Olivier Boonjing, SBC, talks about the shooting of Jonathan Millet’s film "Les Fantômes".

Hamid is a member of a secret organization that tracks down Syrian war criminals hiding in Europe. His quest leads him to Strasbourg on the trail of his former tormentor. Inspired by true events. 

In this film, reality leaves no room for the rest...

Olivier Boonjing : That was our initial intention, given the origins of this story, which is directly inspired by real events. Many scenes in the film are based on first-hand accounts... And yet few people have heard of these events... Simply because they received little or no press or media coverage. Absolute realism was therefore paramount on screen, even if the film is entirely scripted, and de facto uses certain codes or scenes specific to spy films. In fact, the challenge was to find the right balance between pure naturalism and the stylization inherent to the subject and the suspense in which the film is inevitably immersed. Use as few effects as possible, while relying on the language of film. A film in which sound and editing are as important, if not more so, than the image. That’s the spirit in which we shot, always keeping in mind the need to give the editor as many options as possible.

What does that mean? Multiply the takes?

OB : The script was quite long to begin with. With a running time of around 2 hours 20 minutes. The first cut was in that range, and little by little Jonathan Millet and his editor Laurent Sénéchal (Anatomie d’une chute) worked their way up to the 1h46 film presented at Cannes. So we shot a lot, and in the end several whole sequences didn’t make the cut. But the idea of giving the editor as many options as possible isn’t just a question of the number of takes or scene coverage. For me, it’s also about leaving the freedom to the scale of the scene to crop shots, zoom in, stabilize or, on the contrary, shake certain shots... I don’t see this work as a dispossession of the frame, but rather as a collaboration, in which I play an active part by sometimes attending the editing, and giving my opinion on this or that option.

A concrete example is the opening sequence, with this long shot from the back of the military truck in which a group of men are being transported in the middle of the desert. This shot was filmed in Jordan, in the second part of the shoot (after the core of the film, shot in Strasbourg, had been completed). Here we’re in a truck, on a road in the middle of the desert, and we logically decide to attach the camera firmly to the vehicle, so as to obtain a fairly stable rendering. Shooting this shot from the shoulder, for example, is out of the question, as it’s too buoyant. I won’t go into all the unforeseen events, such as the management of the truck’s roof, which was too transparent and had to be darkened in a hurry to optimize contrast, and the time needed to prepare all the extras’ make-up... A few weeks later, in the editing room, we find ourselves with a very clean, very neutral shot... Almost too neutral for this film opening. And that’s where a very slight zoom out at the truck’s stop, plus a few jolts added here and there as the shot progresses, make all the difference. These are extremely subtle things, almost impossible to control on set. Especially when you’re in a scene like this, with a lot of extras abroad, which is one of the film’s most expensive in terms of production.

What method do you recommend for this?

OB : I’m thinking of David Fincher, who always shoots at maximum definition (in this case 6K 3/2 with a Sony Venice 1), then extracts the 4K image and can either tighten or widen it a little. And of course to have enough margin around the framed image to use the stabilization tools. This is how the film was made, shooting the vast majority of shots in X codec OCN Light, using ST compression only for a few shots shot with an Angénieux 25-250HR zoom lens that didn’t cover the Full Frame sensor, but only Super 35. In terms of optics, I reused the series of Mamiya Sekor medium-format photo lenses I’d already experimented with on Rien à foutre.
This time, however, they have been recut and optimized for film shooting by TLS. This series now incorporates a speed booster module on each lens, providing a 1-stop aperture gain. The series therefore opens between 2.2 and 2.8, depending on the focal length. I really like the Mamiyas because they’re beautifully imperfect, offering a certain distortion, blurred edges... I like the way they look on faces. Another advantage they offer is that they don’t lose too much sharpness when you close the aperture, which was an advantage for us knowing that we were often going to use slightly longer focal lengths while wanting to preserve the scenery. And then, on the recommendation of Florent Kirkpatrick of TSF Belgique, I used that very nice Angénieux zoom I mentioned earlier (in Super35, 3.8K) to accompany this series, mainly for long-focus POV shots.

In what order did you shoot?

OB : The 39-day schedule didn’t allow us to shoot in chronological order, since we first had to get the French part (shot in Strasbourg) into the can, and then sort out all the formalities for sending the equipment to Jordan for the scenes in the Middle East. One of the repercussions of this schedule was that we spent several weeks filming the character of Harfaz only from behind... A rare experience for the actor as the film’s supporting character! The big scene in which the two men meet and talk in the restaurant was saved for the end of this session, to build up a little tension for them. A word to the wise: while these faces may not be familiar to the general public, both the Franco-Tunisian Adam Bessa (Hamid) and the Israeli-Palestinian Tawfeek Barhom (Harfaz) are both very much in the limelight now, having built up their notoriety and CVs with major roles in international productions and series.
They both worked extremely hard to bring their characters to life, particularly with regard to language, as they were not really familiar with the Syrian Arabic accent. In the team, I must also mention the very important role played by the Syrian actress Hala Rajab, who plays the role of Yara, who often advised us on the realism of situations and pronunciations.Among these, the scene of the revolutionary celebration, a sort of annual tradition that really exists in Syrian expatriate communities.This scene, which went on late into the long summer day, was a powerful memory, concluding with a series of sounds alone set to traditional songs sung by the extras at dusk.A poignant moment where reality and fiction are intimately intertwined.

