Sunday, December 17, 2006

FILMMAKING Day 2

Yesterday we got to the location... and there was no power. It was the first day of shooting, and the first test on how flexible we could be. And it was almost all interiors, which meant we would need lights for almost all of it.

There were a couple of shots we could get, though. One was Alistair's walk up to the house, but that scene continues on inside so that wouldn't really save us much time down the line. We did have another shot that we weren't sure where to put in the schedule. In the script, Alistair uses the milchisha (milk) silverware on the fleashicka (meat) meal preparations (you mustn’t mix them, I've learned), and Dassie koshers the utensils by throwing it out the window into a boiling pot. We decided to get the boiling pot shot.

After that, well... we had another location that we could move to, but that meant calling our actress who wasn't scheduled to perform that day. She is an observant Jew and it was Shabbose, but she said she could help us out if we were desperate because of the power situation. She told us we could call her after 11am, but we needed decisions before that. We decided on the company move hoping that she would be able to join us, or else we would have had to move right back.

Turns out she's also quite the partier. Not only was she super hungover, but she had injured her ankle at the end of the night. Luckily in her first scene she was sitting down and didn't need to move much. By the time we got to the scene where she had to walk in, she had healed enough to mask the limp. Maybe the added concentration she needed to overcome her hangover ended up helping her performance, or maybe not. We got two good scenes on a day where we had to scramble. Nice.

Now it's back to the first location. Hopefully the power has returned. One of the workers told us they were shooting to get it back up last night, but who knows...

1 comment:

Mai Li said...

As a post script, the ankle is still swollen and not entirely recovered, but is coming along nicely a month later. I knew that injury would be around a lot longer than the hangover.

It was a really good thing that day worked out so well. There was a good chance that those circumstances would seriously hinder the production. I was lucky the rest of the crew (and cast) were so supportive, which helped to mask how defective I was that day.

Thus, it's both exciting and comforting to hear everyone's enthusiastic review, especially under the circumstances. I'll be thrilled to see it.