We dedicate this video to all the fans of Fantasy. Without you, Cidre et Dragon wouldn't exist.
The idea of a short film comes at first from the association.
It was a will to renew the communication design
and in the row for Franceville, a will to highlight
the strategic sites and the landscape's diversity offered by the municipality.
That is. Initiate by Wilfried who took under his arm with his team the shooting,
the installation, the scenario, the stunts, well everything that you saw in the short .
Why this idea?
Because our trademark is to have a scripted festival, to propose an adventure,
a storyline that you can follow during the festival.
The idea of the first organizers was to present this scenario through a video trailer.
And when I arrived in front of the council
I said " we are going to face the challenge of the former organizers.
They managed to plan a festival and at the same time they managed to shoot a trailer.
Well, the start of the project is to say:
What I propose you it is to take up the challenge as organizer of Cidre & Dragon
to manage our festival and to propose a trailer
to present the festival live adventure"
Part 1 : The shooting
Action!
Tempus Draconis!
First day of shooting : scene of the masses
So we're here to make a scene of the masses.
We are going to film the first scene of the short film, which actually is the final scene. We start with the end.
A shooting that takes place right in the city centre, at the intersection of Caen avenue and Paris avenue.
I hope everybody can see, we didn't manage to lift it up higher.
The street down there is Paris avenue and
the one that comes from up there is Caen avenue.
You, as actors, are divided into three groups.
In group A : Alice , Alizée, Maxime Guerné..
Behind: Jean-Marc, Marie-Christine, Claudie, Guerné again.
In group B : Arnaud and the Legendary Agency which we're gonna try to fill.
Group C : Franck, Melissande, Zoé , Claudine , Laurie, Charline, Gaëtano and Marie.
So, the three groups gather, converge toward the centre.
We're gonna try to form a circle. It's ok if it's not perfect.
Our arch-mage Grelot : could you stand up, Arnaud, please ?
Here he is : the main actor of the scene.
Grelot the wizard!
Wilfried has decided it
so Grelot the wizard will be here.
Now, we're getting ready for the preparation of the final scene.
Did you take part in the shooting beforehand ?
Yes, I've written a few scripts. I prepared the wizards' room a little.
I brought some accessories,
tried to find some inspiration.
We keep a good atmosphere.
We're still gonna have fun !
A little…a lot…passionately. Come on !
... and the summoners of the 7 circles will banish wandering mind.
Last rewriting session
It's not bad ... it's not bad. But we can do better.
Must I do 5 to 7 sec ?
We can do better by trying to develop and…go on the 7 sec systematically.
And then, when you have a look at the scene listing that appears at the end,
you'll see the names of the processions
and this will help you making some connections.
At some point you mention a tower. Well, we don't have it, we don't have the tower. We do not have the feudal tower.
Right, but they're coming down from the tower.
I will not mention a tower if they don't come out of a tower.
For instance, at a moment for example, there is Max who gets out of the mill.
Well, maybe we can mention my ex fellow "Chronos…of the mill".
I am Alex,
I work in the audiovisual media. I am a cameraman, a steadycam operator
and when needed, I am a sword combat choregrapher.
« You attack with the arm. You attack with the leg. »
« Actually, the steadycam is composed of a jacket
with a rigid framework on which a mechanical arm is fixed thanks to springs or setters that are used to absorb the chocks.and
At the end of it there is a ball bearing on which a column
is set with weights and a screen at the bottom and the camera at the top.
So that it's possible to move or even run after people without the image becoming brutal.
Contrarily to a handheld camera work during which one moves,
the shoulder support will move.
On a steadycam, if you move, the camera will seem to be floating.
We will be able to follow people without any bumps.
This allows circular tracking shots,
turning around people,
following them, taking a quite unusual positions…
Is everyone ready ?
Action!
You walk all huddled together and when you get to the mark, you split into a circle.
So, first experience as an actor ?
That was so cool, we were frozen but it was awesome
And we saw all the inconveniencies in one go : the cold, repeating 50 times the same thing, etc.
What about the pyrotechnist ? Did he explode anything ?
Nope, they wouldn't let me kill anybody...
Anything else to say about the filming ?
Coke ?
Coke!
Tonight I'm gonna be on a fabric to go stealing some wizard/magic, and there I go.
Okay. -She's the star!
- Do you do acrobatics? - No, I'm just gonna do a descent.
Preparation of the scene of the aerial silk
So now, we've hidden the harness
to be able to do a big shot, a large one and a close one
Yes, because originally, the harness is a bit orange.
