{"id":8076,"date":"2017-06-22T09:02:26","date_gmt":"2017-06-22T09:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sbcine.be?p=8076"},"modified":"2017-11-25T14:24:11","modified_gmt":"2017-11-25T14:24:11","slug":"interview-of-a-new-sbc-member-wim-vanswijgenhoven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/?p=8076","title":{"rendered":"Interview of a new SBC member : Wim Vanswijgenhoven"},"content":{"rendered":"

We enjoy the nomination of\u00a0Wim Vanswijgenhoven as SBC member\u00a0to ask him some questions about his work.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Maverick by Domien\u00a0Huyghe\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Could you present yourself\u00a0?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

WV :<\/strong>\u00a0I was born in Sint Truiden. I\u2019m 33 years old and I finished my education at RITS about 9 years ago. I have been working since that point in cinema\/commercial\/documentary. I did some interns here and there as a stagair grip and electrician. One internship I did during school was for example on the tv series \u201ckatarakt\u201d as a grip with Yves Crabbe, shot by Stijn Vanderveken. I had the pleasure also to work with Mark Bakker, which is a Dutch gaffer. I worked with him and his team on a couple of movies, he had a really nice crew, and I learned a lot from them. After that I proceeded shooting myself, it were small documentaries and commercials first. Later on the projects became a bit bigger ( sometimes) and I got to know this American director Justin Steele. I shot his feature Gutshot Straigh<\/em>t with Steven Seagal etc as a second unit for him, but I ended up shooting the last 3 weeks on my own, because the first unit DP had a family emergency. Justin was happy with my work and he introduced me to Matt Berkowitz with whom I shot Wild in Blue<\/em>. After that I shot a couple of more shorts and music video\u2019s with them. Back in belgium I started working more and more on commercials, and short movies. Until last year Caviar called me to shoot Sprakeloos<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"The heeler by Justin Steele<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Let’s say you have to choose three films that represent your work. Which one would you choose ? <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

WV :\u00a0<\/strong>I have to go for :\u00a0<\/span>Sprakeloos<\/em>\u00a0by Hilde van Mieghem (feature film),\u00a0<\/span>Wild in Blue<\/em>\u00a0by Matt Berkowitz (feature film) and\u00a0<\/span>De weg van alle\u00a0<\/em>vlees<\/i>\u00a0by Deben van Dam (short film).\u00a0<\/span>There are other projects that I\u2019m very proud of, like work in progress Remise<\/em>\u00a0by Deben van Dam or Maverick<\/em> by Domien Huyghe or The heeler<\/em> where I got to work with JK Simmons.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\" Remise\u00a0by Deben van Dam<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Why did you choose those films ?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

WV :\u00a0<\/strong>Like I said Wild in Blue<\/em> was my first feature film I ever shot. I shot it in LA which made it extra exciting for me at that time. I liked shooting it cause the story really gave us the opportunity to try out non conventional things and work really intuitively.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Wild in Blue\u00a0by Matt Berkowitz<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Sprakeloos<\/em> is my first propper feature film in Belgium, It means a lot to me to have a movie out in belgian theaters that my friends and family can just go and watch. Which was not the case with the other fiction projects I did until then, they were only projected on some festivals or not in this country.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Sprakeloos\u00a0by Hilde van Mieghem<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m really proud of De weg van alle vlees<\/em>. I think, when I look back now, the cinematography was still a bit insecure, but that movie helped me a lot to get my name out there. It won a lot of prices and I\u2019m really proud of that movie as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"De weg van alle\u00a0vlees\u00a0by Deben van Dam<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Can you give us some info about the content of the projects ? What are the stories about in your opinion ? <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

WV :\u00a0<\/strong>Wild in Blue<\/em> is about a sociopath that makes his own documentary about the woman he meets.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Wild in Blue\u00a0by Matt Berkowitz<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Sprakeloos<\/em> is about the writer Tom Lannoie who\u2019s mother losses her ability to speak after a stroke.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Sprakeloos\u00a0by Hilde van Mieghem<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

De weg van alle vlees<\/em> is about a man on a palliative care unit wanting to get laid before he chooses to euthanize himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

How did you come to work on these projects ? Did you already knew the directors\u00a0? A part for\u00a0Wild in blue that you already explained.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

