{"id":8920,"date":"2017-11-30T11:21:24","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T11:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sbcine.be?p=8920"},"modified":"2017-11-30T13:25:26","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T13:25:26","slug":"thomas-buelens-about-001lithium-x","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/?p=8920","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Buelens about 001Lithium X\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

As\u00a0001Lithium X<\/i>\u00a0by Guy Moshe is in post-production, we took the liberty to ask Thomas Buelens, SBC, some questions about his first American movie.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

Synopsis :<\/i>\u00a0In a nearby future:\u00a0due\u00a0to\u00a0the degrading\u00a0ozone layer over the planet,\u00a0the temperature\u00a0has risen to 50 degrees Celsius during the day, therefore,\u00a0turning the rhythm of life upside down – people sleep during the day and live at night. Communication in the virtual world becomes the norm blurring the limits between what is real and what is virtual. Adam Bird has an unhealthy heart. His last hope is to use a government-funded program to receive a clone heart. His ex-wife agrees, but she has a different plan…\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Casting :<\/i>\u00a0James D’Arcy, Delroy Lindo, Gina McKee and Anna Brewster.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Production Companies :<\/i>\u00a0Chimera Pictures, Lituanica Films<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

How did you come to work on this project?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB :<\/b>\u00a0My feature film agent thought it would be a good film for me and sent me the script. I think I read it all at once, since it was such an interesting storyline.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Then I talked to the director, Guy Moshe. He is\u00a0an\u00a0Israeli\u00a0director who lives in Los Angeles. He is known for\u00a0Bunraku<\/i>\u00a0(2010) staring Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson and Josh Hartnett. Our first chat was very cool.\u00a0We shared ours visions and\u00a0it\u00a0just clicked.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Then everything went really fast. Guy was supposed to do\u00a0another\u00a0film\u00a0(an action movie,\u00a0The Last Draw of Jack of Hearts<\/i>)\u00a0before this one, but it got delayed, so he decided\u00a0to start the production for this one\u00a0earlier. This is why we had only three weeks of prep and four\u00a0to\u00a0shoot. I think we missed one more week of prep and another one\u00a0for\u00a0shooting, but basically we managed because we had a lot of studio. Still, it was very hard on everyone, especially on Guy, because he had a lot of pressure\u00a0on him.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

How was it to work with Guy Moshe?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB :\u00a0<\/b>At first it was a bit\u00a0challenging. Like I said we didn’t have a lot of time to prep and since it was the first time we worked together, we had to learn how really fast. But once we started shooting everything went\u00a0smoothly. We almost didn’t have to discuss, because we had a really nice connection. Another nice thing about him was that he is very knowledgeable and experienced. He had a very strong and clear vision of his film, he knew exactly how everything will be edited and how he wanted to tell this story, so I just had to lean into his vision and\u00a0suggest\u00a0my ideas.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Can you give us some intel about the content of the project, what is the story about in your opinion?\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB :\u00a0<\/b>It’s a satirical psychological drama\u00a0about\u00a0one man’s acceptance of his\u00a0mortality. It looks a bit like a sci-fi movie, but more foresight than classic sci-fi, because in fact it’s very realistic. The future described is the one right in front of us if we don’t change, with the whole issue on pollution, global warming and the\u00a0ozone layer\u00a0deteriorating. It’s really scary to realize what could happen maybe thirty or forty years from now.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When\u00a0I read the script, I was really sunk into it, because certain moments of the story really flip you upside down. You can’t predict what is going to happen next.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

