Monday, August 20, 2007

The trials of filming

'I wanna be in this film! Aw, go on, let me!' That was one young lad standing watching as we filmed last night. Seemed to think it was glamorous. Yeah, right. Discovering how short a time it goes dark for in summer, even in late August, because the shoot that was meant to finish at two in the morning actually goes on until half six? Standing around for hours and experiencing at first hand the particular quality of this strange summer's rain (first it drizzles, then it hurtles, then it drifts around like a cloud, and then it hurtles once again)? Hurrying down an alleyway fifteen times pursued by an attacker (my aching legs! My lungs!) while the director of photography got his perfect shot? Sitting for over an hour in a strapless dress in a cooling bath and turning into a prune while the lights kept getting changed? (Yup, that was me at four this morning.)

As Julie my fellow cast member said, halfway through a film shoot you wonder why you do it. Even in radio, which is so much quicker, as a writer I have got irritated by the laborious, piecemeal process of producing a play, the writing of which is so organic and fluid. Well, I've had a summer of practical drama, and it's been a great antidote to the isolation of writing, but I can't tell you how much I'm now looking forward to the peace of my desk and the control of my own creative process - and the new project which I said I'd announce, and will do so next post.

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