As most of you know, we filmed our movie on Wednesday. Our Cinematographer, Coty Giannelli, arrived right on time and ready to roll. The costumes had their last minute fixes and we were off! We ran through the scenes, and ran through the scenes, and ran through the scenes again. Almost all of the costumes stayed together, with only a couple of heads rolling away.
Though a bit taken aback that the process lasted so long, the children were surprisingly patient and resilient. Two and one half hours and one newly altered squid head later….we finally said, “Cut!”
Of course, we didn’t make the children spend the entire two hours filming. Our original plan had been to spend some time outside in between scenes. The weather simply didn’t get the memo. As we switched between scenes, small groups went around the corner to read in the library. Sometimes I read to them, sometimes they read to each other. Generally, we relaxed between takes.
When we asked the children what the most challenging parts of movie making were, they offered many suggestions.
- Making your costume
- To decide what character you want to be
- You can’t take a drink when you are filming
- Keeping your costume from getting broken
- It takes a long time
- Remembering your lines
Although none of the children mentioned it, we’d like to add one more challenging aspect:
Staying frozen when you are a four or five-year-old actor who is supposed to be an inanimate object
….but maybe that goes without saying.
We are looking forward to the final cut from Coty within the next few weeks. Your invitations to the PKN Movie Premiere Night were sent home in your child’s backpack last Friday. It will be held on May 29th in the evening.