Hot Docs are on fire!

500-Weeks #009

As advertised, the stuff burns very visible on camera

What I am about to describe is not something anyone else should attempt. It was dangerous, and without proper precautions being taken, can lead to serious injury.

According to Wikipedia: “The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada."

It takes place over two weeks, from the end of April into the beginning of May. Except this year, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, which I am sure will be featured in multiple documentaries in the near future.

So lets go back a bunch of years and the editors at Eye Weekly had decided that Hot Docs was going to be the cover story for the issue the week it opened. Cover stories require cover photographs so the awesome Kevan Buss - the art director at Eye – decided that he wanted an image of cans of motion picture film – on fire! With the title of the films written on tape around the cans.

Another case of, can’t you just Photoshop this together? Because, you know, fire is dangerous and how are you going to light metal cans on fire? Metal is not flammable.

So? Those are just technical problems. Kevan calls, I say yes. I can do that. And then I set out to figure out how.

Problem #1: Where? Not in my studio / apartment, that’s for sure. 

Problem #2: How? Metal cans are not flammable.

Problem #3: With what? Where are all the film containers going to come from?

 

The film titles are still visible, but the flames are not big enough yet.

A wide-open space would be best, without anything flammable nearby, but which hopefully has parking spots. So I contacted photographer Cameron Hubbs, who I met when we both attended Ryerson University. Cameron had a studio in an industrial area in Toronto that I rented from time to time. It had a parking lot that I figure would not be too full in off hours. Particularly on weekends, the area was mostly deserted. I explain what I am up to, and he figures no one will mind.

Then I call some special effects houses that cater to the film industry and ask for suggestions on how to set the cans on fire. One SPFX technician suggests that what I need is flame paste. I am assured that the flames will burn a rich orange colour and look great on camera. Well that sounds simple enough.

Then I visited a motion picture film lab located downtown, and asked about getting some extra 35mm film canisters they may have. This is harder to come by. Film cans are in high demand, and not easily bought. I manage to get to talk to one of the managers and described the project. I also pointed out that the cans do not have to be in pristine condition. She sounded interested and decided to help me out. She went into the back of the facility and produced seven or eight cans. 

At that point in time, the Port Land’s area in Toronto was mostly industrial and uninhabited. It was home to many motion picture businesses, especially special effects companies. It was explained to me that they did a lot of their work – which included explosions - using radio controls and triggers, and there was less radio interference in that part of town. The SPFX firms liked that, because radio interference may result in unwanted explosions and fires.

It was here that I was able to purchase a bucket of flame paste and receive instructions on its’ proper care and use, which included the rental of a fire extinguisher, for safety. The bucket was one size only – 19 litres - which is 5 gallons. It was only partially filled, but still, a big bucket.

Good flame size, but the titles are no longer visible

For the cover photo, I decided on a blue paper backdrop, which I was sure would be sacrificed during the photo shoot. I enlisted another friend, photographer Arash Moallemi, to assist and man the fire extinguisher.

I should point out that it is quite easy to get boys to assist when the project involves fire. Can’t image why that is.

One of my constant sources of photographic information has been American Cinematographer magazine. One of the articles was about the movie “Always” which featured aerial fire fighters. The director of photography - Mikael Salomon - detailed the difficulty in photographing fire. He discovered that he actually had to light the fire, and the light he used had to be as bright or brighter than the light given off by the flames.

With this in mind, I made sure to bring along and use studio lighting gear.

We got the studio and used the parking lot for the set, locating the backdrop far away from the building, and holding the seamless paper down with large rocks.  We set up the cans – I had already added the titles on the side, written onto white cloth tape – and the lighting. Test it all, and everything seems good. 

A quick word about creating a cover: a cover is more than just a photo, it is a photo that has to work with graphic elements on top of and around it, in specific areas. The newspaper logo goes at the top, some standard stuff is printed at the bottom while the headlines hinting at what stories are inside have to be placed on one side or the other.  In this situation, the paper backdrop was a small roll, which is only 1.35 metres – or 4.5 feet – in width. Movie cans are relatively small, the budget was low, the narrow roll seemed sufficient, but it did mean that I had to choose one side to put the cans on, so the space for the type can be placed on the other. I chose the right hand side for the burning cans. If the camera was panned to the right, there would be no more blue backdrop to be seen.

Okay, time to break out the flame paste.  It gets coated all over the cans and while the bucket may have had 10 litres in it, we used a very tiny amount, maybe 250 - 5000 ml. We made sure that the excess was stored very far away from what will soon be open flame. Prepare for action, double check the camera settings and cue the lighter as the flame paste is lit, I repeat, the flame paste is lit and the set is hot. I have to say, it burned, readily and rapidly.

On most photo sets, the big problem is which way the daylight is shining. On this set, the trouble was which way the wind was blowing. When we were setting up and testing the lighting, no problem, everything seemed ready to go. But as soon as our one and only set of prop movie cans are burning, the wind decides to change direction.

What a diva move. I can’t yell cut, because this is a one-off. So I sit and wait while the wind blows the paper backdrop towards me, like window curtains. While I’m focussing through the camera, the middle of the seamless is pushing in towards the set - even with big rocks holding the paper down - creating a crease in what should be a smooth background. Then the wind blows the flames to camera right, and off the side of the frame.

The wind is not your friend on a photo involving fire.

These seem like easy problems to fix in Photoshop, but they are not, because flames are transparent.  You can’t crop around transparent flames and fake a background. If the problems are behind the flames, the art department would have to fake the flames and the background – next to impossible in early versions of Photoshop and on tight weekly newspaper deadlines.

No more fire, no more film. That's a wrap.

All I could do was wait, and keep my fingers crossed and hope that that the wind corrected itself – quickly - before the star of the photo burned itself out entirely.

Fortunately the windy interlude was only a brief flare-up and the flames went back to straight up. 

Once the cans were completely charred, I told Arash to dose it, and he put the fire out with the rented extinguisher. In total, the whole burn was less than five minutes. I had one frame left over to get a photo of the set with.

Arash Moallemi manning the extinguisher.

By the way, in case you were wondering, this set was HOT. Literally. I was using a normal lens on the camera – I did not own a telephoto – so I was set up rather close to this cans in order to fill the frame with the picture. Arash was close by with the fire extinguisher and we both noted it was really hot. This was like sitting way too close to a roaring campfire.

We should have brought marshmallows.

Technical stuff: Medium format Bronica ETRsi camera with 75mm f/2.8 Zenzanon-PE lens using Fujifilm Provia, RDP II 100 ISO colour transparency film. Lighting by daylight, and Dynalite stobes.