I finally have some time to think and write about everything that happened during the filming of the project. Three days full of unforeseen circumstances, very stressful but also very rewarding. I am very happy I got to film my idea and direct a lovely team of 15 people that decided to collaborate with my idea.
DAY 1 – 24th August
The trousers from one of the looks were delivered in the morning just one hour before we had to leave, luckily in time. The first car drove to the location (DOP, 1AC, stylist, producer, and myself). After four hours drive and a little car accident, we arrived at the accommodation. The landlady was very excited about having us and told us all the stories of when the Game of Thrones cast stayed in this little town of the North of Spain. We went to do a location recce but it was quite late and we missed the light. We could just locate one place.
Fiorella (art director) was meant to fly to Madrid from London that night, but she called me from the airport. She could not take the plane because she took the wrong passport with her to the airport. We checked flights for the morning, but the earliest one arrives in Madrid later than the time the cars are scheduled to drive to the location. We decided she’d fly to Barcelona, take the train to Zaragoza from where one of the cars will pick her up at 3pm, and take her to the location (1hr drive). SO GLAD SHE CAME NEVERTHELESS! I thought I’d not have an art director at the very last minute.
DAY 2 – 25th August
Warplanes woke me up, the bomb testing was happening in the Bardenas reservoir in the morning and we could hear it from our accommodation.
The other two cars came from Madrid in the morning. Makeup and styling have started while I go back to finish the recce with the DOP and the loaded film camera to get some establishing shots. One of the cars is driving to Zaragoza to pick up Fiorella from the train station.
We head to the location to start shooting at 3pm. Fiorella and one art direction assistant stayed at the accommodation to work on the set design that would be shot the next day.
It was extremely hot, 39º degrees.
We had permission to certain locations but not all of them. The first one was one of the not allowed ones, the guard told us to not use that footage in the final edit so I’ll need to edit it out to send the copy to the Bardenas admin.
The trousers got ripped while filming one of the scenes and the stylist got really concerned, as the designer who is also her friend, lent them to us as a favor.
Besides the extreme heat and making sure everyone kept drinking water all the time, first shoot day was good.
We drove back to the accommodation where the set was being built for the next day.
DAY 3 – 26th August
On the 26th we started filming earlier to cover all the scenes needed. It was even hotter than the day before. The art department would spend the day building the set to be filmed later on.
–Yosephine (cast) felt really sick and dizzy from the heat after filming the first scene. She had to spend three hours in the car with the AC on and constantly being cooled down with some water. The trousers got messed up with the water and sand + the rip from the day before. I tried to keep this out of my mind and worry about it later.
-One of the cars got a flat tyre when driving to one of the locations in the desert and had to leave to quickly get it repaired.
-We filmed with Victor while Yosephine was recovering from the heat stroke. The park guards were around all the time.
-Yosephine had to leave in the first car that was driving her to Zaragoza to get a train home. The rest of the team stayed with Victor to finish some scenes.
-IT’S A WRAP. We finished one hour later than we were supposed to. The moment we said “it’s a wrap”, the warplanes flew over making a very frightening noise. I rushed everyone to pack everything. We had to leave ASAP. We were heading out of the park with the cars. It was already very dark and we realized we’d left part of the set (a wooden table) and had to drive back. I was panicking, didn’t want to risk anyone’s safety.
Luckily we all left in time, safe and sound.