Recount of the Reiki shoot!

Ok, so, Reiki.On popular request I’m not getting away without at least some recount of this absolutely crazy production. As indeed, I promised before the shoot started and I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to write/post.

Now, let’s see how it all began…

It all began without planning. That’s what stands most clearly in mind lol. So on Friday evening we set out a small set that would be inter-cut with a huge flash back scene in the film, which is always a pain to do small parts of a scene without having lit (as DoP that’s one of my main concerns) the whole or even seen what the whole set would presumably look like.

It took us ways too long, but I’ve always seen sets on the first few days are slow in warming up and getting tempo… Also… which I have been repressing ever since then… the camera material… As there was little time, no transport and the material was coming from another country, I had had no chance to test the material so that left me and the camera assistant (a great friend of mine whom I still adore for sharing that burden with so much resolve; Yveline, thank you!!) trying to puzzle the material together on the eve of the shoot.

For the people with some technical background, we were filming with a Panasonic HVX200 with a Redrock Micro M2 35mm lens adapter and nikkor photo lenses. In the end four of the six lenses were faulty with variable and constantly changing distances no back focus could aid … it might have been the M2 though, but we couldn’t test this as we didn’t have any reference, though Yveline afterwards heard this is a common problem with the M2.

 yveline when she could still smile :)

Ah, well, apart form the stress, the general bewilderment and the cursing in several languages; the mood was grand as we awaited the director who was a few hours late … teases weren’t you, P? lol

The out door scenes were shot near my place in a small forest, in my garden, in a castle and in an abandoned factory in Ghent. Each of them great location as you’ll see in the movie!

So, where was I? Oh, yes, the schedule! Or lack there of…

… Actually before I start recounting … There is something you should know about the director: Pedro, a guy who thrives on lack of sleep had us planned for 18hr days, and you all know we’d be behind filming 90min of quality footage in ten days… He didn’t mind of course, calling me a big wuss for bitching, which I did, abundantly :p

On the evening of the first actual day of shooting we noticed there was a huge problem with the lenses and the camera material (you’ll see that always happens if you didn’t get the chance to test it! So, unfortunately, we lost the entire day to faulty material. (and yes, those are our agonising screams you might have been hearing echoing across the globe then) In the night, there didn’t seem to be a problem, only in daylight, so we stopped the shoot and Yveline and me withdrew with the accursed material to finally test it and came out with the above result: more then half our lenses couldn’t be used for focus pulling, everything needed to be checked and double checked on monitor. A very time consuming affair. That night too we turned very close til dawn and got up shortly after.Pedro and the camera of DOOMDay three was the first day in the factory. We dropped all the material that had so royally scr*wed us and decided just to use the camera and make the best of it. Despite of being suddenly technically unemployed Yveline joined us for random aid, moral support and guaranty of my own general sanity. We turned this day like we never turned before and things were looking up when we stopped for lunch around4pm.When we got back inside, we found one mighty pale director. Something, again, went wrong and we suddenly found ourselves without footage of that day. Something went very wrong in the P2 card… I don’t know what happened, but all data was erased and we had a very clean and empty disk without any footage (one reason why I really don’t trust shooting solely on disk) of the day while we had reviewed a lot of if before taking the P2 card out of the camera.

That’s about the point where everyone kinda hit bottom and Yveline saved my dubious dwindling sanity.

We finished our shooting schedule for the day with a form of detached, desperate abandon and hoped for the best. Tried in vain to convince Pedro to start recording on tape and went home to get some much needed rest for the next day which was in a public castle, a beautiful location, with some very important flashback scenes.That night too, I sent Yveline home reluctantly as she was very much without a job at this point and she has more things to do than hold my hand when I start to crease around the edges.

The next day though lifted our spirits. We made very beautiful shots and wrapped the scenes we needed. I had called in someone to help me with the lights when I found we couldn’t use any of our own. So we used the lights they used the light the building  itself and pointed them where we fancied (my thanks go to Marie who crawled up the ladder so many times that day to get me grand light under hard circumstances!)

