The cartoonist Stéphane Lemardelé is also a storyboarder but this profession is poorly known. In Wim Wenders' The Storyboard, he takes advantage of a shoot with the German filmmaker to explain his profession and discover the backstage of an independent film. Be careful, it's turning…
Behind the screen
Living in Quebec since 1995, Stéphane Lemardelé started as a storyboarder before later becoming a comic book artist. In this new graphic novel, he wants to tell the different stages of the creation of Wim Wenders' film Every Thing Will Be Fine. It starts from the meeting with the filmmaker and then details the writing of the script, the scouting, the shooting, the creation of the storyboard and finally the shooting outdoors and in the studio. This book is therefore both a dive into creation for a film buff and an easy-to-access manual for an apprentice filmmaker. Cinema leaves theory to become practical: should we remove a section of wall to film?
The reader discovers the backstage but not those that are often represented of the director or an actor but of the storyboadeur. Under the authority of the director, his job is to prepare the shooting by making drawings of each shot and therefore to plan all the work. Stéphane Lemardelé describes the techniques to go from the draft to the photos and then to the final drawing. We understand the interest of his work because his images concretize the ideas of the filmmaker.
Wim Wenders explains that he rarely uses a storyboard. However, fine preparation is required for a scene. The team cannot shoot more than three hours a day because a child is on screen. In addition, filming is done on the ice in a wooden cabin on the frozen lake and it has to snow. Wim Wenders' Storyboard also shows the particularity of auteur cinema. Filming in a small team offers great flexibility and therefore allows improvisation. In the last part we discover other stakeholders such as light technicians, decorators, sound engineers…
An artistic encounter
Wim Wenders' Storyboard is also a dive into the mind of a filmmaker. Stéphane Lemardelé tells us about Wim Wenders' career. We understand the intensity and duration of the filmmaker's reflection by images extracted from the different periods of the filmmaker. The book has also been proofread and corrected by the filmmaker. Through the dialogues with his team, we understand that he is obsessed with light and is inspired by painting. Humble, he presents himself as a reluctant student who discovered the cinematheque to take advantage of the heating. Taking notes to remember the visual shocks he receives, he becomes critical. That's when he became addicted to film. The graphic novel is an opportunity to understand the thinking of the German filmmaker. He is very attached to the place because dilapidated things have a surface whose roughness allows memories to cling. Stéphane Lemardelé reproduces in his drawings the many effects of matter.
Despite his career, he remains passionate about new techniques. 3D brings cinema out of painting. Wim Wenders finds a new field of exploration in technique, the relationship with the actors and the result. The freedom provided by the act of creation is for him the last contemporary adventure. As an artist, he wants to seize these new technologies so as not to leave them to merchants. It is amusing to read this attention to modern technique while Stéphane Lemardelé's drawing imitates the pencil. The lines deliberately leaving an impression of sketches conceal a rigorous layout.
Published by La Boîte à Bulles, Wim Wenders' storyboard combines a double success. On the one hand, it is a reportage comic to understand the trades and the functioning of a film crew of an independent film. On the other hand, it is a portrait of a filmmaker taking a passionate and adventurous look at his art.
Other comic book reports await you on the site with Mon rond-point dans ta gueule and Tiki.
