Pro Moviemaker Autumn 2019

CANON

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Beautyonthe battlefield Following his new documentary set in the heart of Manila’s urban drug war, daring documentary filmmaker Olivier Sarbil tells us how Canon’s CN lenses are helping him keep things looking better than ever

C amera gear is important for in some of the most hostile locations on the planet and you can multiply that importance tenfold. For Olivier Sarbil, there’s only one choice when it comes to cameras and lenses: Canon. “When shooting documentary, Mosul , I used my Canon EOS C300 Mark II as it’s a beautiful, lightweight, compact cameraand robust enough to withstand the punishing fieldwork of the front line,” says Sarbil. Elaborating, he tells us that 90% of the film was shot handheld. “I needed to work very fast with one lens that could cover every situation. I chose the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f2.8 as it has image stabilisation, it’s light, has a good focal length and delivers good picture quality.” After serving as a soldier in an elite airborne regiment of the French Army, Sarbil turned his passions toward the camera. For a time, he worked as a broadcast cameraman for television news, covering conflicts all around the world. In any documentary filmmaker. Take a filmmaker with a focus on cinematography who shoots

2016, he began following an elite team of Iraqi Special Forces. The result of this was documentary, Mosul , which won an Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography. Three years later, he has completed his second documentary, On The President’s Orders , a filmexploring the extrajudicial killings that have takenplaceduringPresidentDuterte’s campaign against drug dealers and addicts in the Philippines. For both bodies of work, Canon has been his cinematic companion. distinctly cinematic, particularly among documentaries.“Documentarycamerawork is often seen as a lesser craft than narrative cinema, but I really believe in the power of cinematic storytelling, even in the chaos of war,” he tells us. During the filming of On The President’s Orders , Sarbil wasn’t in a literal war zone and was under less pressure. As a result, he had wider scope when it came to gear. The film’s small crew was made up of Sarbil himself, James Jones, co-director on both The things he carried As reflected by their awards, the cinematography in Sarbil’s films is

ABOVE A still from On The President’s Orders, shot using Canon’s cine prime lenses

Mosul and On The President’s Orders , and a local Filipino fixer to assist with gear. With this extra freedom, Sarbil picked up some new glass – Canon’s cine lenses: “I used a set of Canon CN-E primes as my base lens package.” Favouring the CN-E 14mm, 50mmand85mmlenses, he tells us, “I am familiar with these lenses, they have amazing colour and great visual quality, especially in low light, which is how I often like to shoot. I really loved the 50mm and the majority of the night footage was shot with it wide open. This lens produces some stunning rounded bokeh and the image is

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PRO MOVIEMAKER AUTUMN 2019

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