Richard Lavoie - Sound Recordist/Lighting

How do you like Igloolik so far?

I've been here many times before. Since 1998, maybe, I've come up here once a year to work and to visit friends. I have some great friends here.

What does your job entail?

I wear many hats. First of all I'm a sound man. I'm also doing the lighting for the interior of the sets.

How do you prepare for a scene?

The problem with these kinds of shoots is that we're always shooting in small rooms, so we have to figure out what we really need, and the rest have to be stored somewhere else. So we have to choose everything in order of importance. How many lights are we going to need, how many stands, so everyday is like that. We have to figure out what we need.

What sort of equipment do you use?

For the recording we have a D.A.T (Digital Audio Tape) recorder for the Ajaja songs. This time I will shoot everything on the D.A.T recorder, which is something we didn't do in Atanarjuat. I also transmit the sound to the camera, we call that Double System. So for that we need a clapper with timecode, like the real thing.

What's the biggest problem you've faced on the project?

Our bigest challenge is the weather. Even if we're shooting the interior of an igloo, if the weather's too warm - we'll have problems. I remember in Atanarjuat, we were shooting in a qaggiq (large igloo) and the qaggiq collapsed during shooting. So we had some problems. So maybe the same thing will happen this time. At that time of the year, it could be warm, it could be cold. So that's the challenge.

How many sets do you have?

The interior shots did recently were are in the ship's cabin. Because we were shooting in the community, we didn't want any sounds of skidoos in the background. So we had to shoot at night. The other thing is that we have to go to Zack's cabin - that's another set, both interior and exterior. We have another location - the qaggiq which has five different rooms that all connect. We have Siorajuk [remote outpost camp] where we'll be shooting for about two weeks. That is another challenge in itself. We're going to face the real weather there.

Can you walk me through a typical day?

A typical day? It's always begins with a surprise. So I have to be ready to face the surprise. You have to be calm, that's the best thing to be, but also flexible. So flexibility is the key because of the weather. We can face many technical problems; if the generators go down, we'll have to figure out another way to shoot. In the morning, it's mostly for preparation. We have to move all our gear, so it's the arms' job to get that done. We need arms to get everything loaded and unloaded. That's the muscle part.

What other projects have you worked on?

I've worked a lot with Richard Desjardins (he's a French singer) we made a film about deforestation. I made a series about weather change in the arctic last year. We were part of a crew. The crew was on a ship. There was a scientific crew and a film crew on the ship. I was part of the ice crew. We were living on the floe edge. We saw a lot of whales really close, maybe too close (laugh).

Any plans for after this project?

Yeah, I have another project in the north of Quebec. It's about an Indian community. It's more political, about Indian Issues in northern Quebec. They have some problems so we have to take a look at that.