Blackout on France 2: ‘Could have been a disaster’… Director talks about difficult weather conditions on set

L’Eclipse, a detective series by Anna Charrier and Claire Keim, will air on France 2 from September 4.

For the purposes of the script, director Frank Brett’s cameras were located in the Occitania region, and more specifically in the Aviron section, on the high plateau of Obrak.

If the raw and wild scenery is impressive, the weather conditions typical of the region could have been.catastrophic“For the series. However, against all expectations, they played an unexpected role in its success.

Difficult weather conditions

At the press conference held last July, Christophe Carmona and Frank BrettThe producer and director of L’Eclipse talked about the climatic conditions during filming.

The latter occurred from September 6 to November 30, 2023 in Aveyron, mid-autumn, when the weather in this mountainous region can be particularly capricious. In addition, for several days, the filming could get serious.

Frank Brett says:When we left Avrak, it snowed the next day. At least we had the weather gods with us because it could have been a disaster“.

Aware of this danger, Christophe Carmona explains that the teams had originally planned to set up base camp in Bozul and Espaion, two small villages at a not too high altitude. “You should know that Obrak plateaus are 1300 or even 1400 meters high. Twice when we came to scout, the weather was gray and 16 or 17 degrees. When we went above 800 meters, it was raining, 1 degree and we could not see two meters. To the point that the second time we told ourselves it would be impossible“.

Faced with these extreme conditions, they even considered changing regions. On this matter, Christophe Carmona recalls, “We wanted to change the region because it was hell. If this happened to us during filming, it was over“.

In order to avoid storms in late August, filming was eventually pushed back to early September. Despite two weeks of preparation marked by rain, good weather returned in time for filming to begin on September 3.

Ultimately, all meteorological episodes will be used for fiction. When Manoue discovers Noor’s body, it actually rains, which was not planned in the script at all. It is enough to give the series a dramatic and authentic atmosphere.

“it was very cold”

Difficult weather conditions necessarily mean difficult shooting. On this topic, Ann Charrier, the interpreter for Manue, told an anecdote about the search scene that takes place at midnight in episode 1.

He says, “ At some point everyone wanted to bite everyone. There is no place left, no escape. We take very wide shots from above, it’s very cold, there are a lot of people, we don’t know who to turn to. Something is a little unclear“.

Despite these difficulties, the actor admits that they enriched the script. He continues, “This is true for all shoots: every situation is nourishing. There’s something that becomes vampiric, there’s something quite porous between the situation we’re dealing with and the filming we’re experiencing. It was a very special night. What I find extraordinary about Frank is that he has created something so intimate with his characters. In all the shots he chose, the characters have no escape. They have no place to hide or shelter. They are constantly exposed. We are locked in the open air. It is quite remarkable“.