Special effects, ChatGPT, scene shot on the iPhone… Albert Dupontel reveals to us some manufacturing secrets of his new feature film, Second Tour, with Cécile de France and Nicolas Marié, currently in cinemas.
One of the trademarks of Albert Dupontel’s cinema is a constant concern for image, aesthetics, which we have seen in all of his films, including the last two, the multi-Caesar winner Goodbye idiots and Second Round. Both use a lot of digital special effects work.
The idea in this case for Second Tour was to accentuate this idea of ”contemporary tale“, via a “light contrast“, of the “camera movements“, of the “varied focal lengths in the same scene“, A “often hyper cut editing” and an “very present music“, as Albert Dupontel specifies in the press kit for the film.
And added: “QWhatever the subject I deal with, politics, justice, the consumerist world, I try to make things that are sometimes rustic beautiful. In terms of lighting, I had enormous help from the cinematographer Julien Poupard who succeeded in putting in place the often radical light that I spoke to him about. The use of low-intensity, often moving lights gives the image that contemporary tale feel. And for 20 years, I have been working with Cédric Fayolle, VFX supervisor and in supervisor, I remember each time that there is “super”, an adjective that sums up his artistic and professional abilities well. He participates in the project from the first versions of the script and prepares the vfx aspect of the project well in advance.t”.
At our microphone, Albert Dupontel goes further on this aspect revealing to us that “out of 2,000 shots in the film, 1,300 are faked“. He even adds: “Everything is false ! This film is a big, permanent lie!“. He completes: “There weren’t 10,000 extras in the picture. There were 300 of them; we made 10,000. I didn’t have an eagle and we created one, etc., etc.“
As Albert Dupontel detailed to us in our podcast interview, Second Tour required “retakes“, one of which was shot on the iPhone! “The film was greedy, this is its main fault. We reshot the beginning of the film, we did retakess.” The scene involving David Marsais from Palmashow and the “zizi gate“was shot in the editing room with an iPhone 13, the director tells us.”I had just sent a message to David Marsais: would you do a sagacious and fleeting gag?“
Another trade secret: the use of ChatGPT AI, for the duration of a scene. “We used ChatGPT for the ancient Greek sequence, because we could not find a translation or a translator. It was ChatGPT who translated the film at the very beginning. “
An anecdote slipped in when we asked him his feelings on the rise of artificial intelligence in relation to cinema. “It scares me a little like all new technologies. The scenarios written by the AI for the moment are frankly not attractive. And at the same time, digital helps me a lot in my films. (…) Now, within what limits? Now, which is both fascinating and disturbing, they’re talking about casting dead actors. Can they do it, with voice etc.? There are even already heirs who monitor the scenario and who give authorization if the scenario is good. It’s a fight against time. I don’t know what it’s going to be like. We will see.”
During this interview, which you can find in its full podcast format and a video extract above, Albert Dupontel shared with us his vision of the future of cinema. Picking up on the news of the release of a documentary, last Wednesday, Room 999 by Loubna Playoust.
Cinema has become one platform among others
This film continues the work undertaken by Wim Wenders in 1982, with Room 666. The purpose of this documentary is to question the future of cinema by addressing the following question to an anthology of filmmakers: “Is cinema a language in the process of being lost, an art that is going to die?“
“Cinema has become one platform among others. I grew up at a time when there were three channels and there were very few movies on television. It truly was an absolute refuge.
I think there will always be a gregarious need for people to get together, like at the village festival. And then the big screen and sound, because here too, technology has evolved a lot.
I can’t predict the future. But this festive need to be in front of a big screen, I think that, psychologically, it exists in very strong human beings. But for all the films that Wenders’ generation knew, the small cinema side, where there are 50 seats and we go to see a Tarkovsky…
I experienced that, it’s absolutely fascinating. But I don’t know if this cinema can still exist. This is my only uncertainty about the future.“
Second Tour is currently showing.