Tag: Directorstalk

Inside a Director’s mind ➡️Tom Van Avermaet⤵️🎬

What if a living statue falls for a real one? Sounds like an instant recipe for a universal fairytale doesn’t it? A unique lovestory pairing new to ancient times. A fine filmmaker makes it come true on the big screen in “Hearts of Stone”.

Step into the mind of director Tom Van Avermaet. Inventive, extremely creative and perfectionist upon till The End-credits of his brainchildren🎞. 

And yes most certainly his name should ring more than one bell. 
A previous short film of his, called “Death of A Shadow”, featuring another Belgian pride- and joy in cinema; Matthias Schoenaerts, was nominated for an Oscar in 2013.

What better way to find out more about the making of his newest production than to ask the director himself…

Tom: I’ve always been fascinated by living statues. I knew they were out there. Acting and pretending to be statues. It made me think about what their world would or could be like. Turned out their community was slightly different from what I imagined.

AC: How’s that?

Tom: I always wanted to do something with living statues in film. But not quite sure yet about the kind of story I should tell about them. I guess I had more of a naïve kind of view on their world to begin with.

Maybe I saw them less as professionals and more like this kind of imaginary community.

In my world living statues would be people that long for a time that isn’t there anymore or maybe never was. Some sort of imagined past…and going back to this imaginary past that maybe never existed.” So I decided to use that by telling…a love story. Baseline: “Living statue falls in love with a real statue.” Which kind of made sense to me instantly.

AC: So Hearts of Stone turns out to be a modern fairytale 📽…

Tom: That’s kind of how the story came to be…but I also wanted to talk about modern loneliness. A lot in the movie is also about cell phones and social media. How do we communicate with each other.

The more (digital) opportunities we have to communicate with each other the less we’re able to communicate with each other in real life.

Tom Van Avermaet

AC: You want to hold a mirror to society ?

Tom: That might be too big of a word. Somehow I wanted to explore that particular feeling/issue through this story. More about why it seems easier or more difficult to be able to talk to someone.

It’s like the character says in the film. “Is it easier to talk to someone on the other side of the world than to talk to someone who’s next to you?”

That’s quite of an interesting, modern kind of dynamic, which we’re still trying to explore with social media. The impact it has on our lives and how we live through our devices in a way.

And taking that or pushing it to the extreme.  

When the statue comes to life in the movie, the viewer gets an idea of what’s it like to be a statue and how they might feel in general.

“Directing like a visual artist 🖼️”

AC: You manage to create this kind of rarely seen universe. We are curious about your journey in cinematography. Without breaking the spell, could you tell us how you create these striking visual effects ?

Tom: As you know film is always a collaborative art so we try to work with good people. I was lucky to do that with all my films.  With talented cinematographers who were able to understand the kind of idea or vision I wanted to come to life. From “visual vision” to post production.

You shoot the image in a certain style. We chose to shoot with anamorphic lenses. Lot’s of films are shot on spherical lenses. Anamorphic is more a wide angle format. It’s the first time I did that. 

I love to have a wide angle in all my films. Sort of like a painting style…🖼️ I always feel that an image can convey a lot of emotions.

Tom Van Avermaet

Tom: I’ve always been drawn to cinematography which has a very painterly style.
I’ll aways try to frame the shot (emoji painting) that way as well… kind of an artistic point of view on the image. I always feel that an image can convey a lot of emotions.

Tom: In all my films so far, I’ve worked with a different cinematographer. This time I worked with DOP Hans Bruch jr. Hearts Of Stone is our first collab.

Which is not like a deliberate choice but the people I work with are usually  in high demand so…You have to pick when the actors are available, not when the cinematographers are. Unfortunately…🙂

But I was lucky to find a new collaborator on this. And still be able to create the same kind of feel I like to give through my other films🎥 🎞️.