WV :\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Deben, the director of <\/span>Weg van\u00a0alle\u00a0Vlees,<\/span><\/em> is a long time friend, we shot almost all his projects together. Untill today we always try to work together whenever possible. I met him when we were about 16,17 years old. When he had his first short script \u201cene slag\u201d ready, we shot it together. We had a lot of fun on that shoot and I liked his taste in directing a lot. Still today I can look at that short and laugh about the great dialogue he had written.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"De weg van alle\u00a0vlees\u00a0by Deben van Dam<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And for\u00a0Sprakeloos<\/em> I got a phone call from Caviar saying they liked my work on some short movies I shot. I Shot 2 shortfilms that won the VAF wildcards in Leuven short film festival: Umpire<\/em> by Leo Vandijl and De weg van alle vlees. \u00a0<\/em>Caviar told me that they wanted to propose me for this film. So I read the script and talked with Hilde. After some meetings I heard that she wanted to shoot the movie with me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Sprakeloos\u00a0by Hilde van Mieghem<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

How was it to work with those three directors\u00a0?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

WV :\u00a0<\/strong>Matt Berkowitz is a great guy. He is always really passionated about his projects and gave me a lot of support in trying out stuff that were new for both of us. Because of that story, where a sociopath made his own film, we shot on VHS, HI8, 8mm, and Red Epic with zeiss standard speeds, we worked with a lot of bright colours, distortions, strange movements. It was a great first experience in not trying to make each shot beautiful and just get into the mindset of this crazy sociopath. He would often whisper these things in my ear while I was framing, like random crazy thoughts this character would have while I was shooting the POV of the killer. It was funny, but it helped me as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Wild in Blue\u00a0by Matt Berkowitz<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

With Sprakeloos it wasn\u2019t always easy, there were ups and downs in our collaboration. But in the end we both are happy with the film. Which is the most important thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Sprakeloos\u00a0by Hilde van Mieghem<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Deben van Dam is one of my best friends, so of course this gives us extra trust and confidence in each other. We talk in preparation to the films about or way of shooting. But on set we shoot without a lot of discussing, just intuitively and with a lot of freedom to try things out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"De weg van alle\u00a0vlees\u00a0by Deben van Dam<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Can you tell me about your technical and artistic approach of each project\u00a0?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

WV :\u00a0<\/strong>WIB<\/em> is very simple in its approach, it all had to look to be shot by our main character or his best friend. But because of who these characters were, it gave us a lot of room to play around with formats, colours etc\u2026 The main characters house was covered in red and yellow paint everywhere. We didn\u2019t have a lot of budget but we worked with small Hmi\u2019s from outside and minimal fill from inside. We often shot 360 degrees long takes, a lot of POV shots. I enjoyed shooting the 8mm and VHS a lot. Cause with both of them there were a lot of nice surprises in the footage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Wild in Blue\u00a0by Matt Berkowitz<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

With Sprakeloos<\/em> I think it was more complicated. Cause the style of the story and the acting dictated something which was a bit different then what we had foreseen during prep. But when we started shooting we just went for it. I think some scenes worked out fine and others a bit less.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Sprakeloos\u00a0by Hilde van Mieghem<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

De weg van alle vlees<\/em> was something where the cinematography needed to be simple. We surely didn\u2019t want it to have a handheld social drama kind of a feel, cause of the subject of the film. It would just not work for the subtle genre which was a balance between drama and some dark humour. It would have made it tip over to much to the dramatic side of the story. So we decided to go for a more neutral approach, more classic american cinematic story telling. We went for sodium coloured nights and colder low contrast days. We worked a lot with the TL\u2019s that where present on location and changed them in to daylight.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"De weg van alle\u00a0vlees\u00a0by Deben van Dam<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

For how long did you prep ? Was it sufficient ? Where and when did you shoot ?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

WV :\u00a0<\/strong>Cause WIB<\/em> was shot in LA, we mostly had contact via mail or Skype. Once I landed in LA we went to visit locations and I had probably one or two more days over to prep the movie after seen locations for the first time. It wasn\u2019t really sufficient, but we worked trough it and managed to find a workflow which allowed us to shoot everything within the foreseen timen of 3 weeks. We shot a lot in downtown LA. Some scenes were shot in beverly hills and some scenes in koreatown which is central Los Angeles.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Wild in Blue\u00a0by Matt Berkowitz<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

With Sprakeloos<\/em> I think I prepped more then a month full time on it. I would prep a shotlist of each scene and go talk with Hilde about it the next day. We talked about certain shots that she really wanted in there, talked about lighting, about costume, about\u2026. We then shoot for 33 days,\u00a0mostly in Sint Niklaas (because it’s an autobiography and that’s where Tom lannoie’s family lived).<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Sprakeloos\u00a0by Hilde van Mieghem<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Deben\u2019s movie we prepped for a week or something. But we had been talking about the project already for a long time. I think 4 or 5 months we spend on talking about how we would shoot this project. And then since it was a short film the shooting only lasted five days. regarding the locations, we were just looking for a interesting looking caring unit or hospital or retirement home. We found it near Antwerp.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"De weg van alle\u00a0vlees\u00a0by Deben van Dam<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

