We did it! The past two months of work have led to one magical day of shooting in Central London with a cast and crew of 11 people. In the week leading up to it and during the day itself, I had to keep pinching myself that it was happening: 10 people coming together for me, to make something out of nothing - the beauty of filmmaking.
The call time was 9am at a private square that we were extremely lucky to use. Snow had been falling all week, so I was worried about a storm, but the snow had already started melting by the time the day was finished. There will be snow in the film, which is hopefully going to add an extra flavour.
As the camera crew started setting up, our make up artist Sarah D'Cruz worked on Maria and I. This is my third time working with Sarah, whose input and professionalism I've enjoyed since the first minute of knowing her. By 11am, everyone was outside to prepare the first shot - a wide shot of me, Character A, coming into the square to sit on a bench before Character B appears. As the film is just one scene, we were able to act it out from start to finish many times, which I think we actresses appreciated. The camera crew, led by the amazing and award-winning Barbara Van Schaik and assisted by Donny Johnson and Clem Nachbauer, were top notch and I'm so glad I had them. I met Clem at the same time as Sarah, and I believe that even when we are sixty years old, I will still be telling people "he's so young and so talented!". Pablo Valverde was recording sound, thanks to a boom and individual little microphones for the actresses, and did an amazing job. Sound people are always intriguing to me: they are quiet, almost invisible, and so focused. We also had a continuity person called Eleanor, a photographer called Alexi, and a runner called Orhan. Finally, there was Hannah Rogers, our co-director, calm, collected and completely on it. As we had met many times before the shoot, I trusted completely that she knew what we were going for, and often didn't need to check the shot on the monitor.
We broke for lunch after filming various slates - I served my Gugelhupf cake for dessert - and then we finished shooting the scene before it got dark. As I called it a "Wrap" and joined the camera crew for a drink, I felt quite sad, perhaps lonely! Shooting is incredible, but this was the first time I realised how far from finished the product was. Somehow, I felt that I still had mountains to climb, so I couldn't quite relax. What awaits now is editing by Marcell Feher, sound mixing and colour grading.
In the meantime, you can check out our page on IMDb!