Also… as far as I remember, absolutely nothing went wrong that day… wheeee!! (apart from the fact that our sound guy was two hours late looking for a parking spot… but we could live with that!)I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday we shot a scene where there were supposed to be fifteen something zombies trying to munch on our main characters… none of the extra’s showed up… so the crew got zombified as well as random kids from my street and any and all friends we could get a hold of on such short notice (not many I tell you). But here I made my incredible début… I’ve have more compliments about my acting/being a zombie then with my light, so I dread to think where that would lead me lol

But it was also on one of these days that Lady Luck really turned on us again. Our sound guy, Dré, totally bailed on us. Annelien tried calling him every half hour. After waiting for a few hours (we had little clew how to work the mixette) we started shooting without sound hoping to hear from him soon. We didn’t.

Around four in the afternoon he texted Annelien. He didn’t call. He texted. That should have told us all we needed to know but we didn’t have any alternatives for sound people, so our hands were tied. He told us quite literally that “he didn’t quite fancy coming at all that day but if we really insisted, he could be there in about half an hour”

note that crew call had been somewhere between nine or ten in the morning.

Obviously we insisted. And he came, pretending nothing at all had happened. Seeing our hand forced into not firing him until we had replacement, we pretended as well, much to my own discontent. So until that time in the day we’d had to postpone all scenes or parts of scenes with dialogue. I was seething, and I know I wasn’t alone. Obviously we were rather behind by that time.

As far as I know some things got talked through a bit and the next day he showed up without a fuss.

Still, by Friday, the night of the Bohemian scene with a band, and heaps of extras and producers, I was worn down to the teeth with sleep deprivation and a wee bit of stress that I was a total zombie by ten in the evening. I was barely conscious enough to vaguely direct the guy who saved my skin that night concerning the light. And I do mean vaguely. The only thing I clearly remember was running about, tending the fire and fishing people out of the very narrow and very smelly, deep stream that runs through our garden. (Among whom our producer)

Bert, actually our camera man who DPs as well, gently took over from me, handed me a bounce panel and left me to stare into the night. I was worthless that night and I well knew it. Felt bad about it too; instead of blaming Pedro for not giving us more sleep, which was the thing I should have done :P

At about three Pedro told me I was totally useless to him and to go to bed so I’d be back to myself in the morning. It stung me but there was no point in denying it.

I went to bed trusting Bert to save my ass.

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They turned til first light and crew call was at eleven (our sound guy refused to be there at ten and remembering the last time, Pedro yielded.) Athalf past tenwe were ready to shoot again in the factory and I, by the gods, felt human once more. Well, almost anyway.

No sign of our soundman though.

We had a lot to turn in the factory still and no time to do it as we had press meeting us in brussegem, which meant we had to be there in time. Waiting for Dré cost us too much time we didn’t have and by the time we were home bound, we had barely wrapped one scene of three. Still no sign of Dré, though he had deigned to enlighten us as to what was going on nearnoon(halfway shooting the scene). He quit. He texted again, using long words and even treats to say he was quitting and came to pick up the material that evening and we had no right to argue about that. Our material. That the production rented til Monday morning.

Davide was breathing brimstone at that point and got promoted to my personal hero by calling Dré (who obviously didn’t answer) and played out his cards quite nicely, giving Dré some things to ponder.

We met with the press and pretended all was well, the story was too complicated anyways and they’ll read all about it in the book Dutch Filmworks is apparently going to make about the shoot LOL

So we took the press out into the woods and filmed a fighting scene they’ll remember for some time I’m sure. A very impressive fight of hand to knife / hand to hand combat between the characters of Hansel and Marcus. Suitable impressed they went home and we wrapped that scene and another. Running home for batteries I noticed a car stopping and nearly tripped over my feet seeing who got out. Dré.

We were loosing daylight really fast I didn’t have time to stop, so I basically yelled over my shoulder we were in a hurry and in the forest, that if he wanted something he should follow me. I really couldn’t imagine him getting into my house alone. Should have known better though, as with the shoot the gate was always unlocked and he knew this.

Back on set, I told everyone this and we debated sending someone back to make sure, but we were a skeleton crew already, we couldn’t afford missing anyone. We decided to hope for the best and focus on wrapping the scene even though it was getting ways too dark.

When we got back, Dré was still there. But only because he’d been apprehended sneaking in.

