Producer and Actor
I am finding this experience of making a film every week so intense and immersive that I am actually struggling to transition back into my regular life. That has seemed to peak with this week. When I watched the Persona clip for the first time realized how huge a challenge this assignment would be. I offered to my group to be the producer and set to work transcribing the script. I knew that the actor being well prepared and knowing the lines would save us a lot of time on the day so also offered to act and found another actor for the other part so the rest of our group could be free to be hands on crew on the day.
After watching the clip through a few more times, I felt the need for a better understanding of the context. I found the full film on YouTube and watched it. Meanwhile I asked a few Swedish friends if they would be able to help with a better translation. Everyone was stumped by ‘Cut a Candle,’ it is what the actress literally says but as far as my friends knew it was not a Swedish phrase. One even called up her Father to ask if it had been a saying in the past. She suggested it was meant to mean ‘cut through the darkness’ and I liked that and thought it fit well. There were also a couple better suggestions for different words and after that I just took a few more liberties to make it flow a bit better in English. However, it still didn’t make a lot of sense and watching the full film wasn’t quite the ‘Ah Ha!’ moment I was hoping for. After some reading it turns out the meaning of ‘Persona’ has been one of the most discussed and any theory can be dismantled and contradicted at the same time. To act I needed the words to mean something to me. They didn’t have to literally make sense but if I could give them my own meaning they would come to life. As I practiced and learned them by heart, I gave them a meaning in my head as closely as I could to fit the story.
The location for filming makes quite a difference for being able to create the high contrast lighting effect. We wanted a room that could be dark except for the lighting we create and luckily, I knew of such a room in the Arts Centre from another project. After showing it too our Cinematographer and Light Technician I booked the room through my friend who works in the office there.
I spent a couple hours trawling through the charity shops in town, I think I went to every single one, looking for costumes until I found the right things. The right apron and hat where not to be found so I sewed them myself from a white bed sheet. The white sheets for the backdrop, rope to hang them from and chocolate syrup for blood where the last items on my list of props to bring.
As I was to be acting on the day I thought it would be a good idea to have a line producer on the day, especially due to the nature of the task it was imperative that we get all of the shots to match the original as closely as possible. I made a screenshot check list that we could check off on the day to be sure we had everything. This was especially helpful as we had to shoot out of sequence to save time with the camera and lighting movements.
Once again, absolute top effort from every member of our group to make our Persona Reenactment a close as we could.
Lesson of the week, Preparation makes a huge difference but seriously two hours is not enough time when we are also getting used to new equipment, the lights in this circumstance. If there is any element that that hasn’t been done before, practised or just not very sure about it will take up extra time.
Diet Coke Productions 