Alarms

Directed by: Nicolas Panay

Principal Cast: Thomas Coumans, Laurence Côte, Eminé Meyrem

Country: France

Time: 17:00

Synopsis: Pierre is diligently overseeing the completion of the tumultuous construction site under his responsibility, ensuring that progress doesn't come at the cost of safety.

What inspired the story for Alarms?

My previous short film was also about connections between work and intimate life. With Alarms, I wanted to catch the peculiar sensation of being overwhelmed and try to make the audience understand the main character by feeling what he feels and living in person what he lives. During the writing and production process, I never wanted to tell a story-- I kept trying to make the audience enter the main character's psychology.

Are you a parent yourself with all the inherent fears that come with that?

I became a dad two years ago. For sure, with this new life was born some new fears. The fear of not being as perfect as I should be for my children (I have two now!) anytime, anywhere. Finding balance is not an easy thing. But this film is not just about me. I don't work on construction sites. It is an allegory of work in general. I wanted the film to be as universal as this topic deserves.

Take us through the casting process. Everyone in the film feels so authentic in their roles.

I worked with Manon Garnier (first roles) and Naëma Tilhac (secondary roles) for the casting process. I was convinced that to enter the psychology of the character, I needed to work globally in a naturalistic way. I've never wanted to be a conductor of actors playing a score. I wanted to work hard to access this peculiar feeling of being involved in realism. The casting choices were essential. Of course, we had a normal casting test process but I also devoted a lot of time for discussion with actors/actresses to understand how they feel about the character they are playing. After the casting process, this continues through rehearsals to create a feeling of confidence that provides enough creative space to each actor/actress to feel the vibrations of the characters and reach the realism I wanted.

Thomas Coumans delivers a stand out performance. He brings brave choices and hits all the right levels. How did you come across him and how much did he impress you during the shooting of the film?

Thomas Coumans is a “coup de coeur”, as we say in French. I didn't know him very well before the casting process. When I met him, his sensitivity, his humanity, his strength and his ability to feel immediate empathy made me choose him. He is a great actor and also a very good dancer. He has a physical way to embody the character. We worked on it to find tiny bits of body language so the audience can access the character's psychology.

Another star of the film is the DOP Giovanni C Lorusso whose brilliant camera work brings the viewer into the tension. What was the process and decision making there?

Absolutely! Giovanni is probably the greatest artist I know. He is DOP but also a photographer and a feature film director. On Alarms, he developed a technique serving the whole film. During the pre-production process, we discussed a lot of psychology, sometimes philosophy, to find the best camera language. We wanted an involved camera in a situation like a character in order to feel Thomas Coumans's tension and his questions. We choose not to have sequence shots but to use the best part of them: the energy and realism, even if we are cutting. Maybe you have the feeling that it's a sequence shot film, but it's not. We didn't want to give the artificial illusion of it. Even when we shot a whole sequence, we knew at the moment we would be cutting during editing. That was our film language. The camera work is connected to the character's psychology and its spontaneity. But that's the hardest part from my point of view. Giovanni has a natural talent of catching the perfect timing movement, especially in this film where secondary characters are always surrounding Pierre.

What problems did you and Gio face when shooting on a building site?

If only it would just have been a problem for Gio and me! (laughs). All the cast and crew had to adapt themselves to make this film. Filming on a real building site was hard but also the best way to achieve the realism I wanted. The main problem was of course the safety. With the production company Les Films Norfolk and the 1st assistant director Elisa Pascarel, we tried always to find the good balance between artistic and very hard shots to make on one side and safety on the other side. Fortunately, all went well! In the extras team, there were real construction workers who were working on the same site a few days before. They were very helpful in telling us what we can do, where we can go safely, and of course, by driving machines. For Giovanni, a lot of shots made him walk backward across an irregular floor and obstacles. We did a lot of rehearsals and Giovanni was accompanied by a machinist for his safety. Thomas Coumans's final run also was a huge and stressing challenge for technical reasons and safety. But we did it!

Alarms feels like a real-life action movie. Did any films from that genre serve as an inspiration?

Not really. I had a lot of references before making this film, especially in the short film world: Just Before Losing Everything (2013), by Xavier Legrand and Everything Will Be OK (2015) by Patrick Vollrath. But I also wanted to emancipate myself from these beautiful references to find my own language.

You co-founded an international short film festival “Court en Scene” in 2016. What are the key elements needed that make a great short film and how did running a film festival for shorts help you as a filmmaker?

Being the programmer of the festival gave me the huge chance of having a specific point of view. By watching more than 1200 short films a year from all over the world, I've discovered my own tastes and what I could bring to it by making films myself. I sincerely have no idea how to make a great short film! What I know is that just wanting to make a film is the worst reason to make a film. Telling a story is not enough. I need to have something to explore and to understand. For me, cinema is an understanding process, even its writer. Universality is also an important concept. Maybe I can say that a beautiful short film is a film involving us in a peculiar situation and touching, with sincerity, universality with our fingertips.