Not much of a diary this, keep not having time to make entries…
This week was in the studio, and I found it a bit more difficult on the whole. The schedule slipped a bit, so we found on several days that we didn’t start shooting until about 2.00. This was awkward for lots of reasons – people lost energy, and they were also in danger of losing commitment (because we weren’t starting early then they needn’t arrive early). However, luckily the team were so committed and engaged that this didn’t happen.
Fantastic solutions to the set, and a nice sense of depth, as long as the bluescreen works.
The major learning experience this week was, I think, about the two Tiresiases. I had always kept in mind the idea that they would replicate each others performances and gestures, so they could be morphed together. However, what emerged was both better and different, and I don’t know whether I recognised this in time. It was not really possible for them to give similar performances and it would have probably been more interesting for them to give very different performances, and compared them. However, they look really good in their porridge makeup, and I think we’ll be able to dissolve them together and have a more simple set up anyway.
Otherwise, the bluescreen determined the shots a bit – they were fairly traditional and conservative, establishers and reverses, but what was interesting was that the whole set up was simpler than I had in my mind, but probably more effective. Why make things more complicated than necessary (especially the splitting of Tiresias into his separate wholes).
I need always to see the actors in the shot, and also to play the scenes (especially when they are on different screens). I haven’t got the visual imagination to plot them in advance, but anyway, the experience of real bodies and actors is so different from the imagined one, that it is quite necessary.