To summarize it : the whole world lives during nighttime, because during daytime there is too much pollution and radiation, and it’s too toxic. Plus everybody lives almost exclusively through virtual interactions. On the contrary, our main character is very stubborn and old-school, so he decides to still live physically during the daytime. For instance, he still goes to his office and sits there alone.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I suppose for a DP it must have been really challenging : how do you represent the future ? How do you light it ?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB :<\/b>\u00a0Exactly.\u00a0We saw the future\u00a0in a dirty and\u00a0decaying\u00a0way. The choices we made artistically and visually were to enhance\u00a0that\u00a0decay of the world. So we made everything dusty and desertlike, the buildings are not well-maintained etc. It’s one of the reasons why we\u00a0chose\u00a0to shoot in Lithuania: you still have amazing\u00a0Soviet\u00a0buildings,\u00a0which are so mysterious that\u00a0you can’t really point where it’s located, it could be Los Angeles thirty years from now or Europe.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Another\u00a0challenge for me was to really\u00a0separate daytime from nighttime.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I suppose for the nighttime you used a lot of artificial lights?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB :<\/b>\u00a0Yes. Our main reference was\u00a0just a medical problem that occurs in some part of the world during\u00a0winter; for instance in\u00a0the high north of Scandinavia and Iceland\u00a0where they only\u00a0have\u00a0a few hours of\u00a0sun\u00a0per day\u00a0during the winter,\u00a0they use light therapy to get through those months. With that on our mind, we asked ourselves: how do people survive without any sunlight providing\u00a0vitamin D and other vital stuff? And then we came up with this idea: maybe all the lights should be UV lights. Since people don’t get sunshine anymore, they need UV lights in order to survive. Then we decided for some lights to go really purple, like for the street lights, and for the inside lights, to choose a more orange spectrum of the UV gamma.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, as people live\u00a0at\u00a0night, we imagined they would have their own special tainted lights behind the windows that they would change to UV when they need vitamins, but also change the coloring as they please. In order to create those effects we used a lot of Arri Skypanels, the L7 and the L10\u00a0for instance, because\u00a0those\u00a0LEDs\u00a0allow you to change colors and intensity very fast.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

And what about the daytime ?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB <\/b>:<\/b>\u00a0For the outside daylight settings, we really wanted the viewer to feel like\u00a0the protagonist\u00a0was burning\u00a0and that they\u00a0could almost feel the heat coming from the screen. We managed\u00a0to do\u00a0this with a lot of lights: Dino’s, 20KW, Jumbo lights just blasting on the character. It was really tricky for James D’Arcy who played the main character, because, in the film, in order to get outside, he has to suit up in a rubber suit with a mask to protect himself from the radiation, but in reality, it was really hot under those lights. So every time he had his suit on, we had to go really fast, so that he wouldn’t burn up. It was really uncomfortable, but he\u00a0gracefully succeeded as\u00a0he knew the results would\u00a0be\u00a0worth it.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The heat is also\u00a0enhanced\u00a0by the lenses we chose because they create a nice glow and\u00a0burn\u00a0the highlights.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What lenses would that be ?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB :<\/b>\u00a0We did a lot of tests from Vantage Hawks,\u00a0Lomo,\u00a0Master anamorphic to Kowa lenses\u00a0and\u00a0we\u00a0finally\u00a0decided to go with the Kowa anamorphic. It was the best artistic choice,\u00a0but\u00a0not the easiest, because as many DPs will know, Kowas are so old that you have to be lucky to get a right set. That was actually the biggest issue of this film: the lenses\u00a0were\u00a0degrading\u00a0more and more\u00a0during principal photography. They really had some focus shift\u00a0and\u00a0the glass really moved around. I think we had like four or five lenses in the set,\u00a0but\u00a0by the end, we could only use two of them, the others had too many aberrations. That’s why we had two other sets shipped, one from Poland and an other one from another part of Lithuania. But they also had problems, so at the end we had to use lenses from each set. It really was a nightmare for the focus puller. But I still think the Kowas were the right choice. First, because we really wanted\u00a0the anamorphic feel, and\u00a0second,\u00a0to enhance the dirtiness of the image\u00a0thanks\u00a0to soft focus and aberrations. We got more than we\u00a0wished\u00a0for,\u00a0though, but with other lenses, it would have been too clean, too sharp, too pretty and not\u00a0edgy\u00a0enough and rough like our vision of the future. Plus the Kowas produce a beautiful glow that really helped me for the exteriors. Personally, I also liked the Lomos, but the director wasn’t a big fan of\u00a0them, because it had too much\u00a0distortion.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

