April / 2003

From Russia with . . . Film
Documentary Letters from Karelia Traces an Unusual Journey
Last year, Toronto-based cinematographer Richard Stringer csc dusted the cobwebs off his Aaton Super 16mm camera, packed his gear and headed west and then east, way east, to shoot a National Film Board documentary — Kelly Saxberg’s Letters from Karelia — on film! Most documentaries are shot on video these days, many using the smaller and cheaper mini-DV camcorders with which Stringer has produced award-winning work, so “it was a pleasant surprise to get back on the road with my film camera.” Besides shooting in Toronto, the unique story took him to Thunder Bay, Ont., Russia, and Finland. Here is his first-person account.

by Richard Stringer csc

In Moscow, (from left) Letters from Karelia director Kelly Saxberg, Richard Stringer csc, and assistant Pavel Sukhov.

Letters from Karelia is a revealing documentary about betrayed idealism, mass murder and the injustices of war. Still in the editing process at this writing, this NFB production by director/editor Kelly Saxberg tells the story of a group of visionary Canadians from the Thunder Bay area of Northern Ontario who emigrated to Soviet Karelia in the 1930s. There, utopian dreams were ultimately crushed, and the tragic drama lay buried until Saxberg, a native of Thunder Bay, teamed with NFB Winnipeg to bring it to life on film — real film.

Thousands of Finns from Thunder Bay and across North America left their homes 70 years ago to build a Communist-inspired “workers’ paradise” in Karelia, a region in northern Russia with historical connections to Finland. But the “paradise” faded when many of those immigrants perished during Stalin’s terrible purges or were sent off to work camps.

With the coming of World War II, some of those who survived were drafted by the Soviets to spy on the Finns, who by 1941 had occupied much of Soviet Karelia as co-belligerents with Germany. One of these amateur spies was a Canadian, Aate Pitkanen, who was caught in 1942 and executed by the Finnish army. Before his execution, he wrote farewell letters to his relatives in Canada and gave them to his jail warden. The letters were never sent, but they were found many years later, in 1999, by the warden’s son, Jukka Lehesvirta, a journalist in Helsinki.

Lehesvirta forwarded the letters to Canada, where Aate Pitkanen’s relatives, including a 90-year-old sister in Toronto, were amazed to find out not only the circumstances of Aate’s death but also that he had a new-born son at that time. That baby, Alfred Pitkanen, is now 61 years old and living in Moscow.

He is the central character in the film. We follow him as he meets his long-lost relatives in Toronto and Thunder Bay and visits people and places that help him understand more about the father he never knew. We visit Alfred in his Moscow home and follow him north to Petroskoi where he meets Karelia survivors and learns about their experiences. Then Alfred searches the
area to find his father’s final grave.

Letters from Karelia is a complex story and Kelly Saxberg, now editing on Final Cut Pro, is hoping for a 90-minute version, though the original plan was for an hour-long show. The Film Board has yet to arrange for a broadcaster or a telecast date.

It was an interesting journey and it was great to see the final results transferred from film. NFB Winnipeg hadn’t shot film for six years, and Kelly had to convince the Board to shoot film and then make it work within a budget normally geared for video. Kelly had a pretty good budget of $400,000, but considering the project involved a lot of travel and research costs, one would normally go with a high-end video origination like DigiBeta. Kelly wanted a 16:9 end product for letterboxing on 4:3 versions.

So how did we do it on film? On this kind of historical documentary, a lot of screen time is taken up with archival stills and stock shots, so the originating material can have a lower ratio. And in the end, we have been able to keep the shooting ratio down to around eight to one, which makes the cost of film more affordable. With the interviews, we rolled sound all the time, but Kelly had me roll film only when she wanted the person on camera (she even ran the beeper slate).

Richard Stringer csc near Thunder Bay, Ont., in February doing winter pickup shots for Letters from Karelia.

This illustrates one of the more positive aspects of film — discipline. You have to know what you want and you shouldn’t waste time shooting unnecessary material. I found I had more time to focus on getting better shots rather than always shooting, which is the tendency with video. We also rehearsed more on set-up scenes, so we could quickly determine the proper action details without wasting stock. Of course, if your project requires a high ratio or your budget is dictated by specialty channel minimums, video is the way to go.

I was able to give the NFB a similar daily rate, with film camera, as with a Betacam. It was certainly cheaper than HD camera gear, because my Aaton Super 16mm kit is older and doesn’t have as much initial costs to add to the rate.

Kelly felt that, because a large percentage of the budget was taken up in labour and travel costs, the film stock and transfer component did not impact the budget as much. She also felt that this story has international release potential and it would be easier to sell as a film product and more flexible to adapt to the many different distribution formats. Film projects are also “future proofed” as they are easily upgraded to new video formats, and Super 16mm has a built-in widescreen component. The finished film and unused rushes are also more credible on film than on video for stock-shot sales and, in this case, the NFB has a large, revenue-producing stock-shot library.

But beyond the many pros and cons, when Kelly looked at the rushes, the first thing that came into her mind was: “Film just looks so much better!”

I went to John Walker csc to borrow a wide eye adapter for the shoot. John promotes the use of film on docs and like myself has his own 16mm camera kit. He said, “My camera is delivering better images than 15 years ago because the film manufacturers are doing all the R&D to improve their product. With video, camera manufacturers have to include their R&D costs in the price of the camera as they upgrade their imagery.”

