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Two Pictures a Day in Siberia : second week
From 1 to 7 February 2015
This is the continuation of the daily photo journal that Gilles Porte, AFC, has been keeping while shooting Safy Nebbou’s film The Consolations of the Forest in Siberia. Gilles has been asking other members of the team to give him one of the two photos sent to us every day, and writes the legends himself. Take a look at these images from their second week on location.
Thanks Christine !
Louna is the 1st assistant director… I had already worked on a film with her, on another island, also for 3 months. It was on Mauritius and the movie was called My Father the Hero… The director of photography was Patrick Blossier, AFC ; the director, Gérard Lauzier… Louna is the one who first mentioned my name to Safy… Louna had heard about me through Christine, a script supervisor, when Bénédicte Aolas was looking for a director of photography for a movie with Sophie Marceau, the complete opposite of that one : it was a film that entirely took place within a mansion. So it’s ultimately Christine I have to thank for this Siberian parenthesis… (Gilles Porte, Sunday 1 February)
A wood burning stove on Lake Baikal
Some of us are lucky enough to have a wood burning stove in our rooms… Very few of us use them because they have to be tended to… Frédéric Sauvignac is one of the few people who takes good care of his… (Photo by Frédéric Sauvagnac, production manager, Sunday 1 February)
Thermal shock ?
The focus pullers – Marie-Sophie, Anne Angèle and Timothy –, as well as Cyril, gaffer, and Benjamin, key grip, are going to arrive in Siberia tomorrow… They’re about to discover what I realized today when we took delivery on a large portion of the camera equipment that arrived from France via cargo plane. (Gilles Porte, Monday 2 February)
Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle… Arrival of the assistants camera and more equipment
… And of Thomas, the second assistant director, who’s all smiles ! (Photo by Anne-Angèle Bertoli, second assistant camera & data manager, Monday 2 February)
From +40°C to -40°C
It isn’t true that one easily adapts to being away for a number of months, even though the Internet makes these separations less painful… Syrine will be joining me in Siberia during the Easter holiday, like she did in Haiti while I was working on François Marthouret’s film, and in Jordan, on Mai Masri’s. I will make sure, as I always do, that she meets children her own age who live lives completely foreign to her own, and who, too, will have many questions to ask her… (Gilles Porte, Tuesday 3 February)
Lisa’s Trees
Lisa is the translator, Arnaud’s accountant, and Safy’s personal assistant… She also has taken on the role of coordinator and Yoga instructor… Lisa’s “civilian” job is as an English teacher… When I ask her to supply some photos, she gave me 4 photos of trees… (Photo by Lisa Kravchenko, assistant director, and coordinator, Tuesday 3 February)
First audience member
In Siberia, it is a surprising fact that none of the many dogs we have met has been aggressive towards any of the members of our crew… (Gilles Porte, Wednesday 4 February)
Reverse shot of a cast direction…
(Photo by Safy Nebbou, director, Wednesday 4 February)
U… A… Z...
I had heard a lot about UAZs before coming to Siberia… They are 9-cubic meter 4WD vehicles that are absolutely essential to allow us to get to our locations… Nicknamed “Tabletteka” (“Medicine”), they are retired ambulances used in the Soviet Union of the 1960s… We’ll have about a dozen at our disposition… Two are officially reserved for the camera equipment. Diagrams were sent by Arnaud Humann, our location manager, so that we could have custom shelving put into them. (Gilles Porte, Thursday 5 February)
No comment…
(Photo by Thomas Colban, assistant director, Thursday 5 February)
Cyril, production designer
I’m taking this photo of Cyril, our production designer, inside of the UAZ that is bringing us back from scouting, without any additional lighting. Safy is filling in as a gaffer by using a sheet of white paper as a reflector in order to reduce the contrast on his childhood friend’s face, who has always been at his side when he transformed his words into images or put his thoughts down on paper… (Gilles Porte, Friday 6 February)
Nicolas, Segueï, and Sacha
Benjamin does a marvellous job coordinating our human resources who know Lake Baikal better than anyone else… (Photo by Benjamin Vial, key grip, Friday 6 February)
The cabin seen from the lake
The cabin that Cyril has been working on is magnificient… Observing the path of the sun, I nonetheless realize that it will be difficult to film it from the lake without having the sun behind my back, unless I do it very early in the morning or at the end of the day… (Gilles Porte, Saturday 7 February)
How do you like my whale ?
Frank takes photos with his iPad… He’s the one who took the best shot of this shipwrecked tanker… (Photo by Franck Duval, boom operator, Saturday 7 February)
(Translated from French by Alex Raiffe)
- Click here to see the series of images from the 1st week.
- Click here to find out more about Gilles Porte’s project, read a plot summary of the movie, learn about the members of the camera crew and some technical specifications.
