by Julie PERUCH
Title : The production of film photography in French cinema. Visual, technical, and organizational devices and environment.
Short abstract
French industrial cinema is a transnational institution whose visual content circulates on different international markets. Taking market value as the main factor of production and as an element I have observed during a fieldwork of several months in fiction photography production spaces and in some thirty interviews with various professionals. I show that this regime of value materializes in different aspects of photographic production. In the production process, the anticipated value of the product is a paradigm of visual perception that organizes the visible of the image, orients techniques and shapes production relationships. Market value articulates production relationships, the gaze as a social construct and the techniques mobilized on a film project.
Long abstract
The French industrial cinema constitutes a transnational institution whose visual content from fiction feature films circulates across various international markets. By identifying market value as the primary production factor and observable ethnographic element, this dissertation demonstrates how this value regime materializes across different aspects of cinematography, raising several questions. Through what mechanisms is the market value of cinematographic images reassessed and reinvested in the spaces of its production? How does the anticipated market value of cinematography become embedded in the production process? Through what paradigms do image professionals view the film cinematography they create?
Based on several months of fieldwork in production spaces for French fiction feature film cinematography and approximately thirty interviews with various industry professionals, this dissertation shows that within the production process, the anticipated value of the product functions as a paradigm of visual perception that organizes what is visible in the image and shapes production relations.
The director of photography is one of the most important professional figures in this study. This profession carries a social history that grants it a particular position alongside the director and confers considerable decision-making power over the entire production chain, including all other professionals involved. The production space forms a complex environment in which social interactions are governed by hierarchical and symbolic rules. Here, the distinction between “art” and “craft” applies not only to professionals—placing them within a social hierarchy where artists are valued more highly than technicians—but also extends to tools, temporalities, and visual content. The technical system and tools that image teams deploy throughout the process constitute a key material environment in organizing production, production spaces, hierarchies, visual perception devices, and visual content. These elements carry significant meanings and affects for professionals and contribute to shaping their professional gaze.
The processes of cinematography production and the dynamics of professional action—particularly the power relations embedded in the process—crystallize around a pursuit of individual professional valorization that mirrors the product they create, while also relating to a highly competitive job market. This valorization mechanism generates forms of deviation from hierarchical rules by subordinate professionals. However, these deviations are not disorganized; they are guided by agreements and conventions established by hierarchical superiors. Cinematography is thus constructed through this sociotechnical production process, within which it acquires particular statuses and meanings throughout different stages.
Based on this investigation, I propose that image technicians constitute a professional category that operates as an affinity group, mobilizing sociotechnical systems embedded in an image equipment market, and employing a professional gaze marked both by projection into the image’s market value and by a situated perspective determined by their position within production relations. The gaze of image professionals, embedded within production relations, ensures the existence and intelligibility of cinematography through the mobilization of its anticipated market value within the production process itself. Market value articulates production relations, the gaze as social construction, and the techniques that image professionals deploy on a film project.