A journeyman cinematographer with more than two decades' experience behind the camera, Morel learned his way around a film set as a Steadicam operator for many of France's highest-profile TV shows and movies. In 1999, French movie mogul Luc Bes- son hired him onto his historical epic "The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc" and has kept Morel in work ever since; he has shot four other Besson-produced films, including the international hits "The Transporter" and "Unleashed."
In 2004, however, Besson presented Morel with a game-changer: the chance to direct an urban espionage thriller he had written, "District B13." "If you work for him for a long time, you get his trust," Morel said from Paris, where he is directing another movie Bes- son co-wrote and is producing, "From Paris With Love," starring John Travolta.
