Quiet on set

I haven't posted much in a while, have I?

Fact is: I haven't made enormous progress.  I'm still on the same shot I was working on last month - remember "Smooth camera motion: the stuff of legend?"  Yeah pathetic, I know; but I've had other stuff on and the nights just aren't as long as they were in January.

What I've found interesting is the effect that this scene is having on me.  It's a deeply troubling moment - a turning point in the narrative for both characters.  Technically it's complicated:  Six hundred and eighty eight frames (That's a 6 with TWO 8s after it!) Medium Long Shot developing to Mid Shot with a crane and track. Two characters: one with heavyweight dialogue and the other listening and being moved by what he hears - but subtly, without upstaging the other character who is the main focus of the shot - that's quite hard work for a human actor, believe me, let alone a rubber one who's neck appears to be coming loose.


I hope the audience takes all this in!!!

What's more, I only seem to manage a handful of frames in a single run because - and maybe it's just that I'm a big girl's blouse, but I've found that I'm coming away from it every time quite emotionally exhausted.

"Get - the - damned - microphone out of my face"

I worked with an actor a few years ago who got bit hot under the collar with the crew for continually stopping takes when the microphone boom dangled into the shot.

It was awkward but I can't be hard on him. An actor has - in many ways - one of the most difficult jobs once the camera turns over.

Not only has he to remember his lines and not bump into the furniture (thank you Noel Coward) he has to hit specific marks on the floor/walls/imaginary points in space,   follow a thought process that is out of sequence and is interrupted by long periods of rigging, refitting, lighting and lunch.  He has to respond to whatever else is going on - assuming the thing he's responding to is actually happening in the room and not being added later.  AND, even if it isn't really there, he still has to respond to it!

Simultaneously, he must not give away the fact that the intimate private moment  he's sharing with his secret lover is being intently ogled by dozens of people, many drinking coffee; and all the while, pretend that his legs aren't wrapped around a ton of grip equipment! He has to say and do the same things over and over again all day and each time make it look as if he just thought of them, and of course; he must do it with feeling.

Okay, so perhaps mining for Coltan in Venezuela is a harder job, but you get my point.

On this slate, I'm doing all of that stuff for two.  And it's just gone midnight, so I'd better get back down the mine and get back to work.