The last shooting week in China dawned upon us through a thick cloud of pollution. The beach outside had a slim snow veil covering it, although it disappeared as the sun warmed the air up. I woke up feeling well rested, despite the reminders of last night’s Vedett’s still in the back of my head. Annika wasn’t feeling that good, back home she’s stayed on a healthy diet and hasn’t had the same amount of dinners with white wine and Tsingtao beers as I have over here, but we managed to chomp down some breakfast before the pickup came for me.
The shooting day was truly a jigsaw puzzle of scheduling. We started at studio 3, and the B-unit started at studio 24. The plan was that by the time we finish on studio 3, B-unit rolls to another studio, while the A-unit moves to 24. Luckily, though, we started to move pretty quickly, everyone was much more relaxed after a day off, and the whole shoot was smooth sailing all through the day. We did go a bit over, and didn’t really finish everything, but we did quite damn well considering.
I also finally got around starting to do the list of pickups we are still missing from the film. They tend to pile up by the end of the shoot and since we only have one week to go, we really have to start grabbing those. Also, the editor had her list of requirements, although I must admit I didn’t quite understand why she needed certain shots, but it made sense. She seems to be a good editor, but I do recognize some differences in Western/Chinese storytelling, which might prove to be a bigger obstacle in the future, but hopefully not!
Annika came over to the set in the afternoon and we ordered some Pizza Hut, since we both really craved for something simple and very Western. The pizza hit the spot, although it also made me feel like 20 years older and fatter westerner, after having eaten so much Chinese food lately. Whatever Chinese food is, it at least has very little wheat in it, and very little salt, so although you eat a lot of it, you never feel sick like after eating too much pizza.
At least that’s my observation.
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