Alexis Durand-Brault has made it from commercial to screen, from camera to production. In each of the series he produces there is a visual research that makes them unique. The sequence recordings ofhelp Beatrice like the graphic of Portrait Robot are proof of that.
With his accomplice Sophie Lorain, he also produced Sortez-moi de moi and Désobéir, which narrates the fight of Chantal Daigle. For Mégantic, he delved into the heart of one of the worst railway disasters, at the heart of a tightly knit city whose true protagonists have become friends.
Photo provided by Yan Turcotte
As a tribute to her, he has delivered a series that is as sensitive as it is spectacular. Because as they say over there, as long as you’re in people’s minds, you stay alive.
They inspired the will to make a luminous series despite the pain of the events. how did you edit the picture
As I read the lyrics, the term fire was inevitable, so the warm light imposed itself. No talk of playing with the cold light against it. Therefore there is a slightly yellow light. Throughout the show we integrated points of light everywhere. give “glow”. Even if it’s subtle. It adds a little dreamy side. It’s a show that could be difficult given its subject matter. It was expensive. We want people to listen to that. We could have thought we were going there, but we don’t make a documentary. Light, like music, allows us to take a step back, to see things differently. And it was clear to me from the start that the camera would always be in the thick of things. It’s immersive filmmaking.
It is a “choir” series. We see similar scenes from one episode to another through the eyes of different characters. How do these scenes end?
I hate shooting with more than one camera. So we shot each scene by adapting it to each character’s point of view. The intensity is not always the same because we see it according to our perception. It’s subtle, but the viewer doesn’t feel quite the same emotion. For scenes with lots of explosions I used 2-6 cameras. It was real fire, real explosions. When it comes to action scenes, I want to avoid cutting too much. I make few plans. I think it’s important that people have a sense of geography. It’s like stepping into a tube. You just get sucked into the story, the characters point of view.
The actors had intense scores to play. How did they manage to reproduce this level of play for multiple takes?
It’s all a matter of time. It could have taken us 45 minutes to an hour to place a scene. I had time to try things out with the actors. If you’re not sure, I can do it. The scene in which Luc Senay’s character receives his daughter’s body in a small box took five hours to film. It is creation that we do.
This project must have taken you into uncharted territory, if only technically.
We did business with Louis Craig, who worked on a hundred major American films. It requires expertise to handle fire, explosions and propane gas. If you start a fire, it costs $1,000 a minute in propane gas. It’s not done with a snap of your fingers. You must maximize your plans. With explosives, we saw that there are 12,000 ways to create explosions. As reported, we had to recreate a fire geyser. My job was also to manage the danger. As an actor, I can’t always use stuntmen. Sometimes there are things I need to add in the post, but otherwise everything is generally true. Playing firefighters was the dream of many little boys. We don’t often get the chance to shoot scenes like that in Quebec.
Where did you reproduce the city of Mégantic?
We went to Ormstown. Artistic director Jules Ricard has recreated a dozen facades, including that of the Musi-Café. But there was no railroad or church. We added them in 3D and added a piece of road to have the right geography. It was work to destroy the city too. It was reproduced in a snow dump in Longueuil. It was important for the residents of Mégantic to recognize their city. Out of respect for them.
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