I’d told my mom about what had happened and when she saw him sneak in she told Cela, one of our main actors who was staying at my place for the duration of the shoot and he stopped the guy from just taking the material and slinking away. Some how, he convinced him to apologise and tell everyone what had made him just quit. Especially after Davide’s message, I was impressed he stayed, but not only that, we were all throwing our souls into this movie and to have one person screwing it up so frequent and severely made us all a bit …homocidal… I have never seen anything the likes nor have I ever heard anything remotely like this on any set… After he’d had his say, Koen, our AD, had to escort him out as he seemed to want to stay… for some utterly bizarre reason. (And even after kicking him out, an hour later he was back with some lame excuse. I think our glacial stares did chase him away that time.

Anyway, with his antics and the press we lacked one very crucial scene and so Martin and me went about my place to see if one if the barns couldn’t be used as a part of the factory for the scene we needed. I was asked if we could turn NFD and so we did. It was a shame that I couldn’t really light the scene as I wanted it as we’d had to work with available light in the factory and as this followed directly to such a scene, this couldn’t be too clean or impressive to match with the other scenes. But we wrapped that scene, which gave us the best blooper in the entire movie, and made ready for another part of the bohemian scene.

The next day we wrapped the first part of the shoot quite eventful (we already knew Dré would not be coming so that wasn’t it this time). There was a fight scene at night and that time blood did flow, real blood, as Valerie’s face had a violent close-encounter with Vincent’s knee… and we don’t have it on tape!!! (as per the first question of our director as I stormed away to get some ice ;)

Soo… that said about the technical … setbacks and general sleep deprivation I really do need to stress what an absolutely wonderful shoot this was and really with the best bunch of people (actors and crew). Everyone showed so much resolve from the very beginning to make this movie happen and to make it more then good; we wanted to make it great! And I think we all succeeded to make something worth remembering and definitely worth seeing. I had the bestest time with you guys and thank you for everything!

It’s a pity we don’t have a picture with everyone on … :)

As for the cast: we had the best bunch ever! Really! They endured, they hung on and they made the best of it!

And here are some facts and curious traits of some of them:

Cela has been our oracle during the time of the shoot, influencing weather, traffic and other things to our advantage. Cela’s Way is the only Way. We even made a quotes page dedicated to him:

by Marie Olaerts:

"Cela does not dodge bullets. Bullets dodge Cela."

by Koen De Jongh:

"When the godfather was born, Cela was his godfather."

by Martin Swabey:

"Cela doesn't listen, he already knows."

by Davide D'Urbano:

"Cela is never late, time waits for Cela."

by Koen De Jongh:

"Cela once took an IQ test... they are still calculating the results."

by Rik Sinkeldam:

"If someone wants to play Cela in a movie about him, it's got to be Cela."

by Marie Olaerts:

"Dirt does not rub off on Cela. Cela rubs off on dirt."

by Davide D'Urbano:

"Cela doesn't need dialogs, dialogs need Cela."

by Rik Sinkeldam:

"Zombies don't scare Cela, Cela scares zombies."

by Marie Olaerts:

"On the day before the first day, Cela said to god: you take over from here."

by Rik Sinkeldam:

"After the seventh day, Cela said to god: You were good, I'm better."

by Marie Olaerts:

"If only Eve had listened to Cela instead of the Snake."

by Vincent van Ommen:

"On day 1 God created Cela, and took a 6 day rest."

by Maun Jean-François:

"When the cops pull Cela over, they pay Cela the fine."

Also: Cela’s way (a practical example)

Stephanie has an obsession with biceps. Rik’s in particular.

Twenty years of Wushu did not aid this man...Also, I have never met such a happy, bouncy, squeely, beamy person! hugs Steph you should be on every setPedro uses his hands a lot when directing :p and likes tying up actrisses a wee bit too much... Smoking kills even extrasMartin sees things a wee bit too big sometimes... or too practical and combines the warm with the cute. And yes, at a certain point he hobbles through the frame like thatDavide will never fail to see and opening... or a tree... [if !supportLineBreakNewLine]Yannick HATES guns and fired the blanc only once KNOWN FACTS: indie crews need to be able to do any function at any time- actors can sleep everywhere and under the most unlikely circomstances

FUN FACTS:

-Pedro lost a bet and had to dress into the aptly named "Barbarian Queen" dress. He made me promise not to post any pictures of this on the net, so I wont, but I didn't say anything about revealing the act itself. Also, he was wearing the skirt the entire evening... claiming it was warm :p- nearly the entire crew features as an extra in the movie- my goats came to check out the set but did not feature in the filmDetails and pics of the reshoot will be coming but I think I gave you all quite enough to read [endif]