8 minute read
TIM SIDELL BSC•FLUX GOURMET
WHAT’S COOKING?
By Oliver Webb
Director Peter Strickland serves up a gastronomic feast with his latest film, Flux Gourmet, which provides an insight into a dysfunctional, ‘sonic catering band’, comprised of experimental performance artists, who take up residency at a remote artistic institution, run by an enigmatic director. An outsider is tasked with recording the day-to-day performances of the group, only to discover that he slowly becomes part of their collective.
Brilliantly shot in vibrant hues by DP Tim Sidell BSC, the sumptuous and surreal character-driven drama is set to be released in the UK on the 30th September.
“A decade ago, I was testing for a feature film alongside my great friend Nic Knowland BSC who was prepping Berberian Sound Studio (2012) with Peter,” says Sidell, whose recent credits include Two For Joy (2018, dir. Tom Beard), six episodes of Sky Original’s I Hate Suzie (2022), plus the National Theatre/Sky Arts’ TV movie Romeo & Juliet (2021).
“We all met at Ice Film in London to compare 16mm, 35mm, ARRI Alexa and Red cameras, and I showed Peter some of my experimental film work. This led to me shooting some second unit material for him on Berberian Sound Studio, and then, in post, we started to discuss a sequence that Peter thought could be enhanced through some of the experimental techniques I’d established in my own practice. So I went off to have a play, and he and his editor then cut a great little sequence together. I subsequently shot some other bits with Peter using similar techniques.”
When it came to initial conversations about Flux Gourmet, Sidell notes how Strickland set out the overall structure of the film. “The residency of the sonic catering band at the remote artistic institution takes place over three weeks. It was written as a three act play and like a three-course meal, with a colour, bodily fluid and foodstuff for each. The starter (week one) is red – blood and tomato soup. The main (week two) is yellow – bile and a cheese omelette. The dessert (week three) is brown – excrement and chocolate pudding. I absolutely loved this conceptual structure and knew there’d be some great visual opportunities.”
The film was shot over a period of fourteen days in North Yorkshire manor house in Yorkshire, apart from the gallery sequences, which were captured in Selby Town Hall.
“The fact that the mainstay of the shoot was at one location made things much easier than they might have been,” says Sidell. “An additional day was added though in one of the out-buildings at the manor, which we’d initially used for the sonic caterer’s dormitory, and which then we turned into a basic studio for additional abstract food and audio tech shots. The basic lighting rig and the seating gallery above the main space in Selby Town Hall was what facilitated our lighting approach, and made it feasible to complete everything there in four days. The gallery was small and hot, the hall was rich and varied. We were lucky to be shooting there.”
In terms of creative inspirations Strickland’s first and foremost reference for Sidell was documentary material of the short-lived Viennese Actionist art movement.
As the DP explains, “The Actionists were a group working in the ‘60s and ‘70s who set out to deliberately provoke and upset the establishment through performances involving nudity, blood and dead animals. This aligned with Peter’s intent with the script – to parody cultural institutions and the characters that function within them, but to do this affectionately and respectfully, rather than mockingly. There’s an observation here on the interdependency between the institutions and the artists that they host.
“Those often transgressive Actionist performance events were documented through B&W 35mm stills and 16mm film, and we sought to bring the authenticity associated with the texture of those original images to the performance sequences in Flux Gourmet. Documentary stills by the German artist, teacher and performance artist, Joseph Beuys, provided another reference for this.
“However, by way of contrast that, we also wanted to establish a formal austerity for the remote institute and play on the notion of the establishment that would contrast the performances, and the work of director Peter Greenaway was a reference here.” Sidell says that Strickland was also keen to develop a heightened theatrical quality to certain scenes in Flux Gourmet, such as the burglary sequence, for which he referenced Judex (1963, Georges Franju, DP Marcel Fradetal). The Third Part Of The
Night (1971, dir. Andrzej Żuławski, DP Witold Sobocinski PSC), The Driller Killer (1979, dir. Abel Ferrara, DP Ken Kelsch) and Carrie (1976, dir. Brian De Palma, DP Mario Tosi AIC) were key references for the film’s performance sequences.
