
As a young electrician, Franck Barrault was part of the lighting team for Delicatessen and La Cit des enfants perdus : two legendary films, directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who shook up French cinema in the 90s and brought out the immense talent of Darius Khondji AFC, ASC, a young DP at the time.
Darius was really my mentor during all these years, explains Franck Barrault. I started with him as an assistant in 1986. He accompanied me, nourished me and allowed me to evolve. As I could not see myself spending my life loading magazines with film, I turned to the lighting team, first as electrician and later as lighting director. Since my student days, my passion has always been to work with light. But my true sensibility in this field was built on Delicatessen' and City of Lost Children,' with Darius and gaffer Bernard Gemahling, who has great knowledge and a true sensitivity. That's where I learned the most: Worlds of pure fiction where you could invent anything, and a pool of talent at all levels. DP Philippe Le Sourd ASC, with whom I started out as a gaffer on Cantique de la Racaille' in 1997, was also Darius assistant.
ARRI Orbiters illuminate a commercial shot by DP Philippe Le Sourd ASC
Philippe Le Sourd, who later established himself as a great international DP, working with Sofia Coppola, Wong Kar-Wai, and Ridley Scott, remained loyal to Franck Barrault on his French productions. They collaborated on Peut- tre, an ambitious film directed by C dric Klapisch, and Atomik Circus by Didier and Thierry Poiraud. With Philippe, I have a certain complicity. We have the same references, and we understand each other with very few words. He is a very demanding person. He always pushes to the maximum until he gets what he wants. He doesn't compromise and I have to live up to that in terms of lighting.
With Darius Khondji, Franck Barrault has only worked once as a gaffer, on Stephen Frears' Ch ri in 2006, but the experience was memorable. What I like about working with Darius is that he completely integrates the lighting director into the creative process. During the prep, he took me to see all the sets, right down to the choice of wallpaper, the color of the curtains or the material of the costumes. He invited me to tests and projections, so that I could discuss all the lighting details with him. This adds a vision to my work. It's fascinating and, above all, indispensable if you want to do the lighting right on a feature film. Ch ri' was a founding film for me. Suddenly, I was shifting into high gear.
Since that time, light sources have changed with the arrival of LED fixtures. Franck Barrault quickly realized what ARRI SkyPanels could do for his craft. I was one of the first to use them. I immediately understood their potential. The simple fact of being able to dim without changing the color temperature: It was a real joy! No need to lower the lights and change the gelatins to adjust the colors. Not to mention that everything could be controlled from an iPad or a console. It was a true revolution that completely changed my job as a gaffer. ARRI brought a stable product to a market that was a bit of a jungle. The SkyPanel immediately became a standard of quality, a sure value. Today, I would like to see ARRI develop the product further, including an IP64 version and integrated power supplies. That would save us installation time. At the end of the day, the real benefit of LEDs is that they allow us to work much faster, which is important with the reduction in turnaround times. It gives us more time to fine-tune the light on set.
The ARRI Orbiter and SkyPanels on set of Netflix series D tox
In his career, the gaffer has regularly worked on genre films that require the creation of unusual lighting atmospheres, far from the ambient naturalism. It interests me to get the image as close as possible to what the director has in mind, Franck Barrault explains. On How I became a superhero' (Netflix), a fantasy film where we had to create improbable atmospheres, we built the villain's hideaway in an old, abandoned racetrack. DP Nicolas Loir AFC had this idea to have very dense green curtains installed all along a large bay window. On the outside, I had a scaffold built with eight SkyPanels that lit the window a little bit below, so that the light would come up through the curtains. Inside, I used SkyPanels to reduce the contrast of the image which was quite dense. It created a very interesting atmosphere.
On Seuls,' another fantasy film I worked on, we had a sequence with children driving an armored van they stole at full speed. In the studio, I had set up a lighting installation with thirteen SkyPanels S120 dedicated to the green screen and sixteen SkyPanels S60 illuminating the interior of the van. All of them were connected to a DMX console and all I had to do was to program them. With SkyPanels, it's very easy to create traffic effects for chases while integrating flash effects of police cars-all with the same light. SkyPanels have really brought that speed of color change, even within a shot. I could create effects that were previously complex with ease now. Suddenly, a lot of things became possible.
A shot behind the scenes of Seuls from director David Moreau
For Franck Barrault, creating the lighting on a set not only consists of adding lights. The gaffer has developed an original method to create light subtraction without deploying installations that are too heavy. On Le Semeur,' a beautiful feature film shot by DP Alan Duplantier in the C vennes mountains, we had little resources, and 70 percent of the film was shot on location in summer. Rather than trying to bring the light in a soft mood (shadows or clouds), I suggested removing light to create contrast on the characters. It's a
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
28/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/07/2026
Brand's Intuitive Metering and Dialogue Tools Improve Efficiency and Maintain Clarity Across Projects Ranging from Sitcoms to Effects Heavy Fantasy Series
...
28/07/2026
TAG Video Systems, a leader in 100% software-based realtime media monitoring, multiviewing and quality control (QC), today announced the latest innovations to i...