What camera and what lenses for Sprakeloos and \u00a0De weg van\u00a0alle\u00a0vlees ? <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

WV :\u00a0<\/strong>Sprakeloos<\/em> was shot on alexa mini with cooke anamorphic lenses rented from Lites.<\/span><\/p>\n

De weg van alle vlees<\/em> we shot on red epic and thanks to Patrick Otten we could shoot on Lomo Anamorphic lenses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who were your focus pullers on these three films ?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

WV :\u00a0<\/strong>I worked with Mitchey Meija on WIB<\/em>. He was a local guy that worked on a lot famous music videos mostly from hiphop artists. He did a fantastic job, everytime I go back, we still try to work together.<\/span><\/p>\n

Joris Rymen did the focus on Sprakeloos<\/em>. He\u2019s one of the best I\u2019ve ever worked with. Most productions I do now, is with him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Sprakeloos\u00a0by Hilde van Mieghem<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Ruben Appertans did the focus on De weg van alle vlees<\/em>. Great guy.<\/span><\/p>\n

How did it go with your gaffers\u00a0?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

WV :<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>I, like probably every DP, give a lot of value to a gaffer. <\/span><\/p>\n

Laurens de Grande with whom I did Sprakeloos<\/em> is someone that gives really everything he has. He has a great character and is always thinking about solutions. He\u2019s good with his team and is a great communicator.\u00a0<\/span>We work together now since 3 or 4 years more or less. He works with SPOTS. Those BR lights are a help in some situations. To be able to control them all from behind the monitor in such an easy way is time saving and allows you and your gaffer to finish your work \/ levels more detailed. On Sprakeloos<\/em> we used them a lot together with HMI\u2019s from the outside. We would also sometimes build a soft toplight for the whole room and then came in stronger with the HMI through the window. It would allow the actors to move around more freely which was necessary for some scenes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Sprakeloos\u00a0by Hilde van Mieghem<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Eric Rino was the gaffer on Wild in Blue<\/em>. He had a small lighting package : some small HMI\u2019s, the biggest one was a 4K HMI, and some kino flo\u2019s. We had to prep often 2 levels of the house for one take cause of these long POV shots we did. The windows were painted over in red and yellow colours, a lot of the walls were painted in red which reflected on the characters. It made the lighting very interesting but challenging.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Wild in Blue\u00a0by Matt Berkowitz<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The gaffer of De weg van alle vlees<\/em> was Maarten Verminck, we worked a lot together during our school years and shortly after. We always had a good understanding on how to approach a scene,. At this retirement home, we had to work always really quiet and unnoticeable. We shot there even during the night, so sometimes it was not easy making no noise. But Maarten and his crew always made sure they were subtle and never bothered other residents. This wasn\u2019t easy, cause during one night they had to climb upon the roofs to put Hmi\u2019s through the bedroom window for the final night scene.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"De weg van alle\u00a0vlees\u00a0by Deben van Dam<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Do you frame yourself ? How was the framing handled on each film ?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

WV : <\/strong>Always.\u00a0<\/span>I never have given away the framing in any of my projects except for steadicam shots of course. I just think it’s a personal thing and you need to be able to give accents on certain points in the scene from your guts. I think it would be difficult for me to communicate that to an operator. <\/span><\/p>\n

WIB<\/em> was all handheld because of the concept of the story. It dictated us some kind of dogma in lighting and framing. I had to shoot a lot of shots as his POV, which pushed me in to a kind of acting role sometimes. I remember doing this scene with an ex playmate sitting on me half naked in a motel in LA. It was so funny, I will never forget that. Furthermore\u00a0we didn\u2019t really had a Grip the camera assistants took care of everything that was needed to shoot handheld. And there were no big constructions to be made.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Wild in Blue\u00a0by Matt Berkowitz<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sprakeloos<\/em> was a mix between dolly and handheld. We did a couple of crane and steady cam shots as well. It came from CQN, cause that is where my Key Grip Geert van beeck get\u2019s it from.\u00a0(Laughter)\u00a0<\/em>He is always relaxed, like most grippers. He gets the job done, without a lot of fuzz.\u00a0It\u2019s a big support to have guys like that on your crew, same for\u00a0Marco Vanderveken who did De weg van alle vlees<\/em> with me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Sprakeloos\u00a0by Hilde van Mieghem<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This last one\u00a0was all shot on dolly and a couple of steady cam shots. The equipment came from mediator which is this smaller rental\/production\/\u2026 place owned by Willy Faes. He helped us out a lot on that project.\u00a0Marco was also a big support.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"De weg van alle\u00a0vlees\u00a0by Deben van Dam<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In both these projects I used Nico Savary as a steadicammer. He is a young guy from brussels, but talented and understands quickly what you need the shoot to look like.<\/span><\/p>\n

