Caption time

It's not yesterday, it's not the day before but..

I feel like dorking out, and feel like doing it Monday style, with a Tuesday word, so there.

quaff: to drink heartily

I'm so gonna use this one, I mean I still haven't gotten around to adding ululate to my regular conversation, but I might have more uses for this one I rather suspect.

1. To drink a beverage, esp. an intoxicating one, copiously and with hearty enjoyment.

transitive verb:
1. To drink (a beverage) copiously and heartily

Yep. This one applies to my life.

Tuesday SQNEA #6 - The public transport edition..

This is one that someone probably has asked, or rather would if it were a question rather than an excuse for a rant, but I'm going to present it (them) in question form so it counts. It's probably not that stupid either, come to think of it.

Why oh why... (I think I'll start all of them like this now) oh why do people stand on the left of the escalator in the metro? This is one those of you living in wide open areas with lots of big cars won't understand, and it's quite possible that people in other parts of Europe are more well mannered than here, but someone might just understand.

Here in Prague we have a metro (underground, subway, tube) system. A lot of people use this system. They are accessed by by buildings at street level and these buildings have escalators which take you down to the part where the platforms are. Still with me? Well, due to the fact that lots of people use this system, and therefore have to travel on the escalator to go to where the trains are at, many of whom are in a hurry, it is requested that you keep to the right if you're standing on the escalator. This is, as you may have guessed, to allow the people who wish to get to the platform quicker, by walking down it (or up the escalator when they're getting out of the metro, to get to work or catch a tram for instance) to walk down it.

And of course there are always people who are standing to the left. Usually when they're with a friend beside them so the two of them are blocking the path. This on it's own wouldn't be so exasperating, but you always see people blocking the way, someone get there attention, they turn around and look surprised, like this is an unusual thing, move over, let the person past, and THEN MOVE BACK TO THE SPOT THEY WERE IN! When I see people do this I always make a point of walking whether I was going to or not so I can make them move out of my way. And they always look surprised when I get their attention.

I was going to say something else about public transport, but I think this one has been long enough.. after all. And I thought I had nothing to write about? Seems as though there's always a stupid question to ask.

Ah.. it feels good to be completely lazy..

I didn't get around.. well I didn't try very hard.. to doing the stuff I was supposed to do that I had put off because of all the filming. Oh well. It involved going outside and it's rainy today. I'm not even going to bother dorking out today, but to be honest I don't like today's word.

I did do some dishes though. I've been using the luxury of having the place to myself to let everything go.. it was fun to do but when the mess builds up it gets annoying so something had to be done.

I might watch a movie now.

Ok, this will be the last one of these for a while..

We did another shoot last night. I started off in the same costume, with the same uncomfortable shoes and ridiculous fake groceries, did some scenes walking out the front, then walking into the hall, and then walking up stairs. We had to shoot all of these from different angles and of course many takes were needed. Apart from the pain it went ok, I guess :)

Then I got to change into "something more comfortable" and yes, the director did describe it like that.. I was playing the middle of the night scenes, so it was night stuff with night gown and slippers, which sounds really comfy right, but it was kinda weird with some little nightie thing that didn't fit me (of course) which I wore with pajama pants and a dressing gown that looked more like some kind of secret agent coat. And slippers which had little heels and were too small for me :Z.
It was a lot more comfortable than the other costume though.

It did go pretty well though, I was more pleased with the scenes I did than I was yesterday, and I remember thinking, around say... 2 something that the shoot was going much smoother than yesterday's.. night's the previous shoot :Z The director seemed to feel that way too.

This feeling continued until about 4ish when he mentioned the scenes we had to do tonight and would probably be shooting until about 6. It went downhill from there.

A scene had to be adjusted because it involved shouting and running and making a lot of noise, and by the time we got to it it was 5 something so we changed it to me shouting not so loudly and doing stage whispers, running and making a lot of noise.. and then doing it from another angle. You can tell where it goes from here, and yes, the cable remains unfixed.

At about 6:30 we were doing the "last" scene, which was the last one before the one after that, which had to be shot from at least 2 angles. That one took a long time for some reason. The light was a problem, being full daylight and all so some time had to be taken out from the usual time consuming things to black out a window.

The crew were falling asleep. By then we were doing first takes which were "just fine". I'm under no allusions that either my or the other actor's acting, the sound, the lighting or anything else involved were that great, it's just that.. *snore* where was I???

oh yeah. We finally got out at 7:30.. I think we did finish all the scenes we needed to though, with a few necessary adjustments.

Next shoot is on the 11th, so I get to sleep now.

*falls asleep*

Actually I wish I could, I could use some sleep from now until about 5pm. Last night we shot from 22:00 (that was the time I showed up anyway) to 5am. I got there at 8, the dude was there earlier because his beaten up looking homeless guy makeup takes a long time. It was about 10 before we shot anything because of the setup of all the lights and everything. It was probably midnight before I was needed for anything.

