Happy new year! I’m a bit late, I know, but this month has flown by. This is therefore my official 2020 kick-off. So what’s been up?
UN DIMANCHE – French short film shoot as writer, director, producer and actor.
One of my acting goals for 2019 was to be cast in a French-speaking project so I could start branding myself as a French actress, going back to my roots. When that didn’t happen, I faced the facts. If I want it, I’d better make it happen myself. So I took out one of the rough stories I had written and started working on it, contacting Clem Nachbauer in the process, asking him to DP for me. Thanks to his experience and access to equipment, he got a great camera team together. I got Cristian on as sound recordist, who I had worked with on a previous project. Andrea Ratti, who I’ve known since DEAR MUM, is my go-to 1st AD, and I was pleased he connected to the script and wanted to be on board. Finally, an important part of my film is music, and composer Oleta Haffner also stepped in, offering her services as a runner on the day too.
Pre-production: I enjoyed working closely with my DP and chatting to him regularly over Christmas to ensure we were on the same page in terms of what we wanted to get out from the scenes. As a director, preparing a storyboard (a schematic plan of what the shots will look like) is a big help for everyone, but Clem also gave his own input, contributing his camera and lighting knowledge. My original script had the camera backing out of a room through a window – well, we didn’t quite manage that. That kind of trick is a big deal to organise, as you will see in this YouTube video.
In the few days leading up to the shoot, I went through a few stressful moments involving a van pickup and insurance, but I did make it to bed by 10pm the night before the shoot which is pretty impressive.
Production: kudos to actors who direct themselves in feature films! The two roles are opposites in my opinion, as the director always has the big picture in mind, while the actor should be in the moment, and certainly not aware of the clock ticking. I enjoyed calling “cut” at the end of scenes, and “action” in the one shot I did not appear in. One day, if someone will let me, I’d like to direct without acting.
Post-production: I’ve seen one rough cut which my editor now has my notes on. In a few weeks, I hope to have the final cut, and send it to Oleta for her to compose music. We’ve run into a continuity issue (this means a link in the story that could take the audience out of it as they can no longer follow what’s going on) - nothing we can’t solve, fingers crossed. This definitely came from me not insisting on a certain shot. The story will not tell itself – every single shot counts!
The month ahead
This month, I am preparing to take some full-body photos with an awesome photographer, shooting a few scenes in a dystopian short film called THE TRUTH and returning to the stage in ONE FROM THE HEART, PART II, as the group returns after our successful run in November 2019. You can find tickets here. The show runs from February 24th to 26th in Islington, London.
Thank you dear reader for making it through this long article. Toodloo!