How did the work with the actors go\u00a0?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

WV :\u00a0<\/strong>On WIB<\/em> the casting was Karen Black, Steve Railsback and Daveigh Chase\u2026 All of them had done some big movies, Karen Black was an oscar nominated actress. But they were all really cool and into the story. I remember Karen Black asking me, while I was shooting a POV shot of the killer standing above her, to film her from her good side before she got her head banged in with a hammer. She was really nice about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Wild in Blue\u00a0by Matt Berkowitz<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

On Sprakeloos<\/em>, I loved to work with Flor Decleir. He\u2019s a subtle actor, but really talented in what he does. Stany Crets, who directed a movie himself, was always very supportive and never complained.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Sprakeloos\u00a0by Hilde van Mieghem<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

On De weg van alle vlees<\/em> Sam Louwyck and Flor Decleir were the main characters. Sam Louwyck didn\u2019t went to bed the night before he did his last scene where he had to die. He did it as a preparation for that scene, or not, who knows\u2026 (Laughter)<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span>I was shooting a close up of him, the scene was really heavy, he was having a dialogue with his doctor about commiting euthanasia and suddenly I saw him drifting of and he started to snore very load. He just fell asleep during the take. It was funny at first but when I saw the film when it was finished, I really liked the way he was acting in that scene. It helped a lot\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"De weg van alle\u00a0vlees\u00a0by Deben van Dam<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

How did you handle the post production ? <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

WV :\u00a0<\/strong>I flew back for WIB<\/em> to do the grading. I could combine it with shooting a music video there so that was perfect. That film was really colourful and had all these mixed media. So with my colorist, Jon Mendenhall, we didn\u2019t do much to it. We shifted contrast here and there and made sure there was a matching between the images. We did work a lot on exterior day shots, we shot mostly in harsh daylight cause of planning issues. We couldn\u2019t just shoot whenever we wanted. So it needed some extra work in post. I think in total we worked 5 days on it or something like that.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Wild in Blue\u00a0by Matt Berkowitz<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The grading of Sprakeloos<\/em> took us some time, with my colorist, Kene Illegems, we wanted to go for this naturalistic look. Which we managed to find after a while. In total we worked a month or so on that, not every day of course. We did the grading at CAVIAR, on the ground floor they have a nice grading suite.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Sprakeloos\u00a0by Hilde van Mieghem<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

De weg van alle\u00a0<\/em>flees<\/i>\u00a0was grade with Olivier Ogneux. We were able to do at the fridge. I think we spend one day of colouring because of budget issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"De weg van alle\u00a0vlees\u00a0by Deben van Dam<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We enjoy the nomination of\u00a0Wim Vanswijgenhoven as SBC member\u00a0to ask him some questions about his work. Maverick by Domien\u00a0Huyghe\u00a0 Could you present yourself\u00a0? WV :\u00a0I was born in Sint Truiden. I\u2019m 33 years old and I finished my education at RITS about 9 years ago. I have been working since…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":8188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rs_blank_template":"","rs_page_bg_color":"","slide_template_v7":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[658,643,644,651,659,653,642,645,662,648,639,656,663,650,646,652,654,638,641,647,655,428,649,661,660,657,640,637,636,399],"class_list":["post-8076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-productions","tag-daveigh-chase","tag-deben-van-dam","tag-domien-huyghe","tag-eric-rino","tag-flor-decleir","tag-geert-van-beeck","tag-hilde-van-mieghem","tag-jk-simmons","tag-jon-mendenhall","tag-joris-rymen","tag-justin-steele","tag-karen-black","tag-kene-illegems","tag-laurens-de-grande","tag-leo-vandijl","tag-maarten-verminck","tag-marco-vanderveken","tag-mark-bakker","tag-matt-berkowitz","tag-mitchey-meija","tag-nico-savary","tag-olivier-ogneux","tag-ruben-appertans","tag-sam-louwyck","tag-stany-crets","tag-steve-railsback","tag-steven-seagal","tag-stijn-vanderveken","tag-wim-vanswijgenhoven","tag-yves-crabbe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8076"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8291,"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8076\/revisions\/8291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}