It was such a bad time getting a cold during the week of production. The fatigue got me just after the rehearsal then sore throat later in the week. It got worse on the first day of shooting and was not better on the last day. The stress certainly contributed to the body immune system.
However, everything was plan to be on schedule. The cast, crew and equipment were logged in.
Cast
- Gerard O’Dwyer as Daniel
- Fay Akrivou as Betty
- Helen Perris as Chrissie
Crew
- ’Pong — Director and everything else
- Ben Park — director of Photography
- Joy Acedillo — Script Supervisor
- Adam Jones — Sound Recordist
- Nikita Byrnes — Runner
- Raj Muneshwar — Production Manager
- Elham Merheb — Hair & Make up
- Thandiwe Phillips — Driver
- Stilgherrian — Still Photographer & Catering
Equipment
Sony Z1P, wide lens converter, tele lens converter, Manfrotto tripod, Red Head, Dedo Light, dolly track, field monitor, reflector disc and Zoom H4 recorder.
Schedule
15 August: party scene, kitchen scene, and lounge scene in a Surry Hills then hallway scene in Enmore.
It is not uncommon that the first day is a slow day. My strategy is to go easy and have cast and crew get comfortable working together. First problem we found on the site was the noise of the construction around the corner. But by the time we were ready was after lunch and they finished there work. The natural light in the kitchen was beautiful and we found that we could shoot from the outside through the window. The lounge was very tricky to lit. We used scrim moving in front of Dedo light to create movement on mother’s face. Then we moved to Enmore for hallway scene. It was not easy to get the lighting right for the mood.
16 August: beach scene in Coogee (7 AM call), bedroom scene, laundry room scene and bathroom scene in Enmore.
It was a beautiful morning in Coogee Beach and we had Gerard there today. He was sush a star that needed a lot of attention and care. He improved on his paper folding a lot. I was glad that he, I and the crew got along very well. Ben taught him how to use a DSLR we brought in the shoot. That was an interesting result to see what how saw in through the lens.
In the bedroom we converted a men’s room into a lady’s and Ben had to perform a slow diagonal 180 degrees pan in a small space. Then we kept going on the tough scene. Fay was not inspired in the laundry room and could not deliver the disjointed dialogue which she had to perform as a monologue. She ended up hiding away in the dark. I had the crew break and 5 minutes later she came out and was ready. The set, camera movement and the performance came together quite well.
We had to wait for the night fall for the scene. Therefore Fay and I had sometime to talk about the scene and rehearsed as she admitted that the bathroom scene was a harder than she thought. Once in the set and the mood got into her, she gave one of the best performance I had seen in the film. I respected her to give that 100%.
Over all, I was satisfied with the production so far. We managed to shoot on schedule. Cast and crew seemed to be happy working on the day. Thank you everyone to put up with me. I’ll be meeting with the cast again for ADR and VO recording and there’ll be a big post-production ahead.
17 August 2009