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"Capitães de Abril" [1999] |
"Taken" [2007] |
"From Paris with Love" [2008] |
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MICHEL ABRAMOWICZ AFC |
Born: 24 January 1950, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France.
Education: Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 [History]; ÉNSLL [1974-78].
Career: Started as 2nd c.asst and focus puller with Jean Boffety. Worked with Gerry Fisher [on commercials], Pasqualino De Santis, a.o.
Ph numerous commercials dir by Louis-Pascal Couvelaire [for Corona Beer], Daniel Gruener [for Coca-Cola], a.o. Ph music videos, e.g. 'Love Profusion' [2003; d: Luc Besson; a: Madonna].
Website: Michel Abramowicz
'Taken' [2007]: ''Taken' tells the story of a man alone who is searching for a family member in a third world country whose language he doesn't speak,' says Michel Abramowicz. ' What I like is the linearity in which this story is told. It goes from point A to point Z in a completely unrelenting way. 'Taken' resembles one of the true 1950s B movies from RKO. Liam Neeson is determined to find his daughter at any price and my objective with this film is to be effective to the same degree as his character.' But how does one define an implacable approach with light and how can the lighting complement or match the relentless perspective of the story? 'In my interpretation,' continues Abramowicz, 'it translates to a very dark and harsh rendering of light. We must immediately feel how much this former spy is plunging into a terrible milieu. The image treatment must resemble hard cement which, if you brush your hand over its surface, you can feel its roughness. Working on something this raw pushes me further into using low contrast with periods when nothing is lit... except the actors to whom I must give greater emphasis. Not seeing the eyes of actors bothers me quite a lot. I can choose to leave an actor in deliberate obscurity, but as soon as I see him I must distinguish his eyes. It is more so with someone like Liam Neeson. Certain things only take place in his eyes and I must capture them. When faced with such recurring adversity, his character's only solution is to move forward and, as a cameraman, I am obliged to follow a similar path in determining the unique lighting solution for each frame and setting.' Abramowicz chose two parallel but strikingly different images for 'Taken'. The first 20 minutes of the film, which is set in Los Angeles, has an 'American rendering'; the rest of the story has an 'European rendering'. Abramowicz explains: 'While everyone uses the same cameras and the same film today, there is a curious difference that is lost between the American image and the European image. In order to separate the two worlds of 'Taken', I researched and found the American look by working quite classically in the United States, saturating the colors, polarizing and illuminating the characters like stars with lots of light. On the other hand, when the hero arrives in France, I quite abruptly take the camera from his feet and shoot him almost constantly at shoulder height. Even the Steadicam shots deliberately become somewhat bumpy. The constant is my use of diffused light because I don't want to obtain a video texture after digital post-production. It may seem a bit contradictory to my desire to achieve the relentless image I have just described, but I don't care. Above all I want to preserve the film's cinematic imaging.' The process to which Abramowicz refers is all the more significant in 'Taken' because, towards the end of the film, there was a requirement for him to light nearly two miles of a lengthy pursuit between a car and a boat along the banks of the river Seine in Paris. 'The electrical requirements for filming in 35mm were impressive,' he continues. 'Because I had a portable digital video camera at my disposal I ended up using HD. Only the large frames of Liam Neeson remained on traditional film. My good fortune in achieving a texture in these circumstances stemmed from the fact that the sequence was shot at night. It's different during daylight as HD generally retains an image knockout and one inevitably resorts to an electronic image. With quite a lot of filtering and Kodak VISION Premier Color Print Film 2393 for the final shoot, the image texture was close to that of film.' At one point Abramowicz thought of using KODAK VISION2 Expression 500T 5229, but it seemed to him that it would be a little too soft for this type of film. Instead he settled on KODAK VISION2 500T 5218. '5218 provided me with a unity of texture,' he remarks. 'With a beautiful subject and a beautiful actor, I no longer wanted to trademark the light as my own. I had to feel the ambiance and ensure it matched the film. I can only aid the audience's experiences with light, for example the anguish of a character. Apart from using 5kW or 10kW Fresnel lenses for contrast in a room or to create night time effects, all my electrical foundations are in fluorescent light. It mixes in the eye and allows me to illuminate an actor without a particular light source being discerned. This kind of light is sufficiently diffuse to make the whole scene iridescent without emphasizing it; I don't know of any other light sources capable of achieving the same result. The story of 'Taken' truly implies this kind of sober lighting style.' [From KODAK 'Focus on Film'.]
