Notre

Through six episodes, Notre-Dame, la Part du feu looks back on the cathedral fire, which occurred on April 15, 2019, through the point of view of a handful of characters whose lives have crossed paths. Writing and behind the camera, we find Hervé Hadmar, creator, among others, of Pigalle, la nuit. AlloCiné spoke with the filmmaker who reveals the behind the scenes of this epic series.

The series is interested in the trajectory of several characters at the time of the fire. And you, where were you at that time? Did your personal experience in any way inspire the series?

Herve Hadmar: I was filming, imagine, on the Eiffel Tower. It was for another series, Romance. They closed the Tower in homage to Notre-Dame which was burning, so we couldn’t shoot the sequence.

Then, I must tell you that I am not a believer. I like spirituality, but I’m not practicing at all. I’m not a church goer. Now I have to admit that that night I was particularly touched. The next day, when I watched all the news reports and saw all those eyes turned towards the cathedral, believers, atheists, whatever the ethnic origin, I said to myself that there was something interesting.

What does it say about us? What does Our Lady say about our society that touches us so much, all together, at the same time? Well, it all started with this questioning.

You wrote the series right after the event?

I pitched the series to Netflix a few days before lockdown and wrote during it. I went very quickly since I started writing in February. There were two of us, with my co-screenwriter Olivier Bocquet. There was a lot of preparation because, as you can imagine, it’s complicated to do. We finished writing in November.

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You based yourself on the book by Romain Guibert, but I imagine that you carried out, on your side, a journalistic investigation to provide you with the details, the precise evolution of the fire?

We worked with the Paris fire brigade, but Romain Guibert’s book describes almost minute by minute what happened that night. It’s not a novel, it’s a real document that helped us a lot.

I met people who interested me, particularly a young female firefighter whose first fire was that night. She became the character of Alice, played by Megan Northam. As for the character of Roschdy Zem, we were inspired by General Gallet, who led the Paris fire brigade that night. An exciting man.

And then, very quickly, I set off on the trail of an event, which took place a few months before Notre-Dame, the explosion in the rue de Trévise. They lost two men. I said to myself : “Well, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the Paris firefighters who, inevitably, were traumatized by the loss of these two men..” Two months later, Notre-Dame burns down. What questions arise? How do we deal with this trauma?

We had eight months of special effects with four different French companies.

Your series is humanistic, but it is also a truly striking visual spectacle. How did you work on these special effects?

It’s a lot of work, as you can imagine, but it’s great to do. First step: preparation. Everything has been drawn. Initially, I come from comics, graphic design, computer graphics so I know this environment. It was in another life. We had meetings for weeks on end, shot by shot, with my set design team and my special effects supervisor. The questions were simple: what are we building? What do we do digitally?

This is obviously an essential step to understand what we are going to do and how we can anticipate the amplitude of this production. Then the shooting. We shot in the studio, in Bry-sur-Marne. Everything you see of the cathedral is in 3D. We built a beautiful part of the nave, 3.50 meters high, in the studio. The rest are green funds.

We built the scaffolding, even if in the wide shots, it’s completed in 3D. We used real flames, but some were in computer graphics. It was hot, it is the case to say it. In the studio, we sprinkled the lights supposed to represent the fire, so we sprinkled the electricity. Imagine the organization.

There were no accidents, but it was exciting to do. We had eight months of special effects with four different French companies. Each had their specialty. In all, 590 people worked on the series. It is enormous.

In the series, the interior of the cathedral is shown intact. How did you achieve this challenge digitally?

I wanted to show the cathedral as we will never see it again. Even if it will be rebuilt, and I am an eternal optimist, it will certainly be more beautiful than before. But in reality, it will never be the same again. So I wanted to recreate that emotion.

Of course, everything is in 3D. Nothing exists in what you see. They even went so far as to recreate airborne dust. We worked a lot, but it was a joy.

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Very few archival images are ultimately used. Why this choice ?

Video quality is not the same. I wanted an immersive experience. I can’t recover footage shot on iPhone because it’s not enough. When we film with incredible cameras, we manage to have sublime definition and optimal image quality. And we, as spectators, want that.

You have directed all the episodes. Was it important to you?

My first job was artistic director and so that allows me to imprint a very strong artistic direction. It’s not for the sake of ego. I write and I direct all the episodes because it allows me to deliver a finished, global, coherent object, whether we like it or not. Uniform in its artistic direction.

Interview by Thomas Desroches, in Paris, October 13, 2022.

Notre-Dame, la Part du feu is available on Netflix.