Cinematographer

Jesse's Girl

Cristian Barbe

UK, 2006
Shot on 16 mm

Director - Cristian Barbe
Production Co. - NFTS

Personally, I really like the camerawork of this film. It was very poetic and rough at the same time. The steadycam moves through the forest as a butterfly would do (sorry for the cheap lyricism) but at the same time the handheld camera bits are much rougher and with more soul. 

I like this combination.

I have to say though, that by pushing two stops, I screwed it up and the texture of the film is not as we were aiming for. It is a bit too grainy. But we couldn’t test beforeand, there was no time or money so we were quite brave. And I learnt from it.

The scene that is shown here was set in the nest of a tree. What I like about it are the mistakes of the camera, which makes it less perfect but more human. I like mistakes in filmmaking, I like it when films have a soul. And I think this film has almost no story but a beautiful soul.

We worked very closely together with Christian, who I would later shoot Harvest with in Fuerteventura, and it was the most intensive recce I’ve ever done. Christian is very intense, and this is his main strength. His films are always very, very intense and full of emotion. I like that about him.

In this film I first met Mike Scott, the steadycam who did a great job for us. He is a very nice guy that after that he went to shoot Michelle Pfeiffer’s movie with Brian Tufano. 

Check him out at www.steadi.co.uk. Take care big guy!

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