FILMS & TELEVISION |
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1981 |
La saisie [Yves-Noël François] 16mm/c; short/10m |
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1984 |
L'anniversaire de Georges [Patrick Traon] c; short/13m |
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1984 |
Epitaphe [Jean-Claude Robert] c; short/14m |
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1984 |
Ça n'arrive qu'à moi [Francis Perrin] c; delta-plane ph; ph: Didier Tarot |
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1985 |
Kubyke [Pierre-Henri Salfati] c; short/24m |
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1985 |
Le bonheur a encore frappé [Jean-Luc Trotignon] c |
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1986 |
D'après Maria [Jean-Claude Robert] c; short/30m |
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1988 |
Tolérance [Pierre-Henri Salfati] c |
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1989 |
La fille des collines [Robin Davis] c |
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1990 |
Annabelle partagée [Francesca Comencini] c |
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1991 |
Vent d'est/East Wind [Robert Enrico] c |
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1992 |
Une journée chez ma mère/Part-time Parents [Dominique Cheminal] c |
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1994 |
Red Shoe Diaries [ep #27 'Like Father, Like Son' dir by Rafael Eisenman] 65-part tv-series, 1992-96; 3rd season, 1994 |
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1994 |
L'échappée belle [Jérôme Enrico] tvm |
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1994 |
État des lieux/Inner City [Jean-François Richet] s16/b&w; cph: Pierre Boffety & Valérie Le Gurun |
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1996 |
La ballade de Titus [Vincent De Brus] c |
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1999 |
Capitães de Abril/April Captains/Capitaines d'avril [Maria de Medeiros] c |
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2001 |
Sueurs/Sweat [Louis-Pascal Couvelaire] scope/c; 2uc: Charlet Recors; aph: James Swanson |
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2002 |
Michel Vaillant [Louis-Pascal Couvelaire] s35/c; 2uc: Dominique De Wever; filmed 2002-03 |
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2004 |
L'empire des loups/Empire of the Wolves [Chris Nahon] p/c; 2uc: Vincent Muller; filmed February-May & October (in Turkey) |
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2006 |
Ha-Sodot/The Secrets/Emeth [Avi Nesher] c |
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2007 |
Taken [Pierre Morel] s35+HD-to-35mm scope/c; 2uc: Gil Pannetier |
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2007 |
Sagan [Diane Kurys] 16mm (+ 35bu)/b&w-c; prod as 2-part tvm (#1 'Un charmant petit monstre' & #2 'Des bleus à l'âme'; 2x 90m; 16mm); theatrical version (117m; 35bu) |
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2008 |
From Paris with Love [Pierre Morel] s35/c; 2uc: Gil Pannetier |
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2009 |
Wave [María Ripoll] scope/c |
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2009 |
Paam Hayiti/Once I Was/Love Lesson [Avi Nesher] scope/c |
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2010 |
The Thing [Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.] p/c; 2uc: David Franco; aph: Hans Bjerno & Mark Hryma; prequel to film by John Carpenter (1981) |
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2010 |
Racing Patriots [Eric Stoltz] announced |
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FILMS AS CAMERA ASSISTANT/OPERATOR |
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1978 |
Une histoire simple/A Simple Story [Claude Sautet] c.op 'b' cam; ph: Jean Boffety |
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1978 |
It Rained All Night the Day I Left [Nicolas Gessner] c.asst; ph: Richard Ciupka |
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1979 |
Dizengoff 99/99 Dizengoff Street [Avi Nesher] 1st c.asst; ph: Jean Boffety |
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1979 |
The Hostage Tower [Claudio Guzmán; tvm] co-c.asst; ph: Jean Boffety |
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1980 |
Un mauvais fils [Claude Sautet] 1st c.asst; ph: Jean Boffety |
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1980 |
Les uns et les autres/Bolero [: Dance of Life] [Claude Lelouch] co-c.asst; ph: Jean Boffety |
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1981 |
Condorman [Charles Jarrott] 2nd c.asst 'b' cam; ph: Charles F. Wheeler |
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1981 |
Staline est mort [Yves Ciampi; tvm] 1st c.asst; ph: Jacques Renoir |
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1981 |
Malesherbes, avocat du roi [Yves-André Hubert; tvm] 1st c.asst; ph: Jacques Renoir |
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1982 |
Le gendarme et les gendarmettes [Jean Girault] c.op 'b' cam; ph: Jean Boffety |
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1982 |
L'argent [Robert Bresson] 1st c.asst; ph: Pasqualino De Santis & Emmanuel Machuel |
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1983 |
Carmen/Bizet's Carmen [Francesco Rosi] 1st c.asst; ph: Pasqualino De Santis |