Figaro? Si ! (2022)
Florian Sempey
4min 35s | Florian Sempey |
Arpeggio Films
Julien Hanck (director)
Safran Lecuivre (dop)
Alpha Classics
​Florian Sempey is not only a talented singer, he is also a born actor. For his clip “Figaro? Yes !" I wanted to highlight this particularly remarkable component - not to say explosive! - of the artist. This was all the more the case when I learned that we were going to be able to use the great hall of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the ideal stage for making a very theatrical clip to the music of The Barber of Seville. Also, before filming, I built a timed scenario and a precise technical breakdown that I had to learn by heart on the music, in order to be able to better direct the artist live during his performance. In order to anchor the action in reality and corroborate the abundant character of the great tirade of Figaro, we also accessorized the action by recovering timeless objects and barber furniture, to which we added vials, bottles filled with mysterious liquids colourful, always in order to enrich the scene with unexpected elements. An additional constraint, that of only having the locations available for 2 hours of filming, added an additional challenge to the exercise. Finally, the choice to integrate a subjective point of view and a short focal length of 12mm, by substituting the camera for the extra, allowed us to superimpose some particularly expressive shots of the artist from low angle with the colors of the dome of the Theater. Post-production was the time to coat these different ideas with an additional layer of organicity and realism by adding sound effects, captured with a technique close to ASMR. Ultimately, the credo of this clip, contrary to the dominant conceptions, will have been to reintroduce humor and a frank joie de vivre at the heart of the production, in order to make a clean cut with abstract moods and a certain minimalist aesthetic.