Beggining of the first takes.
The gymasium scene, we had to place the lights as for us not to be able to see the background.
So that it would be dark.
It was very complicated because all the lights were reflecting from a wall to another.
Really complicated. We needed several spotlights on the ground aimed at the ceiling,
but without to much focus...
even with the camera we could aim at some specific points,
but every siltiest displaces and we could see the ceiling.
If we can make it, Gabrielle, it would be wonderful.
'cause we gonna fail ? If I break my leg or so, we can't make it, right.
Na, it's just me, I'm always thinking the worst. Till it's over.
Like we say at the circus, at training there is always mattresses.
And you need layers because the brain concussion always happens when you got a audiences.
How long have you been training ?
I started three years ago, but I'm not practicing really often.
How do you feel ?
-Tired. -Already?
It's gonna be long because of my sheet, It's brand new, I never climbed it so it's very stretchy.
I need to pull fifth time the regular efforts. Ergo it's a bit wearing, but it's gonna be fine.
"First day outcome" Well, we planned our two biggest shooting today.
Those that needed the most heavy logistic and security preparations.
And the more unsafe ones too.
This morning, it was a mass shooting in center town,
the smoking didn't go so well,
but we got our wizard circle.
So it was good.
Then tonight, the well acrobatics went perfectly according to plan.
We are eager to see the shots, I saw bit of it and it's nice. Wonderful.
So, a good outcome then ?
Yeah, very good one because we are done with the most difficult scenes and tonight brought us really beautiful images.
So it's cheering.
- Great, see ya tomorrow. - tomorrow.
"Council's shooting" Today is the council's shooting.
It's an indoor scene, with some characters gathering around a table to debate,
a meeting to talk about the future of the univers... It's basically that.
And who are those actors ?
We got the all council's actors that are starting slowly to get dress.
A load of chef operators because we are indoor, we will have to cheat,
to block the back-lighting, ceiling enlighten, characters focus lights and spot all dark corners.
It will be difficult, live sound recording, pole microphone
for a better outcome and avoiding post-prod.
So that's it, a load of small technical things to arrange, it's going slow us down,
but it's for a better delivering, is it not, 'cause you know, we are professionals.
No joking.
What I need, is for you to ask Frédéric coins, for your fabrics shipments,
by caravans through desert for example.
You need to find small ideas like that.
For you Christophe it will be the same goal and your opponent, The Great Paymaster, his goal is not to give you anything, he got no founds.
Do you understand the goal, you enter, place yourself, looking astonish, while Melissandre is talking
and it's Alain, because we want the punch on the table
Once you got them quiet, it's your line.
I need your fists on the table, we put some scrolls above for you not to scratch it.
You have a scroll with your hand's placement.
Silence!
Let our eternal warrior speak.
The mana well is corrupt.
Master Grelot, master of Brasiard!
Magic is corrupt,
and before you know who is behind all that
"The laboratory"
OK stop ! Pause, I don't know what you're looking for...
but it's there.
I don't know what you're looking for, but it's there.
Ooh I take it deeper.
For Grelot Lab's, we had to recreate the light,
but the shelves were crowded.
We needed all to be well seeing without disturbing the camera, no spotlight in frame or so,
while moving in a tiny space.
Here the most difficult was for the spotlights not to be seeing by the camera frame angle.
You been round back while searching is perfect.
-Because like that... -Do I need to be rounded ?
-Without overplay, like this... -It's my nose you got.
If you are like searching, you know, not over rounded, so that I can have your all face.
OK
Do you prefer in this angle or this one ?
I prefer bottom view
You tell me if it's centered for you.
It's good for me
Ok Grelot, when you're ready.
Ah, there, there is something smoking. The curtain yes, I think it's getting hot.
Could you... Nope, it's the spot, if you could put it a bit in the back kipping same angle.
Zoé look at your globe, we always need a reflection in here cape.
End of the shooting review,as I was saying earlier the first concerns are the injuries.
No one got hurt, we did not make any degradation
and except for some flesh wounds, everything went well.
So as we didn't get any damages nor injuries, the outcome is positive. .
Part 2: Stunts
As for the stunts, some of them were Wilfried's ideas.
I proposed two.
The "Aigle Jump" and when the thief has to throw his knives while jumping backward.
That's when having Aurelien with us was nice, as he used to be a stuntman
allow him to arrange his own stunts.
It's Wilfried that came to me.
He, somehow, knew about my past involvement on similar projects.