What camera did you use ?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB :\u00a0<\/b>We\u00a0shot\u00a0with the new Alexa SXT. I really\u00a0pushed\u00a0for this camera, because I had worked with it a lot on commercials. The sensor is much improved compared to the Alexa XT or the Mini. They used an equivalent, but smaller sensor and the same hardware and software as the Alexa 65. The RAW is improved in high and low lights and the noise is really reduced. Since half of the movie takes place during nighttime, I had to underexposed a lot, and it was really helpful to have a better sensitivity. Plus UV\u00a0colors\u00a0have a very special color gamma, especially when you want to capture the purple UV range like we did. It’s very tricky to get the correct color on the sensor and the more\u00a0color depth it has, the better.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Since it’s a very good camera,\u00a0but almost as heavy than the old\u00a0XT and moreover\u00a0compared\u00a0to the Mini, I suppose you didn’t use a lot of handled or stabilized shots ?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB :<\/b>\u00a0Yes, the camera is\u00a0quite\u00a0heavy, but with the Kowas it’s doable, because they’re very light lenses. I am used to work with Vantage V-Plus, Cooke, Master or Panavision anamorphic lenses. If you put those in front of an Alexa SXT you will most certainly break your back\u00a0on a long handheld shoot. But for artistic reasons, we didn’t use a lot of handled. They represented maybe 5% or 10% of the movie.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the beginning of the movie, we did only fix frames with wide lenses, almost like a \u201ctableau\u201d. We really wanted the main character to evolve freely.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Then, while everything goes wrong for him, the lenses are closing up\u00a0and the camera moves more in order to enhance a claustrophobic effect. At first we did very smooth, very cinematic moves, using a Fisher dolly and articulated arms.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Towards the end, we used a lot of\u00a0Steadicam. The worst his life gets, the faster the camera moves physically around him. The idea was that the more the movie\u00a0unfolds, the more the viewers\u00a0get drawn\u00a0into it, they can feel what the character feels: like in the middle of a tornado.
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When did you shoot?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB :<\/b>\u00a0We shot mostly in June and July 2017. But because the weather is always so unpredictable in Europe, and we really needed sunny exteriors, we still have one week of shooting planned in the spring in the desert nearby Los Angeles.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Did you had any specific difficulties besides the Kowa set ?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB :<\/b>\u00a0Yes, for obvious reasons since the people in the film live during the night, we had to shoot quite a few exteriors during nighttime. And for scheduling reasons we had to shoot these nights in the middle of the shoot and it was very hard on all of us. But in the meantime, it was quite funny, because, as our characters, we had to live at night and sleep during the day. We were kind of living inside the story.\u00a0(Laughter)<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Plus we had another problem: we were shooting a nighttime film during the worst period possible, the summer! When the nights are getting shorter and shorter. We even shot during the shortest night in the year! We had maybe four hours\u00a0of\u00a0real darkness. This was very challenging for me. When you are tied up by the budget or the planning, you can always do 10 minutes overtime to finish a take. But you can be the\u00a0best\u00a0DP\u00a0in\u00a0the world, you can’t fight the sun. If the sun comes up, it’s over. It was very hard, but in the same time, kind of amazing to work under this pressure…\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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

TB :\u00a0<\/b>The main character is played by a really interesting actor, James D’Arcy, who\u00a0recently starred\u00a0in\u00a0\u00a0Dunkirk\u00a0<\/i>by Christopher Nolan. I\u00a0would say he is almost in every scene of our\u00a0movie, so it was very challenging for him. He is a very cool guy offset, always joking around etc.\u00a0When the camera\u00a0starts\u00a0rolling, he snaps into perfect character. We also worked with Delroy Lindo who played in a lot of Spike Lee’s films, like\u00a0Malcolm X<\/i>. He’s a\u00a0remarkable actor. We also had the sweet Anna Brewster, a British actress, who played in\u00a0Versailles<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Stars Wars VII<\/i>. It was really important to have such amazing actors, because this movie\u00a0is\u00a0character driven.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n


