The thing that is consistent about filmmaking is inconsistency.
No matter how much you plan or prepare, there will always be some sort of obstacle that the director and crew will have to face head on.
And in this case, this obstacle was definitely a first for all of us: a funeral.
The first of the four films we are producing is set in an old, overgrown cemetery in the heart of Prague. At first everything was smooth sailing — we knocked our shots out, the talent was having fun and the crew was a well-oiled machine. The scene we were working on took place on a bench with two actors engaging in some physical comedy and witty dialogue. Suddenly, a cemetery worker zoomed toward us on a golf cart telling us that a funeral was going to pass through our set.
Grabbing our stuff as fast as we could, we scurried away from our set and ran deeper into the cemetery, away from the impending morbid parade.
Soon a hearse cruised on by, followed by a march of mourners. Obviously the mourners did not want us there, and we didn’t want to be there. It kind of became this odd front of sorts. Then, the crew became divisive — some of us wanted to continue shooting even with the funeral happening just down the road, while others didn’t want to shoot out of respect despite being behind schedule. By the time the crew came to a compromise, the funeral was over. We then got back to our location, created our set once again, rolled the sound and camera, and continued from where we left off.
On every film set, there’s always some sort of problem no one can predict. What separates a great crew from a bad crew is how well they can think on their feet and solve anything that comes their way. Today, our crew did just that.
