I awoke at 7am. We had three alarm calls. Green, amber and red. I got up on amber.
The location was on the other side of the river. The West Side, I was told. We passed houses, apartment blocks, Poles on their way to work. On our left there was a massive outdoor market. A girl said that it was a Russian market. You could get “anything” in this market, she said. From socks to tanks! There were children, hired by the stalls, to pick pockets “…so you shouldn’t go with a wallet. Just take cash…” Thankfully I always buy my plutonium with cash. Crazy place.
This is one of the poorest areas in Warsaw. The girls on the crew kept saying that it wasn’t a place to walk alone, lots of drugs, beatings and crime. I don’t know though, there seemed to be mostly old age pensioners and young kids to-ing and fro-ing from the surrounding concrete apartment blocks. Not a baddy in sight.
The first shot of the day was my discovery of the ‘alluring twins’. The twins were sisters from Iceland. They looked amazing, all dressed like gypsies. The makeup made them look like life-size dolls. Beautiful but slightly creepy. We shot from 9am until 2pm.
This part of filmmaking is pretty boring; the directors and the crew do all of the real work. The subjects (us) wait about and find ways of passing the time while lenses are changed, dolly tracks are lain, props moved about, and shots are lined up.
A good way of passing the time today was jumping up and down on the spot, and seeing how many blankets one could pile upon oneself. The temperature was below freezing all day and when the wind kicked up you knew all about it.
Mid afternoon and early evening was for me and Dougie. He looked very dapper in his Cochise get up. The feather hanging from his head gave him a Keith Richards air.
We spent the next 5 hours running back and forward. At the end of each take we were covered with puffa jackets. There is so much waiting around, you sometimes forget what’s going on.
Late evening, we went around the corner to film indoors. Our crew and masses of equipment filled the stairwell of a small apartment block. They‘d set up in a 1 room and kitchen. The man who’s house it was, greeted us from his kitchenette. He was so chilled out, as if having a full film crew in his living room was something he did all the time. So far it seems that all the people we meet in Poland have this laid back vibe about them. No stress. No egos.
They shot Neilly and Andy in the man's wee living room. Me and Dougie run in expecting the alluring twins and get tweedle dum and tweedle dee making a cake and playing a toy guitar. Neilly always looks amazing on film. Like a 40’s movie star. Very photogenic.
I must say that we all look good in this video. I think we like the dressing up bit. The last time we did the dressing up bit was as teachers in the video for Driftwood. Ahhh, makeup, costume, lights, action. We love it.
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