The night was long. I had to wear that uncomfortable outfit and those damn shoes again. First I had a simple scene to do where I walk up the stairs and then notice something and look at it... it was terrible.. I just couldn't make it seem natural. First I was walking too clumsily in the shoes... wonder why, and the director gave me all these specific instructions on how to move my hands or where to stop and turn and then was dissatisfied with it.. it looked unnatural, gee wonder why. I went through it many times and after a while I was completely unable to do any character thing whatsoever.. and was getting tired and feeling pressured. I tried to do it "my own way" meaning I walk how I walk but that was utterly flat and devoid of any spark as well.. partly because I'd done it so many times and party because.. well maybe I'm just no good at this stuff, in fact I'm certain of it. Anyway.. finally I did it slightly different, very simple, just stopped and turned a different way and he liked it. It felt just as unnatural to me as all the other versions, but whatevs. Then we set up to film.. everyone came out, the sound dude, the light dude, and the other actor and we went through it once... and then again because that's what you do, again because there was a bit of sound that wasn't meant to be in one, so again, and all the lights went out. It was all hooked up to the electric in the flat and there was like 4 lights and a camera and whatsits so it was too much for it..

so we had a break and waited for the lights to cool down and be usable again.

So we set up again, and did it once, did it again because that's what you do, did it again for safety, and then a few more times for one reason or another. Then we filmed the same scene but from a different angle... after they'd reset everything.

We filmed more scenes, a sequence that we rehearsed in one was cut up into about 4 scenes and we filmed them from about 3 different angles each.. it was difficult to stay in character and be natural when it was all so cut up, so my acting pretty much sucked in all the filmed scenes, I don't mind most of it except for the one where I say a line.. and all the takes that seemed "good" from the other side of the camera's point of view sounded terrible to me.

I spent hours, on and off in those bloody shoes and had to carry a paper bag the old fashioned way, under my left arm, but of course no one uses those sorts of bags here so we got one that looks like that sort of bag if you cover up the handles and my hand aches from holding it in that weird position so much.

The electricity went out twice more during the night. We meant to film about 9 scenes, I think we got 4 done. We were supposed to go until 3 at the latest and finished at 5. By that time I didn't mind so much, at least I could walk home in daylight.

I came in to a hungry cat screaming for food.. or possibly she was saying "where's my daddy???" and give me some food :). I slept a bit earlier but I can't really sleep in the day. And I ache. Back, feet and left arm. I could complain more and probably will at a later time, but that's enough for now :)

Shoot

Shot the first day's footage of my other film, the one I'm actually acting in, yesterday.

It was daytime, in the park, and the shoot was mostly of me walking, stopping and looking around. My costume was the favourite part, a word of advice for filmmakers, if you're a dude, or otherwise a person who doesn't really know much about women's clothing and women's stuff due to not doing them/wearing them, don't have really specific ideas on what you want, unless you have a huge budget and professionals who can sort that stuff out for you. Mine had these sorts of ideas. Of course, my costume was lovely. I had a sort of flowy but not really long skirt, a black shirt which he forgot to bring so I just kept on the one I was wearing, and a green jacket too small for me. The best were the shoes, very high heeled and pointy, and too small for me. He said bring tights, and as I only have black ones I brought those. The shoes were tan coloured. I also had a scarf around me, some dangly earrings and necklace. It mightn't sound like anything in particular but it looked like a combination of hippy, girly and trying but not succeeding to be professional.. and as it happens my character was described (in our early rehearsals) as curious, childlike, confident, and someone who's unremarkable so perhaps it fits.

My hair was done by me. He called up 2 days before and asked if I could do something myself, it didn't mater, as long as it curled and had volume. Kay.. so I got some mousse and some curly brush thing and succeeded in creating nothing. Then I just scrunched it up so it was sorta curly but mostly messy and that was what I was stuck with. And he wanted me to wear these hideous glasses too, but I deliberately forgot to wear them when we were shooting. And the makeup made me look.. combined with this outfit.. absolutely middle aged and horrible.. he wanted pale, so she made me pale and then regular makeup but no eyeliner, and I don't look good without eyeliner.. but nevermind.

So we shot.. we redid takes again and again, the shoes hurt like hell, but there was always a problem with sound or something.

After the park we shot some scenes by the river, on this little jutting out thing that was completely unstable and wonky, and he wanted me to go out there with those shoes on, but I felt too uncomfortable, so he had to shoot those scenes without the feet visible.

It was a nice day.. shooting went ok I guess. I think my acting sucked in the scenes I did because I was concentrating too much on getting the actions right... so complicated to walk, stop, pretend something is on your shoe and look up and around :) but that's how it always is.. I'm just not a professional.

We went late.. and probably would have gone later if it hadn't started raining near the end of the shoot... just as well it did, I got to go off to Al Capone's for a night before Singapore cocktail with Erik..

oh Erik left today.. did I mention that? I'm off to shoot number 2 in a few minutes, the night shoot.

This deja vu feels familiar..

Got back from the airport a while ago. My it felt familiar. Seeing someone off, then leaving, alone..
of course last time I was there just over a month ago the familiar feeling was much stronger.. just the day before I'd done the same thing, with the same person in what can be described in no other way than a debacle.

I've spent a fair bit of time at the airport in recent years, not so much as this last month or so, but I've gone out to greet people and see them off more than a few times. Not so much to go somewhere though. Not at all actually.. I should work on that.. gets a bit much seeing people go places all the time you know.

Well he's gone. Just for a month so I think I can keep it together. Have more filming tonight.. oh, there was filming yesterday, but there's so much I want to say that's simultaneously stimulating to me and completely boring to anyone else.. ie the same as I've written about all the rehearsals that I don't know where to start and I'm tired. Snore.