Quite some time has past since my last entry. So much has happened, that it is hard to believe that it’s really only a few weeks ago.
Let’s start with the actors. In the end we had to hold some auditions in London, which went fine, but it was incredibly stressful, because it was very far removed from my comfort zone and in the end I had to hold them on my own as well. Nevertheless, we did find the right people for the job, or so we firmly believe. Just today, we have managed to secure the permit for Bethany, who is playing the girl in the film, so we can film on the weekend and on Monday, if we need to. And we probably will.
It has been an incredibly difficult decision, because I felt, that nearly all the girls had something interesting to offer to our project. The girl I have chosen turned out to be very different to the girl I envisioned, when we wrote the script. But it I find it very intriguing how the character of the girl has evolved and I believe it will make the film even more interesting and detailed.
Anna and I made the decision for the DoP relatively early. I was pushing for it, in the hope that we would be able to test the equipment and because I was in need to bring along a DoP to Teletest, the company supplying the rig. I thought, because of the workload, availability and different strengths, that it would be good to have two DoPs. At first it looked like it was working out, until just three days ago, when I got an email out off the blue, that one of them (he has been away for two weeks and obviously lost his attachment to the project) just send me an email saying, he is not going to be helping on the project anymore. I phoned him and he gave me a few excuses, but no apology and no real reason.
The me of a few weeks ago probably would have hang up and raged or cried for about and hour and then tried to fix it. But my skin is a lot thinker now. I just phone Anna informed her that he really is not going to work on our project anymore and we just decided one a few people to contact. We still need a second DoP, but we just got on with it. No drama at all. It’s so strange.
Maybe this calm reaction has been due to us having a very eventful day, which had showed us where we were standing and we had made the painful decisions on that day already. We had made enough space for is problem.
The problems we had been facing were main location and kit related. The locations in Winchester had to be abandoned long ago. We just would not be able to film there over the weekend. Anna managed to look at a few locations, but availability was a big issue and so was their anxiety that we break or steal something. We were pushing it as far as we could, but we were left with only two or three places, all not really matching our expectations. But we had to make a decision and now we have confirmed the Clock Museum by Dorchester as our location. They seem to be happiest to have us there, which means we will be able to move around more freely and time will be less of an issue as well. Anna says it is a very unusual place and I can only agree from watch I see on the picture. It should make a very interesting location, even if it might not fit our initial idea that well. But I am looking forward to having a look at it.
The other problem was the kit. And that was quite a bit bigger by that time. For the rig we needed a EX3 and an EX1R. We hoped that we could shoot with two EX3s but, after a lot of asking around, no one could come up with the feasible solution.
The problem seems simple enough. We need to reverse the scan of the camera, that means to horizontally flip the image, like a mirror, because we are shooting through one. I can do this really easily in post production, but we really needed it to happen on set, so we can monitor the image to set the right interaxial and convergence. I had thought that this kind of technology really should be available already. It should be age old analogue technology. But apparently, cameras used to have a switch that could do it or it would be done in an vision mixer in the studio. Neither option is available to us and the portable vision mixer were not able to do it.
The other option is just to hire an EX1R out, because in contrast to the EX3 this camera could reverse the scan. We really wanted to avoid hiring equipment out, because it costs quite a lot. But yesterday we realized that we have to have some kind of solution, so we can do at least a bit of testing with our main DoP. So when the tech people we asked could not come up with anything, we just made that painful call, got insurance and then hired the camera out. It all sounds a lot more straight forward then it was. As insurance took their time to get back to us and the hire people wanted trade references we just could not give them, because we are no company. Nevertheless, with stubbornness, boldness and a bit of luck, it worked out. And I am sitting in a train back from London right now, with the camera we needed so badly at a decent price and an afternoon left for testing.
It is such a relieve that we have the kit together now, as we picked up the rig yesterday.
There has been a lot of worry that we would be missing something. Now it only has to work....
We managed a while ago to get two people to built us a set, put some props together and get some costumes. It’s not cheap either, but at least it looks like we will have some art direction in place for the shoot.
What we are still very much missing, are animators and VFX guys. It seems so incredibly difficult to get in contact with and if you manage to speak to them they are always very busy and have no time for our project. Maybe we have only been that unlike because we kept talking to Master students, who are very preoccupied with their own master’s projects. So now we are aiming to find some 2nd and 3rd year students, we are just worried that they are gone already. But we haven’t given up yet, by any means.
To come full circle, I just wanted to mention how well the rehearsal has gone last Sunday. We were all very happy with the performances, and Sara (the writer) seemed really happy to see her script come to life to nicely. I really feel that with a short warm up on set, we will not have to worry about the performances very much, because they know now, what they are doing. And they were getting more comfortable with each other, which I think is crucial to get the performances with need.
Looking back at the last to weeks, when first Anna was in Rome and then I was in Spain, we have come an awful long way.
Today, it really looks like we will be fine when we start shooting the film.
Annette