He also had a good point about overshooting on video. “If you shoot 80 hours of tape compared to a well-thought-out 25 hours on film, the post-production costs go up with extra logging and editing time and the editing process gets less focused.” John summed things up by saying, “Producers who overlook film are thinking irrationally. For an hour-long doc, it might only cost five to 10 per cent more for film origination.”

Film manufacturers, who are interested in pushing their new improved products, are doing more to support film use on projects.

Getting the train to Petroskoi: (from left) soundman Dmitry Koniovchenko, Richard Stringer csc, director Kelly Saxberg, subject Alfred Pitkanen, fixer Anna Kornilov, and assistant Pavel Sukhov.

Technically, I enjoy the simplicity of film — no cables, no menus and no excess number of buttons to deal with. The exposure is the main setting and film has such good latitude you don’t have to worry about changing exposure during the shot. Hot backgrounds and brightly lit clouds deliver more detail than video, without using compromising electronic manipulation.

I love the optical viewfinder. I can see a nice big colour image with ample coverage around the edge of the frame. Focusing is precise and all the controls are mechanical and predictable. The Aaton is built with your shoulder in mind and is a much tighter package than the square Betacams, which haven’t changed much ergonomically since they hit the market in the mid-80s.

In February, we shot two pickup days in the countryside around Thunder Bay. It was beyond 30 below wind chill and my Aaton stayed out all day (my assistant, Donald Delorme, did not take it inside to avoid condensation problems) and kept clicking along until the last shot when one of the mags froze up (I should have used my barney with some “hot shot” packs). So it did quite well in the cold and battery consumption was not a problem. Video cameras suck up power when you have to constantly use the viewfinder to see the image; a film camera’s optical viewfinder requires no power.

Kelly trusted my framing so we didn’t have the extra gadgetry of a video assist. You can get bogged down having a monitor around because more people can have a say in the shot.

In August, in Toronto and Thunder Bay, I had Lori Longstaff assisting, with Ross Redfern on sound using Nagra’s new disc recorder. Overseas we had local assistants and sound recordists using DAT. My main film stock was Kodak’s 7274 at 200 ASA; this is a versatile stock which Brian Loverly, my colourist at Toybox, says is very flexible in the transfer room.

It helps to avoid shiny equipment cases
A lot of times I would shoot outdoors without filter correction (for extra exposure) and still get excellent results. I had some 7279 500 ASA for low-light locations and I got to test some 7218 Vision2 500 ASA product in Russia — a noticeable improvement for sure.

Travelling with film stock is tricky, with the heavy duty x-rays now used in airports. I installed a new, improved lead laminated material (from Sima Products) in an aluminum case. This made the case heavy but it gave us more confidence in situations where we were not sure of x-ray usage.

We decided to process our film while in Russia and I found the services at Salandra Labs in Moscow to be world class. We also had some film shipped to our later locations because there is less chance of x-rays on FedEx/DHL-type shipping. Even though our checked baggage was exposed to some x-rays, the footage was protected and came out OK. On a future trip, I will take Kodak’s suggestion to buy and process film close to your location (where possible) or use international shippers rather than checked baggage.

We had a carnet for the equipment, but Russia did not accept carnets when we were there. The procedures at Moscow customs are very unpredictable. We had an excellent local “fixer,” Anna Kornilov, and you need someone like Anna to help get through customs. Hint: it helps to avoid shiny equipment cases and put everything in personal bags!

I was in Soviet Russia in the early 80s shooting some Moscow Circus acts for a Canadian tour. Things have changed dramatically since then. Before, there were hardly any cars on the roads, now traffic jams are the worst I’ve seen since Tokyo. Food and other merchandise were very scarce, now the Russian people have access to so much more — many stores, McDonald’s, KFC, and there are tobacco kiosks on every corner. Yes, Russians smoke a lot; Moscow is “Marlboro Country,” as one the local billboards proclaims. And I noticed they don’t use their car seat belts much.

Downtown Moscow is Marlboro Country!

We were told to have our passports and visas with us at all times because we could get checked by police, but no one bothered us, even when filming. Once, our taxi driver did an illegal U-turn and he had to pay an instant fine into the local policeman’s pocket. My assistant told me that this is the normal procedure. We certainly felt safe anywhere we went, but were apprehensive when we flagged a cab late at night, because in Moscow anyone’s car is a taxi!

Everyone we met was very friendly and usually put on a big multi-course dinner for us with lots of vodka on hand. But Russia has its share of trouble and violence; just a few days after we left Moscow, the tragic musical theatre hostage incident occurred.

We took an overnight train into the region of Karelia, north of Moscow. Russia’s trains are well organized and feature uniformed women porters looking after each car. We slept in a four-bunk compartment amongst our many equipment cases. The scenery in Karelia is identical to Northern Ontario, with birch trees and pines surrounding the lakes.

We only had a couple of days in Helsinki where we had much co-operation from YLE, the national TV network. My crew were YLE staffers, made available to us for our shoot. The network also supplied costumes for a dramatic re-creation and invited us to have lunches in their building.

(Kelly Saxberg is a director and editor who has worked on over 40 films. Among her credits as a director is Rosies of the North (1999), a one-hour National Film Board production that examines the role of women in the production of airplanes during World War II.)

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