Please tell me about Go Zones and how it came about?
It was the launch film for i-D France and they asked me to do a video about the so called no-go zones as reported by Fox News – places where people don’t go because it’s considered too dangerous or it’s predominately Islamic. They did a map showing these no-go areas – mostly in north Paris – and we saw that they were actually the best places where things were happening with a lot of creative and young people, so we decided to make a video to answer Fox’s claims that these areas were like Afghanistan. We want to show these places are where you have to be, they’re interesting and a lot of people go to party there.
We also wanted to show another vision of Paris because the city is always seen as a museum, a city steeped in the past where everything is very mono-tone. We wanted to show something colourful and vibrant with young people so that’s why the film is very saturated, and has a lot of energy. Paris is not only about the Eiffel Tower.
And how did the film evolve?
The idea was to convey the feeling of the energy of the young people in Paris. We found a really nice guy called Ben Surkin, who’s project is called Gener8ion. He did a music video with M.I.A. That music was very powerful and we based the structure of the video around his track Walled City.
So there’s a very intense start, then a lyrical part and then we use the characters as statues as a reminder of the culture of Paris, a way to create a contrast between traditional and the more concrete suburbs of Paris where the fashion and youth are.
Did you research quite a bit before hand or did you just go in there and shoot the film?
Yes I researched it quite a lot, also I had some groups I wanted to shoot, like the basketball-football in Pigalle – there is a fashion brand around this, also a rave party, so it’s like a collective of people making a party under the freeway, in a place more like Berlin that you don’t see very often in Paris. It was good to show a good mix of people. I think the people in France are very multi-racial today and it was good to just say “This is Beautiful”.
Many people don’t accept it too much, but a lot of young people have grown up with Black, Chinese and Islamic people and it’s ok, it’s part of Paris. So this was a way to talk about it.
How long was the shoot for and was it with a small crew?
Two days. Yes, just a DP, focus puller and my assistant and me, that’s all. There was a producer and stylist too of course.
Did the video evolve in the edit?
Not so much, no. The first edit is what you see now. We just changed one shot because they wanted to have a little bit more fashion, to include one particular way of dressing. We were lucky because everybody liked it. Also because we already had the music, the editing was very fast, completed in three days.
How long have you been with Caviar?
It’s been a year and half now. Before that I was studying film making in Spain at ESCAC in Barcelona, more documentary and fiction, and then i decided I’d like to do more commercial work and music videos and also to apply documentary style to fashion or brand films for example. And so we clicked and started working together. Yeah, Caviar is a good company and they’ve got offices in LA, Brussels, London…
I’d made documentaries in Ukraine and about the gypsies in France previously but I’m now doing a different documentary in Ukraine about a kid who we met there before the war, he was just a kid who had fake guns, he was fascinated by weapons, and we met him again one year into the war in Ukraine. Now he’s 19 years old and going off to war. We’re going to film him during the last weeks before he leaves. His mother doesn’t want him to go, the girlfriend isn’t happy, the best friend is ok, the brother is in the Russian army and the father was a pilot in the Ukraine army and he died in Afghanistan. It’s a very tough story but very interesting. It was a game before but now he’s going for real. And we’re going to try and tell a story of Ukraine from the last years, it’s going to be ready in mid-September.
What was the piece of work that 1.4 Awards picked up on…
It was called Mountains, a music video that we did last year.
LINKS
See more photography of Cyprien Clement-Delmas
O TARNÉ (The Youngsters)
Directed by:
Cyprien Clément-Delmas Dani L. Fortuny Louis de Gouyon Matignon
Editing: Dani L. Fortuny Music: Dani Trujillo
