Director's Daily Shooting Blog

Last night at dinner Williams was complaining about things. I couldn't really get to the bottom of his gripe with me but I asked him "Am I not working hard enough?" He said "To be honest no". I walked off to sit on the beach in front of Mont St. Michel so as to not go mental in the restaurant in front of everyone. When I returned he apologised emphatically and said "It was not true. I'm sorry." We shook hands on it. I know his job is difficult but is mine easier?
 
Makeup and hair is late. Cristina was crying again earlier. She didn't even want to talk to me to say why. I found out the problem was she missed breakfast due to oversleeping. Is it my fault that she overslept and got an extra hour in bed? All the other crew got up on time and got to it fine including Jose, Jonnie, Julie, Roger and myself who had no time to snooze on the minibus yesterday as we were either shooting or driving and thus had just 2-3 hours sleep in 48 hours.

Further, to help, I just found a Japanese to UK plug adaptor for Cristina's digital camera (needed for make-up continuity). How fortunate she is that I carry one! Unbelievably, though, she didn't even say thank you when I gave it to her!!
 
1.29am
 
Still waiting for make-up and hair. Now it's an hour late and will be an additional 15 mins. That's 75 minutes late. If we lose 75 mins every day it will take us another 2 days to shoot everything we have to do here. Roger and Jose have worked like navvies this morning to have all the equipment in the right place but now are sitting around asking "What's happening?" and "Why is it taking so long?" etc.
 
7.18pm
 
Just wrapped now. We are on our way back to the camp site and then to eat dinner. We finished off the scene we shot yesterday with a couple of nice drive throughs with boule players in foreground and on a mirror.
 
Cristina is happier now. It was just a misunderstanding. Not really her fault about getting up late. I'm glad as she is doing a great job, especially yesterday on the way to the ferry.
 
Before we shot some car to car stuff of the improv I couldn't get yesterday. Scene 68 is now more than finished. At one point Julie and Jonnie turned the radio mikes off to discuss something. It turned out it was the appearence of Jonnie's girlfriend here on the shoot. The visibility of it is something I am not happy with also. I'm not happy with them excluding me from the discussion either.
 
Afterwards we talked things out and I am happier. I think Julie is too. She is completely in the right of course. A film set is no place for wives, lovers, husbands, girlfriends etc Especially when you are making a love story..
 
What I am not happy with is the situation with Malika's backpack. It still didn't turn up. UPS didn't deliver it urgently as promised. The net result is I couldn't shoot half the scheduled scenes today. Instead I wrapped the cast and shot some nature inserts for Scene 1, the beginning of the film.
 
I have been on the phone and texting Seanne constantly today to try and solve the problem, all so far to no avail. It seems the backpack is near Versailles at a depot. Daniel will drive Williams to Rennes then he will take a TGV overnight to Paris. Tomorrow will have to be a day off and then we will shoot 6 days consecutive to get back on schedule. As tomorrow is Julie's birthday that shouldn't be so bad. She might be able to go back to Paris also for the day.
 
I just called Iain Dodds and sacked him. Somehow I thought that would happen on day one. So fate intercedes and I have actually had to fire someone on this film. It's a pity. He's a lovely guy with a lot of problems. But along with the wine bottle mistake - he used one of the ones needed for the scene in Callum's flat - he has not been quite on it and now this is an enormous mistake. Of course it's not totally his fault BUT more of that tomorrow!