The shooting dates were from Friday the 13th until Tuesday the 17th of March. Covid 19 was still on its premisses as the news were getting more and more erratic. However, the hospital nor the rentals prohibited us from carrying on the shoot.
The first day was entirely in Carol's bedroom. It all went very well, apart from the last Top Shot where Nina had cried, and her make up bruises had been sliced in two by her tear drop. Margheritta (MU) had gone, so I had to improvise myself Make Up artist to reproduce the bruise.
As there was no heating, it was very tough for the team to do a 14 hours day as an opener.
But somehow, I guess the script carried the team, as well as the gear we managed to acquire for 0.00
Christine Hooper (KAREN) and Nina Aboutajedyne (CAROL) delivered an incredibly emotional scene. I was crying with them behind my screen, and as I announced the last "cut" of the day, I rushed to hug them both.
During the second day, we filmed all the corridor scenes, and welcomed Margot Marie Menegutz as our nurse Mary. Above is a photo where we are missing Olivia Jubin, in the role of Keira, as we have a strike of 4 actors from Fred Malek's Caractères Agency.
Sunday, the pandemic panic started to strike. The Studio we were supposed to shoot the tunnel in got cancelled, as well as the flat we were going to use for flashbacks.
We decided to carry on with Monday in the morgue at Ville Evrard, and build our tunnel in the corridor.
I decided to cancel the remaining scenes we had to shoot with Collin David Reese, the actor casted for the role of Toby, and Yuming too. As they have both been instructed by their doctors not to go out, we had to think differently about the remaining day of shooting.
We made masks out of visitors blouses, and even enjoyed a lunch in the sun. I had stayed up the night before preparing salads for the crew.
However, on Sunday evening, concerns had grown to an extent where I had to be thoughtful. We were a limited crew on Monday morning, and has confinement rumours where spreading, we cut our day short.
The school didn't help in the sense that they had emailed me at 10am to return the gear before 6pm. However, when I directed, I am not on my emails. They then called me at 5pm to claim the gear. Luckily we had already packed up.
We rushed to the Cité du Cinéma, where Matthieu got told that it was too late. He got there at 6.45 and had been stuck in traffic since 5pm. People where mass exodusing out of Paris and it created chaos on the roads.
However, the next morning, before the 12:00 curfew for all outgoings, Matthieu managed to hand over all light, grip and camera equipment. His heroic like accomplishment won us the trust and gratitude of rental partners, willing to lend us everything again once this madness will be over.
We finished on Monday afternoon with a very strange feeling; having been in Ville Evrard since Thursday, it's like we hadn't witnessed what was happening around us. We were one of the last shoots to end on confinement day, as all other productions had been shut down beforehand.
Finishing the first part of CORAL in an old morgue in a psychiatric hospital as everything goes to tits outside before of Coronavirus... Let's just say that faith was on our side.
I cannot wait to start again after all this is over. I miss the incredible team of technicians, all the very gifted actors and our thoroughness that we collectively created.
Very soon, you'll see a trailer for CORAL. Until then, be safe all.
Love
Louisa
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