Weekend-3 of '5'
The last update I did was a week back and it has been an eventful week plus one of the most challenging but satisfying weekends. It can be defined by one of the things which Benji said on this weekend's shoot - it was pouring down cats and dogs but I insisted on continuing the shoot to which Benji gave me a look and said 'This is insanity!!!' and then we kept filming in the rain.
Besides the usual departmental meetings on various days last week - art department on Tuesday; camera department on Thursday - i had a long Wednesday evening meeting/ script workshopping session with the actors. Script workshopping??? Yep...since we decided to change the way climax of act-1 plays out we decided that it would be a good idea to sit down and talk things out as it would have an impact on the overall story structure. And things went from good to great at that point...we spent about 3.5 hours talking about stuff and basically introduced new elements into the second act of the story, which tie in the story threads a lot better than before.
Besides the usual departmental meetings on various days last week - art department on Tuesday; camera department on Thursday - i had a long Wednesday evening meeting/ script workshopping session with the actors. Script workshopping??? Yep...since we decided to change the way climax of act-1 plays out we decided that it would be a good idea to sit down and talk things out as it would have an impact on the overall story structure. And things went from good to great at that point...we spent about 3.5 hours talking about stuff and basically introduced new elements into the second act of the story, which tie in the story threads a lot better than before.
Anita at the script workshop
It also developed new challenges in terms of rescheduling the scenes and order they will play out on the weekend.The weather forecast wasn't too good for the weekend either, which was another cause for worry. So all of us went into the weekend - a bit unsure of how things were going to shape up. But have to say that it has panned out well for the project. The thing is that when the production is rolling it is best not to fight the change but to roll with it and adapt to the situation - without which a production can come to a grinding halt.
It always helps when you have a cast and crew who are willing to give more than what is usually expected of them. Having Mike on set helped us heaps in terms of keeping things moving as he would take care of things which seemed small but in the longer run helped us save heaps of time. And I still find it amazing that Lance still carries his tripod into the bush and lugs it around the whole day. Everything about this project has been so special- the people, the experience, the journey.
Coming back to the actual weekend - Saturday started off with a heavy downpour and I decided to keep going with the filming - which is when Benji said the statement of the weekend. Since we are filming most of the stuff chronologically it did not bother me too much that we are filming in different weather conditions -in fact the couple of scenes we filmed when it was raining shaped out to be beautiful looking scenes. After that everything was a blur with the rate of shooting we were doing.
Insanity breeds magic
The start of Sunday was a lot slower than I expected - especially with the first scene but the actors managed to improvise and adapt the script to the changes we had been making over the past couple of weekends and came up with some beautiful scenes. We managed to film some awesome scenes and by the end of the day we were only a couple of scenes behind schedule. Now we will be going back in next weekend to film the remaining scenes.
Marjan, Anita and me rehearsing a scene
Richard giving us suggestions and I am soaking it in
Pain and loss
The Team in front of the hut
The net result is that we filmed about 17 pages of the script this weekend. Add that to previous weekends score of 25 pages and the first days score of 10 pages - we have filmed a total of 52 pages in 5 days, averaging 10 pages a day. We have another 20 pages to go, so it should be an interesting challenge getting everything done within the required time. So yeah - I am pretty pleased with how this is shaping up and pretty much with everything that's happening - right from acting to footage.
This time around the rats did not bother us too much as we kept big candles going through the night but I have been sniffling the whole day from the smells at the hut - more specifically the smell of rat poo. It happened last weekend and it is the same today but I think I will be alright by tomorrow morning once my body regains its composure.
Now have to get some rest and start thinking about this coming weekend.
Till later,
Amit
posted by Amit @ 9:50 PM
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