the hour of living
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    • das team
    • dan absalom (ivor)
    • pepe belmonte (the singer)
    • adam berzsenyi bellaagh (codirector)
    • gregor brändli (director of photography)
    • sam fordham (theo)
    • gary grant (harry)
    • charlotte heinimann (gabrielle)
    • georg isenmann (production manager swiss unit)
    • livia krummenacher (production assistant swiss unit)
    • sebastian michael (writer, director, producer & george)
    • jay ramirez (continuity & styling)
    • moritz anselm schermbach (camera assistant)
    • christoph schwegler (werner)
    • andrea spolarics (eva)
    • pascal verdosci (coproducer)
    • david wade (conrad)
    • geoff widdowson (sound)
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shoot day 22:

29/10/2010

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‎'the ant? we could adopt it but then it would no longer be free'

we meet at nine at the extraordinary cable street studios for the 'london flat' scenes. a cool fourteen hours later, we have become quite expert at handling tiny insects and we have what may be the film's most moving moment in the can. only one day of principal photography to go, but this one is made by the news that the keys to my very good friend's house have been found!... i am more than a little happy and relieved right now.
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shoot day 21:

28/10/2010

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 ‎'you ever thought of being a barman?'

the pivotal prop yesterday was, astonishingly, more or less our first hiccup of the shoot. and then i lost the keys to my good friend's house... - today we're ticking off several short scenes across prime locations in london as one of our characters makes her understated but impactful surprise visit while george is reconnecting with life...
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shoot day 20:

28/10/2010

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‎'it's just something she had, mate, she just had stuff you know, we all do.'

we're about to shoot the scene where the pivotal prop - the object that triggers off the whole story - is found. we've got the prop, only it's the wrong type. three hours and a spirited runner's trek across half the known universe to ruislip later, the right prop arrives and some beautiful shots are born...
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shoot day 19:

26/10/2010

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‎'she was my ex-wife's lover at the time'

whether it's the afterglow of the full moon, low air pressure or or a whiff of a hangover from last night's 'party', today we're most of us a bit late and a bit distracted. the light doesn't quite work, concentration is borderline scatty and everything takes longerthan normal. also it's our first bad luck day for weather: rain is not what was on order to match up with the glorious sunshine we had the other day for scenes that are meant to happen within minutes of each other... still, we work through it, give ourselves a bit of time off and come up with solutions. (we think...)
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shoot day 18:

25/10/2010

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'what are you, a drug dealer?'

the day is spent at the legendary troubadour which stands in for both the 'london coffee house' and the 'london music club' scenes - not surprisingly, since they were written with it in mind... (and harry, worry not, is not a drug dealer!) - then on to the mango lounge for the pivotal party scene where we are met by a fabulously friendly and up-for-it bunch of extras who make absolutely the most of them classic eighties tracks. and the loveliest surprise of the shoot: the whole youth contingent from elder latimer (our play last year at arcola) turns up to be part of it. bless you all, you've made my day! 
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shoot day 17:

24/10/2010

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'how do you know it was a woman? it could have been an alien.'

after another travel day and a day off, we finally launch into the london leg of our shoot, with the not-yet-at-all-famous rooftop scene. our luck with the weather continues, though from about midday onwards the intermittent clouds keep us on our toes as we hear the cry 'waiting for sun!' more than any of the more usual ones, like 'waiting for sound!' or 'changing lenses!'.  the good news is that nobody falls off the roof (there were banisters all round...) and after a fairly full-on four hour non-stop session we have got what we came up here for in the can.
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shoot day 16:

23/10/2010

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"we are witches"

polperro presents itself from its most picturesque perspective and the sun comes out just in time for the moment when our sound man, now playing jamie, walks straight into the sea. the camera team, not to be outdone and forever in search of the perfect shot, dress down to fetching underwear and follow suit. later in the pub, the ladies who'd moved so as not to get in our way introduce themselves with a line you don't get to hear very often and promise good vibes: cornwall complete.
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travel day

21/10/2010

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"because of some industrial action we have to avoid french air space completely"

yesterday was travel day and a long trip it was: from basel to zürich from zürich to heathrow from heathrow to polperro in cornwall. the slight complication of the day though was not the french strike (what's new - maybe they should put strike as their default setting there and just tell everyone when the mood grabs them and they feel like doing a bit of work...) but the fact that polperro has no mobile phone signal except for one provider, and that's by no means the most widely used one. so whether everyone would find the base was touch and go for a while, but in the end everybody made it and our reward was a fine cornish ale...
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shoot day 15:

19/10/2010

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‎'you have to try things in life, what else are you living for?'

lake zürich today for a scene of understated melancholy and long-harboured affection and then back to eo ipso in basel for theo's reverse shot and close ups. by now i think our actor sam is actually theo and there's nothing in him i could or would want to change. having spent half the morning in a traffic jam caused by a ghastly crash on the motorway earlier, we're running late all day for the first time, but our woes by comparison are as nothing, and we wrap our switzerland shoot a little tired but in very good spirits 28 minutes behind schedule, which we think is not bad going, all things considered...
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shoot day 14:

18/10/2010

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'always remember this: a sausage is something to eat not something to be.'

full-on and fairly iconic day today with gentle trips backwards and forwards across the river rhine on one of the famous, current-only-powered ferries with a super-friendly ferryman; then the first half of 'danielle's' scenes, and then what may yet be the most enjoyably unusual shot of our entire film so far in one of the most inherently surreal settings basel has to offer at the extraordinarily soulless yet almost retro-stylish three-country corner. tomorrow: zürich!
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<<Previous
    due to the horrendous evils of spam i've had to set comments to 'approval needed'. but please feel free to comment: i won't censor or hide you; this really is just to spare us all the intrusion of unwanted advertising for decidedly crap websites.

    sebastian

    i am, i suppose, the instigator of this project.  i wrote it, i'm producing it together with pascal verdosci, i'm directing, together with adam berzsenyi bellaagh, and because i've got adam codirecting, i'm even acting in it. but really the impetus for it came from our director of photography gregor brändli, who said to me 'october i'd be available to make a film'. and we'd been meaning to make our first feature ever since we first worked together, back in 2005...


    so it is, as you can imagine, a complete team effort, this, and we are fortunate to have on our team people with years of experience, as well as complete novices who are just starting out.


    i'm sure this will make it both solid and fresh at the same time...

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    banner image from our footage, shot on location in safiental, switzerland
an optimist film by sebastian michael
©2012