Reliving a Monster – Shaking out the Jitters
Danny Daneau
Director
…it was morning.
My first day of production. Maybe it was the lack of sleep or the calming conversation that I had with my producers the night before, but I didn’t feel as sick or nervous as I thought I would. After taking a long warm shower, and getting ready in front of the hotel mirror, I grabbed my thick directors notebook and headed out the door.
I arrived to a relaxing and calm atmosphere on set. Because of child labour laws and rules within the Screen Actors Guild, there was a limit to the amount of time I could work a child actor every day. This meant every morning we would have an extra hour or so to get set up and ready for the day ahead before any cast arrived.
When scheduling the interiors of the film, we decided that the best way to get all the scenes in the can was to shoot out each room individually. This is not a new concept as most feature length films are shot out of sequence for the interest of time and money. This meant we would spend a day or two in a room and not move into the next room until most, if not all, the scenes were completed. Today, to my relief, we were starting in the kitchen.
The kitchen scenes were the least demanding on everyone with minimal camera, dialog, performance, and blocking. This meant we could all take the time we needed to find our groove as a film crew. For me it meant I could find the best method of communicating with my actors on the film set.
