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One of the main tenets behind the posts we share here on DN is to reveal the stack of work that goes into the films featured on the site, with their creators as guides to steer us through what can sometimes seem from the outside as unnavigable chaos. Whilst we do this practically daily for films, the opportunities for us to look behind the scenes at the dedication of other art forms’ practitioners don’t present themselves so readily. Which is why it was such a pleasure to discover that French filmmaker Kendy Ty had shifted his cinematic gaze from lyrical mood piece Folded to the documentation of a dancer who moves to Paris in pursuit of her art in Behind the Move. Kendy takes us through the project.

After I shot my short film Veuve Noire with Audrey Giacomini, she told me that her best friend, Fanny Sage, was a modern dancer. I took a look at her work and was stunned to see so much grace in her pictures so I decided to make a documentary short with her. I wanted to show that behind every form of art there’s a lot of work.

Everytime I shoot a personal project, I have everything in mind. I write a list of scenes to shoot and improvise a lot because I don’t have any budget. This project is about her, nothing else. No acting, just Fanny in her everyday life. Fanny is one of the best modern dancers I’ve ever seen, her capacity to show emotions when she dances… I wanted to capture that on my camera, I wanted to show her soul. She’s worked with a lot of fashion brands like Nina Ricci, Chanel or Danskin, so having this project with her was a blessing.

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The whole film was done over 3 days, post production included. I used my small Canon 550D, everything is natural, no additional lights. I think it is much more atmospheric. I don’t like it when you can see everything clearly on screen because it looks fake. I like the idea of showing just the shapes or the shadows of the characters like in a comic book. I wanted something organic so I added some clean 35mm grains to my footage, because I like the visual render of the old cameras such as the Bolex. For the strange flares effects, I use a broken glass in front of my lens and shot with only one hand. It’s easy with a small camera like the 550d, but could be a pain with an Alexa because of the weight. Because I make everything with After Effects (including the edit) I work very fast. I don’t waste my time by switching between several softwares or video tools.

Behind the Move is one of the many great projects shared with the Directors Notes Programmers through our submissions process. If you’d like to join them submit your film.

2 Responses to A Modern Dancer’s Hard Work Comes to the Fore in Kendy Ty’s ‘Behind the Move’

  1. Oz says:

    Excellent work sir.

  2. Julian Fort says:

    Really beautiful and well done. Extremely compelling. What did you use to color grade the finished version?

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