A “cinema verité” experience is taking place this fall in a huge house in the Pointe-Saint-Charles district: the series Street gablewhich shows the lives of seven young roommates who have left their region to settle in Montreal, is almost entirely filmed with a smartphone.
This is the first Quebec series, and probably one of the first in the world, filmed using an iPhone 15 Pro Max. Thanks to this ultra-light device, the film crew can discreetly approach the protagonists of the series, who end up forgetting the camera.
This flexible strategy allows for the capture of real, authentic scenes. The young people let themselves go. We see the joy, sadness or dismay on their faces. The phone also allows us to follow the seven roommates as they move around the city — to the university, to the supermarket, to a café — without disturbing the passers-by who come across the film crew too much.
“When you make a documentary, you always dream of being like a fly on the wall,” explains Frédéric Gieling, the show’s director and coordinator.
“We want to depict reality as it is. There is no script, we give no instructions. If we follow a young person who is going down the wrong side of the street while walking to the grocery store, we don’t tell him that he is on the wrong path,” he adds.
We meet the filmmaker in the beautiful large house — rented until December — that houses the seven roommates. The director and his team have set up their headquarters in the loft located in the basement of the opulent residence. Cups of coffee and filming equipment are spread out on the tables placed throughout the apartment.
The place has been buzzing with bees since the seven young people arrived in mid-August. Filming takes place six days a week for ten weeks. Three teams (including production, sound and camera staff) follow the roommates in all facets of their lives.
Moments of truth
Like the original series, which aired between 1995 and 1999, Street gable is not a reality TV show. It is a docureality. We are not at Double occupancyhere. There is no competition, no elimination, no prizes to win. The seven young people are not influencers. They are housed for free all fall, but are not paid.
They were told to just live their lives. The production team gets their probable schedule for the next day early in the evening. And since they are young people in their twenties, “we have to change course at any time,” says Sandrine Whitlock, one of the directors. To capture these slices of life, the production team travels around the city by subway or minivan.
Mia, a 19-year-old student from Alma, usually confident, was one of the first participants to become aware of her vulnerability. One episode shows her silent, pensive, as she prepares a meal in the house’s large kitchen.
“The other six people know who they are, but I don’t know who I am,” she says, distraught, to the camera in the confessional – a room where the roommates are invited to isolate themselves to talk about their day.
Edgar, a design student, is distraught after seeing his ex-boyfriend for the first time since their breakup. “I was selfish, I only thought about myself, I cheated on him,” he confides in a burst of emotion.
Logan, a beautician from Rouyn-Noranda, discovered the joys of living in Montreal: a $91 ticket for illegal parking was waiting for her on the windshield of her car the morning she arrived in town.
Confidences on screen
The film crew takes the wrought iron staircase that leads up to the ground floor of the house. Jérémi, 24, a master’s student in ecology, is the only roommate present that morning. The cameraman, Michel Auclair, approaches, holding his phone with two removable handles. This is what allows the technicians to film with a certain stability.
“I was with my girlfriend yesterday. We couldn’t let go of each other. Oh my God“We looked cheesy!” says the student, tapping away at his computer.
Like the other six participants, Jérémi is comfortable living the entire fall in front of a camera.. “It motivates me to accomplish things,” he tells DutyThe young man recently launched the artist management agency he had dreamed of creating.
Jérémi talks openly about his little brother’s autism disorder. “Maybe I’m on the spectrum too. It’s in the family. It brings an open mind. I live my life!” he confides.
The director stays off to the side, in the hallway. He communicates with the rest of the team with his headset equipped with a microphone. “The young people are going through a pivotal moment. I find them very courageous to have this ability to open up and share their experience with Quebec,” he tells the Duty.
A respectful distance
Frédéric Gieling draws inspiration from “direct cinema”, the ancestor of the Quebec documentary, invented in the early 1960s by pioneers such as Michel Brault and Pierre Perrault. For the rest of the worldreleased in 1963, remains a classic of the genre. Direct cinema itself was inspired by “cinema vérité”, created at the same time in France.
Street gable is filmed by a single camera at a time. There are no hidden or robotic cameras, unlike reality TV shows. The participants are never filmed without their knowledge. The sound is captured by microphones attached to the protagonists, when the scene lends itself to it. The aim is to avoid the boom as much as possible, which does not go entirely unnoticed.
When the film crew arrives in a room where the roommates are, the conversation between the young people continues. The technicians are part of the participants’ daily lives, trust has been established, but the people on both sides of the camera keep a respectful distance.
“The team is there, but it’s as if there was no one there. We’re there to film, not to interact with them,” says Frédéric Gieling. In half a century, viewers will be able to see these young, bright people with uncertain futures, who were taking flight in a somewhat chaotic era…