Argentina. You don't need a budget of millions of dollars to succeed big on the film festival circuit. The Argentine independent short film The Bride of Frankenstein (September 2015) is proof that low-budget projects can fly very high.
Ivana, the main character, spends the summer in Buenos Aires working for a company that rents apartments to foreigners, and turns her work routine into a complex web of love and lies. Written with great skill and beautifully filmed, The Bride has been selected and presented at events such as the Locarno Film Festival, the Vienna International Film Festival, the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival, the São Paulo Short Film Festival, the Milan Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, the Leeds International Film Festival and the American Film Institute Festival. And for this combination of classic cinema and comedy the reviews have been exceptional.
Argentine independent filmmaker Francisco Lezama is the brains behind the project, and part of his vision included the affordable Blackmagic Cinema 2.5K camera for the film's cinematography. Francisco became familiar with Blackmagic cameras through his work at the prestigious Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires. Experimenting with different ideas for The Bride, he realized that the camera's compact size and organic feel were more than adequate for the film.
"I wanted the filming style to be really personal," Francisco says. This means that there are few steps between the director and the camera, and between the camera and the actors. Let there be no distance. You're right there inside the scene. The Blackmagic Cinema camera is perfect for this purpose."
Francisco worked closely with his co-director Agostina Gálvez to get the shortest distance between the camera and the actors of The Bride. It was also important for both directors to use natural light when possible to achieve the desired look. In fact, locations were often chosen based on how much natural light they would get and what it would look like when captured with the Blackmagic Cinema camera. They wanted to avoid the artificial at all costs. And when asked to describe the look they were looking to achieve with the production, Francis responds with a single word: organic.
"The Blackmagic Cinema camera produces a very aesthetic image, even in low light," explains Francisco. "The camera's high dynamic range made it easy for us to shoot in the natural light we preferred, resulting in a more organic feel, as we didn't need a bunch of harsh, artificial lighting. We were able to capture the perfect cinematic look for an independent film. And because it's so compact, it made filming with our actors very natural and helped us establish a connection with them."
Blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality
Francisco and Agostina created a script with a personalized approach. The story was written around its Argentine actors in order to mix fiction and reality. Taking a look at the actors' characteristics and gestures, Francisco and Agostina developed the characters to suit each to add even more realism.
"We wanted the film to have an almost documentary style and very focused on each moment," Francisco recalls. "There is something about contemporary Latin American cinema that works very well with this documentary method, and this aesthetic is closely related to small cameras. The entire shoot was designed to suit the available elements. For example, instead of installing a lighting system, we would go to our locations to spend a long time evaluating natural light so we could determine the best time to record."
"We had to make a lot of changes in gear under the pressure of the moment, and we're grateful to have a camera that allowed us the freedom to make them," Agostina says. "Freedom is essential for us when shooting such a realistic film, and the Blackmagic Cinema camera made it possible because it's incredibly portable. For example, we realized later that some of the scenes we shot in the beginning just didn't work. But we could easily shoot again later on, as we didn't have a big crew or a complicated set of lights to reassemble. Thanks to the Blackmagic cinema camera, none of that was necessary. Also, because we were shooting in HD, the material didn't take up too much space, which would have required continuously downloading what was recorded, interrupting the flow of the scenes. We really couldn't have made this film with a different camera."
Francis adds that "Every time we wanted to make a change, like camera position adjustments, we were able to do it. You didn't have to block the energy of the performance and we could keep up the pace of the shoot and then edit."
From the beginning of filming, both directors discovered that their actors preferred to work in front of the Blackmagic Cinema camera, over any of the other production cameras used in the project. The Blackmagic camera was low-key and much less intimidating. When they were acting, they did it as if there was no film camera in front of them.
"We shot a scene where an actor is walking back to a house," Francisco said. "This wasn't a choreographed or planned scene, and he didn't even realize we were shooting because of the small camera. She just crossed the street and the scene turned out to be very real when he captured her. Things like this happened all the time on set."
The actors of The Bride were very willing to improvise, which allowed them to perform with what Francisco calls "the truth in acting." Blackmagic made everything much easier for the cast. The actors often commented on how comfortable they felt, and overall, the atmosphere was relaxed, as in Francisco and Agostina's original concept. It was easy to keep up, and if they had a last-minute change, all they had to do was keep the Blackmagic Cinema camera recording continuously.
Laboratory work
The cast was so amused during filming that often the camera would not stop, thus capturing the spontaneity of the actors, giving the film a more genuine look. Even though this increased the amount of material in the editing room, editors didn't have to worry about quality. They already had the look they were looking for.
"We had planned to spend a lot of time doing the color correction, but it wasn't necessary and we managed to shorten the post-production time of the film," says Agostina. "We wanted a specific look and the Cinema camera provided it to us. The colorists had to retouch very little."
The co-directors decided not to evaluate each shot separately, but to do it together when all the material was in the editing room. Many times they let the material come together on its own to create a flow they hadn't imagined before. "Our method is not to say, 'This scene is good, this scene is bad,' because you'll always be amazed at how they fit together, and how the Blackmagic digital grain changes your perception," Francis says. "There is flexibility to change everything."
Closing the gap
Today, a small, well-knit team with a low budget can successfully produce quality material at the level of a film festival, an exciting possibility for filmmakers. Francisco and Agostina hope that The Bride of Frankenstein will serve as an example for those who are not sure about making the investment in a project.
"My passion is to preserve classic cinema, but above all, I am a film director because I love to create with this art," says Francisco. "With Blackmagic, the creative process becomes easier. If you want to do something commercial, you can do it. If you want to do something more cinematic, you can do it too. It's all a matter of what you can imagine with the camera."
"There's a big gap between very high-budget and very low-budget films, and there doesn't seem to be anything in between," Agostina concludes. "Blackmagic can bridge that gap, as their cameras are affordable, and yet they produce a beautiful, very personal image. This is going to help all kinds of filmmakers."
In the future, Francisco plans to make a feature film using Blackmagic cinema cameras. For the time being, Francisco and Agostina will continue to travel the festival circuit with The Bride of Frankenstein, and hope to get some more awards. And with her work ethic, the success of The Bride is just a beginning.
"The most important thing when creating art is that the image has to be connected to your own aesthetic," Concludes Francisco. "An aesthetic involves thinking differently. It's not just about the technique. That's what the Blackmagic camera makes possible. Because it's so small, it reaches an incomparable connection with your story, and the possibilities are enormous."
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