One of the particularities of the film is the presence of full-frame sequences taken from a video game...

OB : These video game sequences were already an integral part of the script.In fact, here again we’re dealing with the real thing, namely a genuine means of concealment used by the cell of exiles to be able to more or less freely discuss sensitive subjects related to war, weapons and the international situation online, without arousing the suspicions of national intelligence services.To produce these sequences, work sessions were originally planned to finalize the universe and graphic rendering.In the end, the post-production team produced a work of such quality that no intervention was necessary on the image or lighting.This is the same Unreal image generation engine used by video game creators (and LED wall shooters).
which they used, and I have to admit we were really blown away by the way Jonathan and I turned out. At first, we were a bit worried that these sequences would look a bit dated or poor compared to the quality achieved by this kind of fighting game, but not at all!All it took was a little final color grading to integrate them directly into the film.

The film is very sunny and summery, yet one of the rare, rather peaceful and almost romantic exterior night scenes takes place at the Christmas market...

OB : The idea of integrating the Christmas market into the plot gives an element to the rather long duration of this hunt. Unfortunately, we couldn’t straddle several seasons and shoot at a time other than the summer of 2023. Also, it’s a sequence that relies entirely on the talents of Esther Mysius and the decoration team. We were able to take over a small square in the town center and recreate some of the market stalls. The lighting came mainly from the garlands and lights set up by the decor team, and I did very little relighting apart from the camera face. For the rest, it was a matter of white balance and color grading, or dressing our actors in more wintry outfits. Of course, it’s unthinkable to wait for a gray day to shoot, and fighting the August sun on camera isn’t easy either. In any case, I must pay tribute to the talent of our director Nourddine Bouchais, as well as to the entire local Strasbourg team, and in general to the Pôle Grand Est, which gave us a warm welcome in this really pleasant city to shoot in.

What was the main grip you used?

OB : We shot a lot with a Steadicam. I like the tool, its flexibility and its mechanical aspect. And I really prefer entrusting these shots to another cameraman (Nicolas Savary) rather than trying to do them myself with a Ronin, for example. What’s more, it allows me to be behind the combo, and have more distance to propose things in the moment...

At the same time, I used my Panasonic S1H camera as a B-camera to steal a few shots here and there. Whether on a train, in Paris or Berlin... 18 days of Steadicam was quite a luxury given our rather modest means... On the scale of a spy movie!One of the things that really made me laugh when we arrived in Jordan was to find myself at the head of a big crew, with a whole bunch of guys who’d been fed up with big American films and who’d worked with Greg Fraser on Dune 2. It was so much fun, and they were always full of anecdotes!

One of the most memorable scenes was when we thought Hamid was going to abandon his mission... He’s at home alone, on the verge of despair, with his head in the sand.

OB : This rather short sequence is taken from a sort of long improvisation shot in Hamid’s apartment (a set recreated in an empty space just above the deco stockroom in Strasbourg). In keeping with the idea of providing as much material as possible for editing, we decided to film the character’s daily life in his apartment, with the passage of time, his solitude, his moments of doubt and his wounds. It’s in this very long 37-minute take in which Adam Bessa lets himself go completely, alternating daily activities, bathing with ice cubes to relieve his scars, cooking, watching TV... The kind of thing you shoot at the end of the day, because then you know the actor will want to rest! I remember we did two takes.One during the day and one at night. Only this shot where he seems to be cracking up and another where he’s looking at a photo of his family were finally used.

You mentioned the Fincher method. He’s also a fervent advocate of the most faithful respect of a final photographic rendering from the set to the end of post-production, even in HDR... Is this the case for you?

OB : What’s certain is that, in terms of computing power and rendering speed, it’s now possible to edit and calibrate a film on your own laptop. Many cinematographers can now get their hands dirty with a color-grading suite. This means you can set up your own LUT in preparation, either on your own or with the help of your colorist, and above all, supervise the precise production of rushes.Afterwards, in post-prod, we find that too many service providers don’t renew their equipment sufficiently, and offer to edit on monitors that are 10 or 15 years old, for example. We’ve sometimes experienced this as a DoP, with directors asking after a week’s editing why the image is so contrasty. A new LG monitor later and a system calibration... And the problem is usually solved. The quality of the proxies’ compression may also be to blame.

Why not switch to ProRes 422 instead of DNX 36, which smoothes out any material in the image, for example? A MacBook like mine equipped with a simple current SSD is enough for that... The advantage is that you don’t end up with a director and editor who have been used to a different image for months, and who suddenly seem surprised on the 1^st day of grading.

(Interview by François Reumont and translated from french by Chloé Finch, for the AFC)