“Additionally for me, Aneta Bartos’ photographic stills were inspirational for our backstage sequences, and Marcel Marceau was another key reference for our ‘Trips to the Shops” sequences in the gallery space. Of all these references from Peter, I think Judex had the greatest impact on me, and I lit that burglary sequence in a far more theatrical way than I’d normally have considered.”
Sidell selected the Sony Venice to shoot the film, predominantly using Cooke S7 lenses. The performance and more abstract sequences in the film were captured with Sidell’s own Canon K35s.
“I am a big fan of the Sony Venice as I feel it offers the most organic image available digitally,” says Sidell. “The colour-depth is exceptional and somehow it delivers an emotional quality. Rather than being what you might describe as ‘correct’, it’s human and organic, especially with softer and more forgiving glass.
“Another feature of the Sony Venice is its high ISO and, on several occasions, this really did help us. I shot freely with the higher-base ISO and knew we could tune the grain during the grade, balancing the more ‘classical’ material to tie it in a little with the performance documentary.”
As for the optics, he remarks, “I use the K35s a lot and have been using Cooke’s more and more – their contrast is delicious, but there’s always a forgiving softness. The camera and lens kit was supplied by Movietech, who were incredibly supportive, especially given our budget. Their technical support is also second to none.”
Flux Gourmet was a single camera shoot, with Sidell himself at the eyepiece.
“I am very interested in subjectivity and it’s harder to be in control of this with a second camera in-play,” he says. “Peter prefers a more classical approach in general – even established and austere. We wanted to contrast the formal world of the institution with the experimental world of the performances in the gallery space. I agreed entirely that the approach surrounding the institutional world would provide an excellent springboard for the performance sequences, so that I could let rip with greater freedom, including what I call ‘floaty jib’ and handheld styles of camera movement.”
In terms of lighting approach, Sidell relied on a few HMI heads, a mix of LEDs and soft Tungsten sources. Astera tubes helped on a few occasions too.
“ProVision did us an amazing deal, and our gaffer Bruno Inacio did an incredible job,” he recalls. “The softbox in the gallery space was full of Kino tubes, as that was all that was available and affordable. I aimed for slightly shaped naturalism for the most part, to form a baseline from which to jump towards the more creative, abstract and extreme sequences. We had limited resources and so little time, so I could only achieve broad strokes in-camera and tried to save something for those more experimental sequences.” Describing the look of the film’s colour palette, Sidell notes: “I’d rather wistfully describe the intention as painterly. We tried to cement the tertiary colours of the manor house property we were shooting in, and leave space for more primary and secondary colour in the performances and more abstract sequences. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to build any new LUTs for the production, so I used some I’d put together on a previous project with my regular colourist with Duncan Russell.
“With a fourteen-day schedule there’s little time for anything, let alone colouring on-set with the DIT. There might have been a couple of repairs as we went along, but by-and-large we transcoded the footage with the chosen LUTs. For the final colour grade I was very keen to work with Duncan Russell again, which led us to Halo Post who took excellent care of us.”
Discussing his approach to shooting the film’s abattoir sequence with a bloodied Elle di Elle (Fatma Mohamed) writhing around on the gallery floor, Sidell says that this proved to be one of his favourite sequences.
“This was a direct reference to the Viennese Actionists,” details Sidell. “We shot partly with a jib arm on a track, which I operated manually and partly handheld for complete freedom and extra rawness. We had a few dimmable lights with strong colours, that could be dimmed during the take, so I always had backlights, usually with contrasting colours, in-play, and could move at least 270-degrees
around Fatma.”
The movie’s orgy sequences were captured through prisms. “We sought elegance through abstraction. I’d shot with prisms before and Peter liked the effect. He thought it would help us avoid a crass and overly graphic result, and also make the cast feel more comfortable. While it’s hard to control exactly what you’re seeing, there are little moments of gorgeousness that pop out, and lighting with different colours helps to create separation and depth.”
Looking back at his experience on the film, Sidell says, “My mantra is to be true to the material and intuitive with my response to that and the director’s intentions. It’s ideally an organic process, although this is not always compatible with filmmaking and especially TV drama. But I’ll always keep trying.”
