I’m back after a break. Not that i have been lazy, but there have been tough days and i didn’t feel like writing. We finished all the frames from kiki’s apartment (Maria), including the famous lunch scene about which i have written before. Razvan Radulescu has been on the set also and was very curious about how the scene turned out. I gather he got this idea while working on the script wth cecilia. This is how i found out that he wrote to Didi Danquart a 14 page lunch scene for OFFSET. No comment  I hope that Munteanu will get the same treatment at his film about the Revolution, at least about 15-16 pages... The settings from Maria’s room look very cool, i was quite scared of this moment. The favourite properties from the interior: a Suzana Dan painting (wedding gift), Adriana Grand’s drawings, the robot built by Adriana, and the buttons box (same) + the cherry on top: the page cut from THE FACE, where two drunk cartoon characters took the face of Chrila and Maria. Fane, our very talented property man, cut their faces from some pictures and put the instead of the original heads. It look supercool. In the last day we shoot with a little, balc, cat, that was just great. A kitten that became the star of the set. In that moment, accidentaly, i made an instant pawl to a cool line from the film where Maria tell Ioana „cats come back always alone”. Noir film title... we also shoot at the Law hostel, everyting once again OK, except for the depresive look of the hostelk, sometimes i think that 15 years have passed in vain.

{ read more }

These are hard to shoot. Many angles, connections between characters, the worry not to „jump over the axle”. In the frst day i always was tempted to cut the frame intro pieces, but i chilled in time, it would have been nonsense.
You have an appetite! Mine is meat balls and stuffed pepper with cheese paste. The meat balls don’t count.
They are boring. The cast forget the coupling, u have to shoot somehow continuously.
If you have a cast made out of actors of different genres and age (my case) you have to get in the role seriously and lead them where you want to. Or else, you are in trouble. Some wait for the close up, others joke and you can hear them through the four-in-hand tie, some are absent, some want to seem funny and others hate those who want to be funny. The food rots out like today’s tomato of miss Tora. You have to keep yours eyes focused, like on the gas cylinder, for the pressed cheese and many more not to „loosen up”. All in all it was a thrilling day. Maybe only for me, popistasu was fed up. I could see her through the half-opened door and i was trying to encourage her through signs.

{ read more }

Finally, Sunday has come and along with it, the beak. The last few days have been a little bit stressing, we had to shoot the most important scenes from the end. Ioana and Maria have been admirable although it wasn’t easy to keep the same emotion throughout 12 hours and then re-capture it in “n” doubles. I hope everything will look the way I want it to and I don’t have to re-shoot it. Yesterday we filmed at my place, on the roof of the block. Shooting combined, at the end with grill, grilled minced meat balls and palinca from Cluj. There were clouds and all of the sunset romance that I hoped for (maybe naive) went down the drain. But we had lots of crows that we took advantage of, in return. We left after 10 days from the suit in Magheru with nice memories. I think we did a good job and gained confidence in what we are doing. I watched together with Alex (the operator) the material from the last few day of shooting and everything seems okay. I’m starting to think we do have very special moments and very good frames. Now the problem is that all these have to connect in a whole and not to be just OK moments.

{ read more }

Today we shoot some tough scenes. Maria’s monolog with her Nokia phone where she was telling “things” to her brother and then the discussion from the kitchen between Ioana and Mrs.Murgea. For the first scene Maria held it together and was off the rails just enough, like the character is demanding. She was talking to Chirila’s robot as if she had loved him her entire life. I’m very curious how this will look on the big screen. This could be one of those 3 great scenes from the entire movie. In the kitchen, we shot about 10 takes until the reel finished. In the script there was the scene with a lot of text and Mrs. Murgea didn’t act it out as she should have almost in all takes. Slight mistakes, not big ones, but those were felt. At the end, I was satisfied with take no.7, but even now the thought that the flies aren’t seen in the setting crosses my head. I asked for flies, but lots of them and I got a jar with 20 dizzy flies. 2 died (I will write this at the end, on the generic). I am paranoid enough to think that this scene didn’t turn out as it should because of the lack of flies, but this is how things stand, I can’t do anything. At the Pintilie films all would have gone home till the production and scenography found flies. I am a humble debutante and I will e happy if I see at least one fly in the scene. And if not, I’ll comfort myself with the thought that the scene could have been better.

{ read more }

Because today was very hot but we were “In bed with Maria”. Last night I had an idea to shoot a scene between the two girls with the camera placed under the bed sheet than over it. I wasn’t necessarily original, others have done it before but I know it was a good idea. I laughed seeing Alex and Pompilica ( the camera mechanic) trying to find good spots in maria’s “nest”. And still it wasn’t enough, there wasn’t enough space, at one moment I felt like chipping away the wall for them to have more room. It’s said that Pinitilie did in the apartment where he filmed Niki Ardelean.

{ read more }