Photo by Rathore Photography

The first time I met Simi I saw a girl with large frizzy hair with a little bit of a nervous demeanour. I sensed that she had been messed around a bit by the previous DOP but I did not want to ask too many questions. I just wanted to answer her questions about how we might shoot this and work out how we can work together. I think we was both nervous which was why we did not exactly connect but I felt that there was something in there that made me feel that we could make a good partnership. At the end of the day I really liked the strangeness of her script and as a person I got the feeling that she had the mentality and imagination to pull it off because she came across as very ambitious and high achieving.  I also felt assured by her admission that she wanted a real partnership and a fully committed DOP.

Photo by Rathore Photography

As well as being a DOP I also work as a storyboard artist. I felt that I could be useful to Simi if I designed some shots with her. I realized this was my selling point to her because she praised by previous work quite highly. I like storyboarding with directors because it helps me to work out how their brain works. I later worked out that Simi really does have an interesting mind.

Photo by Rathore Photography

On the second meeting I met James and Digs who are friends and collaborators of Simi’s. It was in this meeting that I knew I was going to get on with Simi and that it was going to be an enjoyable friendship. Perhaps because her friends were there that it made her really open up. I realized that Simi is a very imaginative and open person with strong beliefs and virtues.  Pretty soon we spent more time together drinking coffee, eating burgers and storyboarding. We often procrastinated during these long sessions but it was fun and creative. What worried me is that the shot list was getting too long and  felt impossible to shoot. We cut back a bit but I knew in my heart that we did not cut back enough which would later kick our asses on set. It is my failure as a DOP that I did not offer enough solutions to Simi that we could shoot another way. We live and we learn!

Thanks for reading! I’ll bring you Day 1 of Production soon!