Real life? What's that?

No matter how many months of prep you and the crew have in the lead up to shooting a film it all comes together in the last two weeks. Those millions of questions that you have thrown at people and the millions of questions (rather than answers) that they have thrown back start getting answered. – “No, we definitely will not have a dolly, no we don’t have the money for that, or that, or that.” As Shoot Day 1 gets closer people’s voices become high pitched and shrill, bottoms clench and instead of sucking the tops of their pencils they bite them off and swallow them, shards of wood and all. It’s a bit like preparing for battle except hopefully, without the hideous and terminal consequences that modern warfare presents.

Making a film becomes all consuming. There simply isn’t time for anything else. You stop calling your friends not to mention even thinking of seeing them. You stop calling your family. You stop paying your bills or in fact dealing with anything else that is not directly to do with this Monster you have created (and also become.) You might stop eating (never happens to me) and take fewer showers. You certainly stop brushing your hair, putting on clean clothes every day, opening the curtains, cutting your toenails and you even might, horror or horrors, stop tweeting, emailing and facebooking. It’s that serious.

However, in this case, for me, a semblance of life did persist and after twenty years of working on other people’s films, I realised that if you let it, real life can exist at the same time.

So, in the last two weeks before we start shooting, I find myself falling into a weird real world/film world routine -

Get up. Get 3 year-old child to Montessori without too many rows, tears or bribes.

Go to scout hall and open up for the day. Remember how bleeding freezing scout hall is and return to car, crank up heat and wait for 1st actor to appear.

Rehearse with actors and time flies ‘cos I’m having so much fun.

Actors leave and fall into sloth of despond as I now consider all the problems that have to be solved before we can get one frame of them exposed on whatever stock we can afford to shoot on.

Run out of credit on phone.

Have various meetings in afternoon where we talk costume, props, and decide who will get the afternoon biscuits for the 4pm sugar slump.

At 6ish get child back and try my best to get out of film mode and concentrate on her as she bosses me around for the next two hours.

Delete and write emails when her back is turned

Make some class of dinner for child and child’s father.

At 8 leave child’s father to look after bedtime routine and escape out the door with laptop in hand (wheehee – if you have children you will understand my glee at not having to do this bit. If you don’t have children, believe me, it’s one of the major drawbacks of parenthood)

Arrive with computer in hand to hospital where my Mum is and has been for several months.

And then I slow down and remember that bit about real life.

For the next three hours Mum and I mooch at the simplex crossword, or I fiddle with shot lists in comforting silence as she snoozes or I yak away about how the preparations for the film are going and remind her who is who and who does what and she wonders how Molly’s potty training is going and I say ‘Bad’ and I wonder how much weaker she is today and then the nurses arrive and settle her for the night and I read out her prayers and wait till she sleeps and then, I go home.