Michel Kharoubi (aka MK) is a French photographer—principally shooting with a mobile—and a corporate movie director. A director of short movies—such as “Circus”—his goal is to direct feature films. In the interview that follows, Kharoubi talks about how he developed his filmmaking skills. He emphasizes the value of studying the work of master filmmakers.  Regarding “Circus,” which was a finalist in the FiLMiC Pro competition, he talks about the cinematography challenge of filming decisive moments when creating a documentary.

Interview

MMM: How did you develop your filmmaking skills?

MK:  I learned by myself: reading  books and analyzing a lot of movies. I tend to like genre movies.

MMM: Are there any filmmakers who influenced you?

MK: For this movie, the inspiration was David Lynch. In general, I like the work of Italian filmmakers : Dario Argento, Sergio Leone, Lucio Fulci . A number of American filmmakers have also influenced me including Ridley Scott, John McTiernan , James Cameron, William Friedkin , Denis Villeneuve, Georges Miller,  Mel Gibson, John Carpenter, Don Coscarelli, and David Cronenberg .

MMM: What motivated to you to make  “Circus”?

MK: The characters of circus are so mysterious; I like this fantastic mood and tension.  I tried to capture their world by focusing on the enigmatic characters and entering inside the circus tent only for the title shot.

MMM: What gear did you use?

MK: I shot with an iPhone, mostly handheld with a grip. I had a gimbal for some sequences, a battery backup, a wifi USB key, and an iPad for double file backup, a 1.33 Anamorphic Moondog Labs lens, and a small LED panel. Everything fit into a backpack.

MMM: What about the camera app?

MK: I used FiLMiC Pro. It’s reliable and allows you to choose all the parameters you want, for example speed and format. You can also desqueeze the anamorphic lense.

MMM: During the shoot, did you encounter any big challenge?

MK: The principal difficulty was not technical but rather capturing the shots I needed. Shooting a documentary is not like filming  a fiction movie when you can prepare the action and repeat it if the result isn’t good enough.For this movie I had to be reactive and ready to shoot when a scene arrived. I need to give a big thank you to the circus group that permitted me to stay with them during the show.

MMM:  Could you say a few words about your approach to editing the movie?

MK: I pre-edited the movie with iMovie and transferred all the editing (rushes and timeline) to Final Cut to finalize. The color grading was done on DaVinci Resolve 15.

MMM: Do you have any advice for people just starting out as mobile moviemakers?

MK:The iPhone with double lenses (since iPhone 7+) is a really good tool for filmmaking and photography. The workflow is reliable. It’s amazing. Depending of the project and the budget,  I can switch between an Alexa camera and a iPhone. The result will be different but good enough to show on television.

 

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You can keep up with Michel Kharoubi’s work by following him on Instagram and Twitter. His website is mkimagemaker.weebly.com

“Circus” was chosen as a Mobile Movie of the Week by the editors of MobileMovieMaking.com.