Lights, Camera, Action!

Filmmaking is a fascinating yet complicated process. And in the UK, for example, in comfort and safety of some of the best studios in the world — Pinewood, Shepperton, Warner Brothers to name a few, the magic is being created twenty four seven. Though not without certain challenges, the process has been smoothed by decades upon decades of testing, optimising and experience in a safe environment, with access to top equipment and overseen by thousands of best qualified crew, that more often than not drift together from one cool project to another. Big directors fly in to shoot their hundred million dollar movies and if Hollywood exists anywhere else in the world, besides, well, Hollywood, that would be in London.

But the world of filmmaking doesn’t stop with London or Hollywood. In fact, lately we’ve been hearing more and more new names, emerging from all different parts of our wonderful planet, presenting some mind blowing content, produced in circumstances a lot less fortunate from those mentioned above. And very often, these are the filmmakers that steal the spotlight at festivals and end up winning some of the world’s most prestigious awards.

So what is it like out there? How do they do it and what does it really take to make a good movie? A number of things, I suppose. But perhaps, instead of trying to identify them all, I could simply share some of my personal experience working on a couple of productions abroad and on sets that were as far from studio glam as one can only imagine.

One of the highlights of my professional achievements so far has been working with an Oscar and Golden Globe nominated Georgian director Zaza Urushadze. After spending a sleepless night just sitting on my bedroom floor and grinning at a wall like an idiot — which was the logical result of learning I’d landed the lead female part in his upcoming movie “Anton", an international co-production, I packed my suitcase, waved Pinewood good-bye and hopped on a plane to… Ukraine. What I was facing was a two-month location shoot in Odessa.

I must admit, there I found myself among some of the nicest people I’d ever worked with, but in the middle of utter chaos and disorganisation. From the ever changing schedule, with shooting days being pushed back, moved forward, scrapped then added, scenes swapped and significant bits of dialogue changed last minute without giving actors enough notice to learn it, to total obscurity as to who was responsible for what on and off set. Some of the key members of crew kept being hired, then fired, then would suddenly change their position. That was certainly very different, I thought. But that’s the way things were, and so in addition to the main job, which was playing a challenging and dramatic part of Christina, a native German (sending greetings to my dialect coach), I also spent enormous amount of time and energy fighting external issues, including, on certain occasions, those of health and safety, that would prevent me from doing the job number one to the standards I’m used to.

But I must say, all of that would fade away as soon as Zaza himself would step into play. Working with him was indeed a real blessing. He was a true perfectionist, with a unique vision, and a very interesting approach — he knew exactly how each scene should look, every tiny detail, and he would not accept it any other way. Have you ever witnessed chaos clashing with perfection? I could see he was struggling with it too. But if anyone could fix it, it was him. Only someone with his strength of character and determination would be able to hold a project like that together. Not only that — to make it into a strong movie that grips you emotionally from the very start and which also looks aesthetically breathtaking. The latter was achieved by combining Zaza’s artistic approach with no less artistic cinematography by Mikhail Petrenko, who also came up with a number of creative and unconventional solutions in some challenging situations where the lack of thereof would have been critical.

If there is a country that we know even less about than Ukraine in terms of film production it would be Kenya. A small group of international film makers, including yours truly, went all way there to shoot a project “View From Above”, written and directed by Eugene Izraylit.

Another location shoot, and in this particular case the main difficulty was presented by the location itself: the film was to be shot in the heart of Kibera — the biggest slums on African continent. The place so controversial that not even local authorities were enthusiastic about the possibility of going in there with us to provide protection. Eventually, the local mafia took on that responsibility. As you can imagine, in an environment like that there was no room for any delays, doubt or disorganisation. It was simply too dangerous. It was also obvious, that for the local crew from Nairobi the situation was as unconventional as for the rest of us. But it’s incredible how such a diverse group of people can unite in a face of a common challenge. Trailers, honey wagons, taking time for complicated setups or spending half an hour in a make up chair — forget it! The task was to shoot those scenes and get out of there before the dark. This project worked, because every single person involved was rooting for it and wanted it to work.

It also worked because of Eugene’s approach to directing and managing his team. Whilst staying true to his vision, he was nevertheless extremely flexible and adaptable — both to the environment, the difficulties and opportunities it presented, and to his actors. Indeed, many of the obstacles were resourcefully turned into opportunities by Eugene and cinematographer Max Efros. It’s interesting and not surprising at all, that after demonstrating ability to work in such conditions and under so much pressure, Eugene went on to write, develop and shoot bigger scale projects, that are currently gaining a lot of attention and international recognition.

As for our African adventure, I must add that during the filming we were also helped by the locals. In fact, some cast members were sourced right there, in Kibera. Eugene chose them because they were real. Naturally, some of them had zero acting experience. And here stepped in my co-star, British actor Mark Parsons, who turned out to be not just a wonderful actor, but also a great acting coach. With his help they managed to create true magic on screen.

So, going back to what I started with — I am not going to try to identify all the elements that may be responsible for making a good movie, but I do have one word for you: people. People, who truly love what they do. You could be looking at the world through the eye of the most expensive anamorphic lens and the pretty picture you“d see would be just that — a pretty picture. But people, their enthusiasm, dedication, effort and creativity, especially when pushed to their limits — that’s what”s adding a whole new dimension. Personally, I can’t wait to discover new names from all over the world and see what they have to offer. And hopefully, I’ll be able to join some of them for some new exciting adventure.