Location Day 2 (actually; Day 1 in France): Things are off to a good start. NYC crew arrived a bit early, as did I, so we began shooting in Charles deGaulle immediately. The French crew (prod. exec. and sound engineer) arrived an hour or so later, by which time we'd covered everything that didn't require dialogue/sound. Fred, the sound guy, got set up on a luggage cart (standard equipment on a shoot as faar as I'm concerned), and we were off. Got it done with no problem, really. CDG shoots so well, too; beautiful concrete, lots of reflections, very interesting.
Hit the road with the intention to shoot --in sequence zith the script, basically--the phone calls between the couple. Unfortunately, the Audi didn't have the glass roof it was advertised with, so it was too dark to shoot inside, even in daylight. AND the camera was a bit unstable for dialogue, anyway. The memory foam pillow I'd brought to use as a car/hood mount proved invaluable for cushioning the camera, though, so we got great driving shots.
Oh, did I mention the rain? It started out blindingly sunny on Sunday morning, then turned to downpour for the rest of the day. We'll have to work it into the story somehow; it's supposed to rain all week. We're staying in Albert at the Best Western; it's a classic hotel box with stone facing and turrets all over--a prefab castle. We were the only guests on Sunday night("Just like The Shining," I told the nervous clerk.)
The landscape is tremendous; flat, featureless fields, slight rolling hills, narrow roads with large embankments blocking the view. There's a banal easy sublimity/awe which is tempting but difficult to capture. And it can kill a film. Town after town, all with buildings from the Twenties and Forties. Once you know the styles, you can't help noticing them everywhere. Everything dates to one of two distinct waves of (re)construction.
Early dinner and a night reworking the schedule to fix the light and vibration problems and to make it through the rain.
