Josée Deshaies AFC on shooting “Urchin” with ALEXA 35

Presented in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, “Urchin” is British actor Harris Dickinson’s first feature film as director, shot in London by cinematographer Josée Deshaies AFC. Winning universal critical acclaim, the film stars Frank Dillane as a troubled young man trying to rebuild his life after serving time in prison for a violent assault committed while living rough on the streets. Deshaies worked with ALEXA 35 cameras and ARRI/Zeiss Master Prime lenses, moving fast between locations and finding solutions to enrich the cloud-diffused English light.

Copyright © Dean Rogers

DP Josée Deshaies AFC (left, in glasses) and director Harris Dickinson (center) on set with the ALEXA 35

How did you come to be involved in this project?

It happened very organically; the producer emailed me to suggest that I read the script, then one day Harris called me. He had seen several films I had worked on, and he asked me to do this one. It all felt very simple. After five minutes, it was as if we had known each other forever.

Copyright © Charades

“You can feel that ARRI has a true cinema heritage: their cameras are designed for cinematographers and ACs, not engineers,” says Josée Deshaies. 

The story takes place in London. How much were you shooting on location?

We shot in London and it was actually my first time in England! Harris knows East London very well because he’s from that area. For the last five years he has volunteered at a homeless shelter, distributing food and clothes, so he was already connected to this world. I remember Harris and I went for a walk together on my first day in this neighborhood where I was going to be living for three months of the shoot. He knew everyone—every homeless person on the streets. It didn’t feel like we were tourists arriving clueless; he really guided me.

So yes—without spoiling too much—aside from the final scene shot on greenscreen, everything was filmed at real locations. We had 38 locations in 29 shooting days, which was really intense. There were lots of location moves, and even if they were within the same neighborhood, it meant we had to pack up, move, and reset each time.

Occasionally, we even lost locations. For example, we had scouted a bar and planned the lighting with the gaffer, but on the day of the shoot the contact person never showed up. Maybe he forgot or fell asleep—it was at around one in the morning. So our location team went to all the other bars on the street and, through sheer persistence, found a backup location. We then had to light and shoot it very quickly, but we had that kamikaze energy: “We’ll make it, we’ll make it.”

Would you say “Urchin” was a very personal project for Harris?

Yes, he invested a lot of himself in the film. He did a huge amount of research, and I think he personally knows people who have lived through similar situations, so it wasn’t a random subject. You can feel that honesty in the film: it’s not a Hollywood actor suddenly deciding to make a social film about London. He wrote it himself, without a screenwriter. The script evolved over the years as he sought financing, but he never stopped writing. And that personal touch is very present throughout.

How did it go with the crew? Did you work with your usual team or a local one?

Usually, I like to bring at least one person with me—a gaffer or an AC. But this time, the deal was that I’d come alone, so I had to meet all my collaborators on site. I was a bit anxious, but it all went really well.

I was also discovering Anglo-Saxon production culture. Some things that seem simple to us in France are actually very complicated there, and vice versa. For instance, shooting on a street in England is very difficult. They are extremely strict with safety: you need the police, roadblocks—even if you’re just driving 5 km/h in a car with a handheld camera, you have to be strapped in. In France, you can sometimes bend the rules a little.

It’s also the country of endless meetings and debriefs. At first it felt destabilizing, but in the end I found it useful because it improved communication. And all the producers are constantly on set. Plus, there are so many trucks—everyone has their own trailer to move from location to location.

Copyright © Maximillian Mair

Harris Dickinson wanted an international cinematographer to bring a different sensibility to London’s very particular light.

What dictated your equipment choices?

I always work with ARRI cameras. On “Urchin” we had the ALEXA 35—the second time I had used it after “The Beast”—and I love it. You can feel that ARRI has a cinema heritage: their cameras are designed for cinematographers and ACs, not engineers, so they don’t have endless menus. What I particularly like with the ALEXA 35, beyond its speed, is what it offers in grading. The colorists I work with love it because you can go even deeper into subtleties of color.

For lenses, Harris and I didn’t know exactly what we wanted, but we knew what we didn’t want. We tested several different lens sets, including vintage ones, but each time Harris was afraid it might feel pretentious. He didn’t want too many effects; he wanted the film to stay humble. By a process of elimination we arrived at the ARRI/Zeiss Master Primes, which I had never used before, and we were very happy with them. They are neutral, sharp, and straightforward—a solid base on which we could add our own little adjustments using filters: secret recipes we don’t reveal too much. And whenever we needed distance or height, we used an Angénieux Optimo 25–250 mm zoom.

Copyright © Charades

During prep, the director organized weekly screenings of films and documentaries that inspired his approach to “Urchin.” 

Could you describe the look you wanted for “Urchin”?

The light in England is very tricky, especially in London. That’s why some films can look flat, gray, without much direction—because of the constantly overcast sky. And Harris hates that. He wanted to avoid it, which is why he chose a foreign DP. He also wanted to get away from the “miserabilist” aesthetic—what the English call “social realism.” He wanted life, color, and sun to counterbalance the harshness of the story.

He had sworn there would be sun at least in June, but it never came! So in the end we had to do a lot of lighting. It’s a film that, despite appearances, is very lit. Sometimes I even used “negative light” from black fabrics and flags to shape the image and avoid flatness.

What were Harris’s visual inspirations?

What was wonderful—and I’d love to do this again—was that Harris organized weekly screenings for the entire crew during prep. He showed six films in total, very different ones: “Punch-Drunk Love” by Paul Thomas Anderson, “Vagabond” by Agnès Varda, a 1972 Filipino film called “Manila in the Claws of Light,” and black-and-white documentaries from the 1960s, shot in London.
He didn’t expect any comments on the films. He didn’t say, “Watch this film for this or that reason.” He simply said they were inspirations, without explaining further. The idea was just to absorb atmospheres, colors, and moods—nothing specific. That’s how we slowly developed a shared vocabulary. On set, we would sometimes say: “Remember the bar in that film, with that atmosphere?” And everyone understood instantly.

We all watched the films together in a real cinema setting. That’s how I met the key grip and the gaffer, well before the shoot started. Since it was Harris’s debut film, none of us had worked together before. Those screenings brought us together through the language and power of cinema.