\nHow about your collaboration with the other departments\u00a0: make-up, costume design, art direction, etc.\u00a0?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB :\u00a0<\/b>We all had a few weeks of prep and every department\u00a0managed\u00a0to get ready in a very short time, which was kind of amazing. For instance, the art director only\u00a0had\u00a0two weeks to build an\u00a0entire house interior, and they did a beautiful\u00a0job.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I made two beautiful encounters on this set:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I couldn’t choose my own crew,\u00a0so I had to work with people\u00a0I had never met. It was very challenging for me to trust people I didn’t know, hoping they will do a good job. I really enjoyed working with my gaffer, Vitalij Kutko. He was one of the best\u00a0gaffers\u00a0I’ve\u00a0ever worked with.\u00a0He\u00a0was very motivated and super experienced.\u00a0He worked on a lot of American films like\u00a0Defiance<\/i>\u00a0by Eward Zwick and\u00a0Transsiberian<\/i>\u00a0by Brad Anderson.\u00a0I think we had like six or seven people on the electrical department, maybe less on the studio\u00a0part. But for them it was very tricky, because they had to wait\u00a0for\u00a0the set to be built\u00a0to begin the pre-light. They started\u00a0rigging\u00a0the lights while the art department was still painting. We only had one day of\u00a0pre-light, which was nothing for a film like this. For instance we had a really big window inside the house, 8 meters wide by 4 meters high, through which we would see a big skyline on the background. For this we used a Translight that we had to fly over from\u00a0the\u00a0UK and we had a big lighting rick for all settings: day, night, magic hour etc. For obvious planing reasons, they had to\u00a0rig\u00a0and program all the lights before the shoot. My gaffer really saved us because he was able to work really fast.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I\u00a0also\u00a0really enjoyed working with our first assistant director,\u00a0Laura Stankevi\u010di\u016bt\u0117, who was also an amazing talented person. When you shoot for three weeks inside a studio, you can become a bit claustrophobic, but she managed to keep the moral high with good vibes while\u00a0keeping\u00a0everything\u00a0on schedule without too much\u00a0overtime.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Not a lot of DPs talk about the 1<\/i>st<\/i><\/sup>\u00a0AD, it’s really interesting.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB :\u00a0<\/b>Yeah I can understand why, because mostly they’re here to push you all the time, but if you have somebody\u00a0like Laura, they\u00a0will set you a time\u00a0keeping in mind\u00a0that everybody is working as fast as possible. Laura didn’t come to me every five minutes to ask \u201chow long?\u201d What I liked most about her is that she was able to appreciate that sometimes you need more time in the beginning of a day in order to gain time afterwards on each shots for minor adjustments. And this is better for everyone, you know? Especially for the talents who can stay in their character, moreover when you work with big calibers like we did.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What about the post production of the film?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB :<\/b>\u00a0Well, as you know it’s still going on,\u00a0but\u00a0the director\u00a0is very happy with the\u00a0images\u00a0and quite surprised which is nice, because normally directors hate the first cuts.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Did you use any LUT on set?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB :<\/b> I don\u2019t use any other LUTs except the standard REC709. I like to have one fixed point of reference that I can trust on to judge how far I can go with lighting.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I feel that when you use a custom LUT, which will for sure still change during grading you can get carried away and limit yourself in some parts because you were adapting to that LUT. I find it tricky enough with the lack of a standardisation between monitors and color spectrums to have a solid point of reference,\u00a0so I stick with the REC709 to limit extra discrepancies. I\u2019m very interested in the new ACES standardisation and hope it will be more widespread soon.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So the movie won’t be released anytime soon?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

TB :<\/b>\u00a0It should be released somewhere end of 2018.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
\n Material:\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Camera :\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>Alexa SXT and Kowa anamorphic<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n


\nCrew :\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Gaffer :\u00a0<\/i>Vitalij Kutko<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Grip: <\/i>Vytautas Gudlevi\u010dius
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As\u00a0001Lithium X\u00a0by Guy Moshe is in post-production, we took the liberty to ask Thomas Buelens, SBC, some questions about his first American movie. Synopsis :\u00a0In a nearby future:\u00a0due\u00a0to\u00a0the degrading\u00a0ozone layer over the planet,\u00a0the temperature\u00a0has risen to 50 degrees Celsius during the day, therefore,\u00a0turning the rhythm of life upside down –…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":8940,"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":[860,858,859,856,857,862,447,861,863],"class_list":["post-8920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-productions","tag-anna-brewster","tag-delroy-lindo","tag-gina-mckee","tag-guy-moshe","tag-james-darcy","tag-laura-stankeviciute","tag-thomas-buelens","tag-vitalij-kutko","tag-vytautas-gudlevicius"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8920","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=8920"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9010,"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8920\/revisions\/9010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}