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June 2008
Found in translation
Camille is handling everything at the Paris end - including permissions - beautifully. There’s a tiny snag: we have to submit the script in French. I have dodgy menu French at best. A neighbour John-Paul May tells me about Proz.com and I put up a message asking for help. In two hours I have sixty translators who want the job (you get the feeling they spend most of their time fighting with technical manuals and that a script might be light relief). Caroline Ricard’s test translation is elegant, she’s fast and good value. In 48 hours we have the script to submit to the Mairie de Paris and SNCF.
Coming to life
While we are trying to keep things light as possible and relying on people, like DoP Martin Lightening with documentary experience, a bit of classic movie technique, in the form of storyboards, could help everyone see the picture we are trying to make. Rose Pomeroy is drawing them and to brief Rose I do some drawings of my own. All of my drawings look like a) amoebas in a petridish or b) or dust motes in a shaft of light. Yet Rose seems to get it and in a day or so is firing over key frames that help us collectively visualise the thing.
Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite
I know I’m supposed to constantly rewrite. I know I have to ‘kill all my darlings’ (I cut out two ‘zingers’ today) but what I don’t know is when to stop, or how much cutting is enough? It seems to be influenced by the weather. Some days I blithely remove long-cherished lines. On others I can’t cut a comma. How do you know when you’re done?
Thank you Aude & Eurostar
The beautifully named Aude Criqui in the Eurostar press office is in charge of film permissions. I’m scared when I call her - without the train scene the film will be seriously diminished and trains are famously difficult to arrange: they also cost. Aude is instantly can-do and encouraging. We talk about dates and I bundle off the script to her - and wait. A few days pass then an email arrives: yes we can do it. And this: ‘Please note this booking will be complimentary.’ I send it to Paul and show it to Emily to check over - can it mean what I think it means? It does. I know Eurostar are keen on film: they funded Shane Meadows’s Somers Town. We are a much, much smaller deal but it’s still a magnificent gesture. Apart from the money it has a galvanising effect: ‘yes, this is really going to happen.’ Thank you Aude. Thank you Eurostar.