--- name: "Serge Ladouceur" canonical: "https://film.one/person/serge-ladouceur" fi1m_id: "serge-ladouceur" imdb_id: "nm0001645" tmdb_id: 6992 wikidata_id: "Q3479379" roles: ["Cinematographer","Director"] born: "16 June 1952" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_over: 0 updated: "2026-09-23T12:20:17.963038+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Serge Ladouceur ## Identity Serge Ladouceur - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/serge-ladouceur - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** serge-ladouceur - **IMDb ID:** nm0001645 - **TMDB ID:** 6992 - **Wikidata ID:** Q3479379 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Ladouceur, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3479379, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001645/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/6992 Cinematographer and director. Born 16 June 1952 in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts. ## Details - **Work:** Cinematographer, Director - **Born:** 16 June 1952, Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Ladouceur, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3479379, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001645/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/6992 ## Streaming the US now - **Peacock:** [*Supernatural*](https://film.one/tv/supernatural.md) (77) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Serge Ladouceur > From 2005 to 2020, Serge Ladouceur lit *Supernatural* with lamps, candles and daylight through windows so that a monster could walk in without the picture changing. It is unshowy work, sustained across more than three hundred episodes, and much of the series' plausibility is his. A lamp on a nightstand. Daylight through a window that needs cleaning. In *Supernatural* (2005) the light nearly always has somewhere to come from, and that is Serge Ladouceur's rule. He put it plainly himself: "We wanted Supernatural to look like it could happen in real life." The pilot's first horror, a mother burning on the ceiling, got at us because a body was where a body should not be and the room around it looked like any bedroom. That episode's cinematography is credited to Aaron Schneider alongside Ladouceur, but the method stuck, and keeping it became his job for the rest of the run. He came to it the long way. Born in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts and trained at the London International Film School, he worked up from assistant cameraman and operator through second-unit photography to director of photography on Canadian features, among them *La Nuit du Déluge* (1996) and *Mambo Italiano* (2003). Then in 2005 he joined *Supernatural* as principal cinematographer and shot roughly 320 of its 327 episodes, taking a co-producer credit from the fourth season and directing three episodes himself between 2013 and 2015. He stayed until the series ended in 2020 and has since photographed *The Spencer Sisters* (2023). What works is the discipline. The early seasons are high in contrast and low in colour, the shadows deep enough to hide things, and he refused to slow the fights down for glamour, so a punch on this show lands at the speed a punch lands. When the series moved from 35mm to digital he kept the look organic rather than letting the new cameras clean it up. Bradley S. Creasser operated A-camera for much of the run and took over the lighting on the episodes Ladouceur directed; Robert Singer directed many hours of it. The look never wobbled. We scored the series 77 and much of that mark is his: the scares are uneven and the stories grew cumbersome, but the frame stayed trustworthy. That is also the limit. By the later seasons we noticed that the motel rooms had stopped frightening us, and it was not the photography's fault; the lighting was still hiding things in corners, but the scripts had stopped putting anything worth finding there. Michael Novotny's production design gave the horror its domestic scale and Ladouceur lit it honestly, and honesty cannot supply dread on its own. He is a cinematographer you notice mainly when he is absent. Watch an hour of *Supernatural* and try to find a light without a lamp behind it. ## Biography Serge Ladouceur is a Canadian cinematographer. A native of Quebec, he studied filmmaking at the London International Film School before returning to Canada and progressing from assistant cameraman to director of photography on international miniseries, series and feature films. He is best known for his work as director of photography on the television series *Supernatural* (2005–2020), for which he shot the majority of episodes and served as co-producer from season four; he also directed three episodes. Other credits include the feature films *Mambo Italiano* (2003) and *La Nuit du Déluge* (1996). Ladouceur won the CSC Award for Best Theatrical Feature Cinematography for *La Nuit du Déluge* in 1997 and received a Genie Award nomination for the same film. He has been married to actress and writer-producer Sylvie Bourque since 1990. *Sources: imdb.com, sergeladouceur.com, supernaturalwiki.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *Supernatural* (2005), Fi1m 77, Cinematography, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/supernatural.md) ## Complete filmography (26) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *The Spencer Sisters* (2023), series, Director of Photography - *Bon Voyage* (2006), series, Director of Photography - *René Lévesque* (2006), series, Director of Photography - *Supernatural* (2005), series, Producer, Director of Photography, Director, Co-Producer — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/tv/supernatural.md) - *I Do (but I Don't)* (2004), Director of Photography - *Picking Up & Dropping Off* (2003), Director of Photography - *See Jane Date* (2003), Director of Photography - *Mambo Italiano* (2003), Director of Photography - *Student Seduction* (2003), Director of Photography - *Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story* (2003), Director of Photography - *The Favourite Game* (2003), Director of Photography - *The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire* (2002), Director of Photography - *Savage Messiah* (2002), Director of Photography - *The Stork Derby* (2002), Director of Photography - *Further Tales of the City* (2001), series, Director of Photography - *Pin-Pon: The Film* (1999), Director of Photography - *The Legend of Sleepy Hollow* (1999), Director of Photography - *Bonanno: A Godfather's Story* (1999), Director of Photography - *Promise Her Anything* (1999), Director of Photography - *More Tales of the City* (1998), series, Director of Photography - *La déroute* (1990), Director of Photography - *Speed Zone* (1989), Camera Operator - *The Kiss* (1988), Additional Camera - *Tenderfoot* (1988), Director of Photography - *Pale Face* (1985), Director of Photography - *A 20th Century Chocolate Cake* (1983), Cinematography --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/serge-ladouceur