Tape

Paris, August 2023.

When it doesn’t take place in the studio, filming is set in a saturated space and requires the negotiation of an exceptional regime: rental of space, security and janitorial services, special authorization from the police, the complicity of local neighbors and even the availability of the fire department. As Gwenaëlle Rot has shown, organizing the coexistence of temporary activities in both public and private spaces requires making room, materially, emotionally and financially, for cinema. This is the job of the stage managers, who have to guard parking spaces, install signage and obtain the cooperation of passers-by. But it’s also the job of writers who are less famous than the scripts, and less visible than the stage managers, who mark out the camera’s movements along the set. In addition to screenplays, scrapbooks and storyboards, these technical tracings with colored tapes, temporary but solid, also contribute to bringing the cinematographic image into existence.