehension. Often I found myself moved
not by what was shown but by how it reached me. I connected to certain
films because, on a deeper level, I connected to the way the filmmaker saw
the world. How the light wakes up a space or how the screen-space
separates two people. How screentime feels like private-time or how
complete silence makes me aware of my own presence, my own posture.
These sensory experiences defined and redefined how I perceive the medium. I
love stories. I love telling them. Drawing them. But in lm I felt much
more attracted to something on the border of the narrative. I wanted to
lm windows. And lamps. And res.
The surface of things. The surface of people. "Violet" departs
from an act of violence. It initiates a very simple narrative: a process
of grief and loneliness through the eyes of a teenager. Both in form and
content the film tries to disarm the violence of its opening. The cruel,
distant observation of a murder through a cctv monitor, in its silence
and indifference, was a necessary start. It was for me a force, a
presence that demanded opposition. Not relying on a defined
psychological drive, but on the tools of film, I hoped to evoke
something of the isolation and powerlessness of the main character.
Through observing him and his surroundings, I believe something can be
seen that is harder to articulate, but that has a stronger power than
the underlying violence. A belief, maybe, that people connect not in
what we understand but in what we do not.
Maybe here for me content and form truly converge, in not knowing why
exactly things are the way they are. Finally, I would like to stress the
obvious. This film is not the work of one, but of many makers. Every
member of the cast and crew helped me, not in ‘realizing my vision’, but
in letting me see, hear and feel things in a different way, previously
unimagined.
Bas Devos
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Cast/Credit
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65mm
8-perf frame blow-up
Minds Meet presents in coproduction with Artémis Productions, Phanta
Film & Mollywood: Violet. A film by Bas Devos with Cesar De
Sutter, Raf Walschaerts, Mira Helmer, Koen De Sutter, Fania Sorel, Brent
Minne. Produced by Tomas Leyers. Coproduced by Patrick
Quinet, Petra Goedings, Nicolas Karakatsanis. Cinematography by
Nicolas Karakatsanis. Art direction by Jeff Otte. Edited by
Dieter Diependaele. Sound Design by Boris Debackere.
Rerecording Mix by Benoit Biral. Music by Deafheaven. 2014 –
BE / NL – DCP – Colour – approx. 85 min. Shooting Format: ARRI Alexa,
65mm 8 perf.
violet-film.com,
info@mindsmeet.be
"Violet" had its World premiere at the Berlin Film
Festival in February 2014 and won the Generation 14 plus International Jury
prize. "Violet" was show at the CPH PIX film Festival in April 2014,
Copenhagen, Denmark.
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28-07-24 |
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