28/07/2026
Harvard Athletics Transforms Collegiate Sports Storytelling with AJA Gear
Brie Clayton July 27, 2026
0 Comments
Between the maturation of IP and remot...
28/07/2026
New Live Action Projection Mapping Film Captured with URSA Cine 12K LF
Brie Clayton July 27, 2026
0 Comments
Large format sensor allows Texas Legacy ...
28/07/2026
NVIDIA Agent Toolkit Expands With New Omniverse Libraries, Putting AI Agents to ...
28/07/2026
AI Agents Expand Creative Tools to Millions
Brie Clayton July 27, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Epic Games
Leading creative applications are...
28/07/2026
How Rick Aggeler Built a Music Community for Boston Teens When he was a Berklee student, Aggeler volunteered at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, where he hel...
27/07/2026
The Audio Engineering Society Educational Foundation has named its scholarship and grant recipients for the 2026/2027 academic year. The awards support students...
27/07/2026
ESPN and the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) have signed a multi-year media rights agreement covering basketball championships and select football and ba...
27/07/2026
Yahoo Sports and Cameo have partnered to allow fantasy football users to book personalized celebrity videos directly within the Yahoo Fantasy app and website. T...
27/07/2026
Eutelsat has welcomed the FCC's order establishing the regulatory framework for the transition of Upper C-band spectrum in the United States. Under the orde...
27/07/2026
ESPN and the International Dance League (IDL) have signed a global rights agreement for the 2026 season. Events will air bi-weekly on ESPN2 at 7 p.m. ET beginni...
27/07/2026
NBCUniversal and YouTube have signed a multi-year global partnership that includes bundling Peacock with YouTube Premium, extending NBCUniversal's distribut...
27/07/2026
Agenda includes presentations from the Miami Heat, Inter Miami, Florida Panthers...
27/07/2026
Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, including new deals, departures, and assignments compiled from press releases and repo...
27/07/2026
Ten one-minute shorts will roll out across CBS, The CW, Paramount+ during the 2026 PBR Teams season
PBR is officially moving into scripted animation. The Profe...
27/07/2026
Today the nonprofit Sundance Institute shared the names of this year's cohor...
27/07/2026
New app turns vocal percussion into polished loops
Vochlea, the company behind the voice-to-MIDI instrument Dubler 2, have just announced the launch of a ne...
27/07/2026
Latest MPE-capable instrument completes Pure Trilogy line-up
Sonora Cinematic have just released the third and final instalment in their series of acoustic ...
27/07/2026
Emulates four varieties of optical compression
The latest addition to the fedDSP line-up has just been announced, and packs four distinct optical compressor...
27/07/2026
Optical & FET compressors join 500-series line-up
At our recent GearExpo UK show, we heard from Drawmer that they would soon be launching a pair of new 500-...
27/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
27/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
27/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
27/07/2026
Lightware announces SNMPv3-based monitoring support for selected Taurus devices, available from firmware v1.20.0. The update enables IT administrators and AV in...
27/07/2026
Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitably connect the right content to the right audience, will showcase its vision for the Real-Time...
27/07/2026
All episodes available Thursday 6 August on Sky and streaming service NOWMonday ...
27/07/2026
Why Confidence MattersIn this series, we explore the technologies, architectures and operational realities shaping modern media operations. Along the way, we ex...
27/07/2026
Apple today announced AppleCare One - a new way for customers to protect multipl...
27/07/2026
Yesterday witnessed truly memorable scenes in Croke Park, bringing the curtain d...
27/07/2026
Luxembourg, July 27, 2026 - SES, a leading space solutions company, issued the following statement following the U.S. Federal Communications Commission approval...
27/07/2026
Open source software is a critical pillar of the global economy. It underpins cloud computing, financial services, manufacturing, telecommunications, government...
26/07/2026
What is Audio Vivid? A New Destination for Immersive Audio Over the past several years, immersive audio has evolved from a niche production consideration into a...
26/07/2026
The complexity of modern chip design continues to grow as engineering teams work to develop increasingly sophisticated CPUs, GPUs and AI systems. To help meet t...
25/07/2026
New app turns vocal percussion into polished loops
Vochlea, the company behind the voice-to-MIDI instrument Dubler 2, have just announced the launch of a ne...
25/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
25/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
25/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
25/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
25/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
25/07/2026
Export FCP7 to XML Without Needing FCP7 Installed
Dave Rice July 24, 2026
0 Comments
I've created an open source tool that allows you to export FC...
25/07/2026
Documentary Sell Your House Edited with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton July 24, 2026
0 Comments
Filmmakers post feature documentary from opposite...
25/07/2026
Time to Act: Bringing a New Opera to Life Boston Conservatory at Berklee vocal arts students played a vital role in shaping the opera's creative developme...
25/07/2026
Beyond the Score For Dean of Music Kevin Haden, the boundless possibilities of classical music begin with process.
July 24, 2026
By
Kevin Haden
Michelle ...