TROPIC LIKE IT’S HOT The colours in Christmas in Paradise (below) shaped Carcelle’s visual style
‘Do you want to do this’? I showed up to set the next day, and it was a bit surreal.”
days, so I had to go with the flow,” he shares. “Obviously, I wanted to add my own touch, but I knew I was probably not experienced enough to take too much of the lead on the creative side.” The shoot itself wasn’t all smooth sailing, with Carcelle’s camera acting up during night scenes. He noticed an issue where darker areas of the frame were noisy, so he performed a few tests to pinpoint the problem. “That night, we shut all the curtains and doors, and shot on every setting to find the issue. It didn’t matter what we tried, nothing worked,” he recalls. “We realised the sensor struggled a bit, probably due to being an older camera. I think the heat and humidity played a part, too.” Their solution was simple: add more light at night. When he’d initially taken the job, “everyone told me I was crazy,” he laughs. “On the contrary, it taught me a lot, and
the fact that I survived it, delivered the film and everyone was happy with it – that boosted my confidence as a DOP to go, ‘I can handle this’.” Learning a new language After Christmas in Paradise , Carcelle was admittedly a little surprised when the job offers didn’t come pouring in. “It was a bit of a reality check,” he says. During this phase, he found an independent film – shooting in Turkey with an entirely Turkish cast and crew – and applied to be DOP. At first, he faced some pushback from the director Mehmet Demir Yilmaz, who was concerned over potential language barriers. “We spoke for about ten minutes on the phone, and I sold him on my vision for the film.” From there, it was full-on. Carcelle shot the film Kum Zambagi in an area called Yumurtalık.
Getting stuck in Christmas in Paradise presented its fair share of pressure on 23-year-old Carcelle, who approached the role with a healthy dose of self-assurance. “I had no idea what I was doing in that position,” he reveals, “but I went with the mentality of: one’s career is so long, and I have nothing to lose. If I get fired tomorrow, hell, I can say I’ve tried.” Carcelle shot the film in London and on location in the Caribbean, with his gaffer the only familiar face when going into the project. “That was the only condition I had,” he explains. Late to join the crew, he chose not to rock the boat too intensely. “I knew I couldn’t overstep; they’d already been shooting for three
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