He already had a tight storyboard.
But with some blanks..
I was able to contribute by some stunt ideas.
Let's do a trial ! And go !
Now it's working, we saw you turning up.
It's just me, I did lose you but that was perfect ! So I will be right at this distance.
Well you just need to know how to, without hurting yourself, and been aware of your limites.
Because for this stunt, I knew,
we will have to retake 10, 15, 20 times, 'cause anyway,
the cameraman will need time to adjust, to get use to the take,
either way I will be off frame at a time or another. We will have to shoot again,
we will get the regular shooting delays, so at one time,
for this kind of stunt, you will need to be able to put up and do it again and again, always the same.
The first thing, when you're managing a stunt, is :
How can I do for the stuntman, not to be hurt ?
If your answer is :
"Naah, don't really know how we gonna do it"
then better forget the stunt.
What ideas did I bring :
at some point, we got a scene with Gaia in the sand dunes.
It's a path crossing scene, where I actually roll over Gaia,
we needed an idea to do it quickly.
Knowing that I come up running and living running as well. The easiest way was the rolling over,
it combined securities requirements and Wilfried and Alex demand.
It ran smoothly with Gaia, because he always stay open mind.
Even if he imposes his convictions, 'cause we did find ourselves in a three people character.
That is with his background, his sport activity
of realistic medieval combats,
of which it gets hard to get out sometimes.
He wants it to be realistic, it's good, a nice dynamic,
but not always compatible with a shooting, and the screen.
Action!
no, the move isn't plausible
And then it's Alex, he's the one shooting, he got the camera,
he got the plan and he will be the one able to tell us if the timing, the visual,
give us something interesting, if it's OK, that we are still on screen.
So at one point we had to adjust one another, knowing that
it's really fast, it's an uncut scene, a sequence shot,
where we arrive running, marking the tempo, crossing and running again.
We arrive at a given moment where we can't make a mistake,
it had to be smooth, not for the accident or anything, just for the shot,
you feel it's slow and erratic whereas to be extra fluent.
Thus everything went fine, we had to do it several times
for everyone to adjust one to another, a trade-off between all of us.
You shoot the first blow, go on then, I push you back, and strike down!
I go up, evasion, attack, you move, I hit you on the stomach. End of the fight.
Remember, when he hits you on your stomach "huh!"
When you start composing a fight choreography there are two, three important points.
First : Who gonna fight ?
Because it will be very different if it's someone who knows how to,
or a total newbie.
The two other points : What kind of characters are they playing.
And the third one : What kind of weapons.
Starting from here,
there is always the basics moves.
simple that can be seen.
On the short, the fighters did not all knew how to fight,
so I stayed on simple moves, easy to learn.
Because the easiest the choreography is to remember,
the easiest it is to rehearse multiple times therefore get less slip-ups.
go up the choreography and the less there will be error.
That what's the most problematic about beginners.
The tend to forget the routine and do a wrong move,
and wrong moves when you got metal weapons in your hands could be very dangerous.
Action!
Back to the starting point, no prob'
It went quite well indeed, they remembered quickly all the moves, without mistakes
so they were able to rehearse as many time as they wanted,
without stress, calmly.
The more calm we are, the better.
You need to do the "hissing blade"
Precisely he's either far and you are like this, or he's close by and you are more like that. Do you see the difference ?
either you make a circular moove like this, or you come closer to slice it.
That's it, either you'll get him, or he's a little too close,
what we see it is the moment when the weapon unfolds.
So you voluntarily fold in front of him and then unfold once he's gone
To be safe, I asked them not to do it too fast,
to prevent any injuries
and at one point I asked them if they were OK
and they answered "Yeah, we can totally go faster"
while I thought they were at full speed. Sometimes you got nice surprises.
so if you can go a little bit faster it's fine if you do not feel it's
If you can do it fast it's good but if you don't feel it...Do you all think you can go a bit faster or so ?
Ok, let's try just a bit faster then. And Action !
We can not conceive an audiovisual project if we did not anticipate
the soundtrack.
Within the association we had people who
did the composition as an amateur
so obviously I got closer to Aurélien I knew who was a musician at the base, a luthier
and I knew he had already tried composing
so obviously I turned to him and wanted to know what he was doing
It's Wilfried who talked to me about it, he came to see me.
Because he already had in his mind
a running chase scene, it was there and will be there, he really was into it.
He wanted a soundtrack to go with the chase. So he came to see me, we talked a bit about it.
