When I mentioned coming back to shooting in bedrooms and apartments, this is what I meant.
Well, sort of.
Technically, this is an early morning kitchen scene.
It’s an important scene in the first act, not that this film has three acts, but it’s somewhere in the beginning and it’s suppose to portray some sort of detachment — how two people who’ve presumably been living together for a long time still have zero human connection with each other.
Or something like that.
There will be breakfast, that much I’m sure of.
One thing I’m trying to avoid with this film is only shooting in bedrooms and studio apartments like many a no budget film, which is why I shot my opening scene in an Airport.
I eventually did come back to bedrooms and apartments, but I also got my Apichatpong on and shot a long sequence in the woods.
I hadn’t planned on ever shooting in a supermarket though.
The initial plan was to shoot in a bookstore.
I didn’t want to call any unneeded attention, so I just went in commando with the camera — no tripod or monopod. The footage was shaky obviously, but I knew that going in, so the way I set up that whole sequence — it was meant to be shaky.
It’s like that Rodriguez bus analogy: I always check what equipment, actors and location I have, then I craft a scene out of that; not the other way round. Basically, I write to shoot.
After the bookstore — before we took a cab back to her apartment — Kavetha decided to do a little grocery shopping. I found a little trolley of my own and followed.
The rest, they say, is history.
On the forth day, I pulled an Apichatpong and took Kavetha deep into the heart of the jungle.
Okay so it’s not really a jungle — just a very green hill with a hiking path leading all the way to the top.
But there be monkeys along that path!
And keeping up with the spirit of learning something-I-thought-I-knew-already, I found out that the new camera’s colour tone is slightly off. Kavetha’s top, for instance, is actually pink — not orange-y.
But that’s OK; I’ll fix it in post.
DAY 3, BEHIND THE SCENES: Saying stuff and things a lot — while still trying to be very specific.
Everyone was really tired. We’d be shooting many hours, as is evident by Louis’ constant yawning.
Five takes later, we were done for the day.
I try to the best of my ability to tell the actors who their characters are. A little history. Back-story.
Take Louis’ character for example. He’s a musician; not necessarily successful by mainstream standards, but that’s his life: traveling and performing at shows/bars/wherever. He’s into music but not the music business; he’s also from a very privileged background, among other things.
In the film, you never see Louis’ character performing at any shows or bars. You don’t see or hear anything about his finances or his rich family. All you see is the big black guitar case in one scene, and then in another scene, Louis playing an electric — but not for an audience.
So how will the audience get all that back-story I just told you? The truth is, that’s not very important. That’s just for Louis and me to know.
Just Louis, mostly.
It’s not so much important to me where the story goes, but it’s very important that the actors not betray their characters. That’s what I tell them. That’s what I tell everyone.
The “Don’t betray my character” thing is not a territorial thing. I don’t feel like these characters are mine. I didn’t come up with all of them on my own. Any of them, actually. The skeletons, maybe, but the character traits — the flesh — that’s always been a joint effort. Collaboration. Louis, for example, came up with the traveling element to the musician character; I added the hipster touch.
I’ve always been open to ideas from the actors; nothing is too big, silly or crazy.
Because of that, some people seem to think that I don’t have a full grasp of the film. I think that’s totally ridiculous.
God, I sound so passive-aggressive right now.
Anyway, yesterday was Day 3 of 3 Credits, and just like the first two before it, it didn’t go by without me learning something-I-thought-I-knew-already.
It was the first time I shot with two cameras, and it wasn’t till I got home that I realized the two were on very different white-balance settings.
“I’ll fix it in post” is becoming something I say quite often, and I don’t very much like that.
It’s only the second day of shooting, but it’s becoming very clear that I’m not superhuman, even though I’d like to think that I am.
Take for example, the mystical magical water bottle from today that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. A superhuman director wouldn’t have let that happen.
Superhuman or not, I’m dumbfounded by the amount of ridiculously talented people willing to be part of this little experiment of ours. It’s crazy!
Seriously, I must’ve been a-tree-which-provided-shade-to-righteous-men-while-they-were-building-a-house-for-orphan-kids in my previous life.
I didn’t originally plan to shoot the opening scene on the first day of principal photography, but this is exactly that kind of film. We here at 3 CREDITS just go with the flow — call it improv, if you will.
About a week or so ago, while talking to Manisha on Skype, she mentioned that Kavetha and she would be going to the Airport on the 30th to bid farewell to a close friend who was moving to Paris.
“Well, that’s brilliant!” I said. “Our opening scene is at the airport.”
We both agreed that it would be best if we all went together on the 30th and shot the scene guerrilla style after her friend departs.
They say the only constant is change, and wouldn’t you know it, a few days after my chat with Manisha, something changed: I found out that I wouldn’t be in Melaka for most of September — the city we’d originally planned to shoot in.
We adapted.
We came up with a parallel story set in Cyberjaya (the place I’m at now) that would take place concurrently with the Melaka story. We went with the flow.
The two stories needed to cross, but not necessarily connect (THE THREE COLOURS TRILOGY?) so we had to figure out a way to get the Melaka characters in the same scene as the Cyberjaya characters. We figured since both the main characters from Melaka will be at the airport, all we really need is one Cyberjaya character to be the connecting tissue.
With that, our opening scene became that much more important. Not only is it the scene where Manisha’s character leaves Kavetha’s character for good — the incident that triggers the whole damn film — but now, it’s also the glue that holds the two parallel films together.
Louis here was our connecting tissue, and boy was he amazing!
I like describing 3 CREDITS as a film about a woman who slowly descends into depression after her best friend moves away. That’s my pitch. A log line in the vein of that Einstein quote which alludes to the fact that I maybe understand my story well enough.
At least that’s the idea.
Having said that, the movie is so much more than that. It’s also a story about love and friendship; dependency and break-up; loneliness and ennui. Basically, it’s a late coming-of-age story and it’s going to be brilliant.
I’m going to be using this space as sort of a production journal to keep track of — you know — stuff and things. I will be posting the occasional set photos and videos, but mostly, the blog is just going to be me talking to myself about my favorite directors to motivate me on this journey, if you will.
So… here we go.