It happened that I already had
I already had two tracks, three small ideas that could work,
specially two melodies
already placed
and we were clearly on a metal symphony dynamic, that means a symphonic approach
adding heavy guitars and drum at the back.
Thereby I suggested it to Wilfried
who just joined me on it since that was what he had in mind.
That is we really were on something dynamic with the orchestral thing,
plus heavy drums background. It gave us a small preview,
he started to taste a bit his chase scene by putting on the music, it gave the all thing a meaning.
it gave the all thing a meaning.
And he started to believed in it. Therefore If he believes in it, that means we are in the right direction.
That how we worked at first.
The thing was to get some speed at this point, so we gonna do a question and answer between the Violins and the French Horns :
The Violin in staccato, and the Horns answering, deeper and lower with a slight more intensity,
something really fast.
Eventually it's the same thing that writing an action scene, short sentences,
subject, verb, add on, which allow the action to be smooth. Here it's the same thing,
we need something really short and really swift.
So fast staccato, swift horns all sentenced in questions and answers.
Everything wrapped by a heavy drum beat to keep the groove, a big rumble in the lower parts,
so that we have the all race, that we can feel how intense it is.
We need a pulse with a good beat that you can feel in your bones, something heavy.
What's a staccato ? A staccato, for a Violin, it's a really fast tones.
It's not a slow melody, well meshed.
Rather, it's precise tones, really, really, swift played very quickly
that give the dynamics and the speed.
And then after a climax with this leitmotiv coming back a quick tune
that end up on Horns holding a tone for the scenery tension, a pit of dramatic
before completely coming back to the chorus and the melody where everyone coming together :
The drums coming back, the orchestra, the guitars joining
for something that starts to be grandiose to close the composition, which seems consistent.
And all this give us a two minutes fifty piece, at nearly 10 seconds I fulfill my contract.
I'm good !
Me, I'm from Gargouille Prod. Team. It's a L.L.C.
I'm a camerawoman, video editor and photographer,
and on this short I mostly worked on some video editing with my colleague Axelle.
We came for shooting to get some images.
I was in the crane, to shoot form high above.
-Light -Camera ! Both !
Wilfried brought us the raw's,
and a first video editing that he had done. Therefore it was a bit rough, even if he tried some colouring.
For us, after that, we had some fun, 'cause we do have fun in the end, doing some special effects.
Everything from sparkles, smokes,
shock waves, to colours.
We mostly did images calibrations and editing glitch.
Because from scene to scene, some people are place somewhere,
and then on the next one you see them somewhere else .
As for the CGI, the first scene, the really first sequence with the girl coming down the well,
we added the blue light and the sparkles.
After that there is a chase between two girls :
there is a small projectile with a sparkle, we added the sparkle.
We removed some street lights.
I erased some from the last scene.
As it for today, when this's been recorded, we haven't finished yet. We still got a week to go.
It's only be a week since we got the short.
I spend an all day on one minute
at the concil's scene, when they are at the table. So much glitches.
For exemple,
you must have seen the short by now,
for a short while, at the table a woman on a general view,
got her glasses, and on the opposite shot, she doesn't...
and there, I can't add them.
In the end...
Lastly, I hope you gonna like it.
Our work isn't always visible
and to get a good understanding of it
to see the advance in all the effects without the work that is done and after,
you should see the all steps until the end.
But it's the same for all the movies, we see them finished.
But there is a load of work.
It 's a touching moment because this kind of project
is always a strong human experience.
For getting involved,
to put your best efforts and you noticed that each one came to join you and brought his stone to the building,
and then, together a beautiful spell start,
where everyone is bringing, piece by piece, his knowledge and strength,
together
we do not end up with a Keops pyramid, but together we did go through the end.
And this project, from the day we finished it, that we made it trough :
Well, I say, we fulfill our contract, we did make it.
It's a fabulous human experience.
And it is a real pleasure for us as organizers to see the smile
and the glitter in the eyes of our volunteers, who have enjoyed and are pleased with what we achieved together.
It's all the magic of the project that we did together, by everyone's participation.
Eventually, I'm going to quote Louis de Rancourt, the French storyboarder leader
who says that "cinema is something that we do not do alone,
we do it with others, as a team
and that's what wonderful about it.
What are you doing here?
nothing
For the shooting?
nothing! I bored people
"actress, props woman, makeup artist, wardrobe woman, hairdresser"
I'm here to eat!
Thank you a lot! See you at the festival !
traduction : Alice et Audrey
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