I remember a lecture in Colaiste Dhulaigh where Frank Berry told us that the biggest difference between an independent film and a Hollywood one is the quality of the sound.
I learnt from the very beginning to pay attention to the sound design and the general soundscape in the films. We have a very bad reputation about the sound quality of the local films. Until the last three or four years, almost all of the Bulgarian films were with bad sound. I think the problem wasn't technical but more likely a lack of attention and enough understanding that the sound is at least 60% of the final movie.
I am talking here only about our production sound. Again there were two guys who were hired to do the production sound. Both of them were working separately from each other. Veselin was recording the first half of the production and Tony was recording the second part of the production. So I had to adjust to two different styles and ways of working while shooting the film. Veseslin was with a huge amount of experience working on many documentaries. He was very fast with setting up the scene, cabling the cast and working with the boom and the mixer at the same time. In other hands Tony was paying more attention to the detail but was slower and more easy going from Veselin. However both of them did a great job of recording location sound in a location where everybody would think that is pure silence and natural sounds. Nothing similar.
My parents villa is actually only 500 m away from the village and one km away from the city of Rudozem. Very close to the villa are built other villas and huts. On top of this in the past year or so, over the city of Rudozem have been opened an airplane traffic with around more than twenty airplanes which were flying during the day and the night. The noise from the airplanes during the day and from the nearby villas with very loud music from people on their summer holidays made the life and the work of the sound guys a real challenge.
I didn't know at that time Kamen Atanasov our sound designer and mixer, who later on once told me that the goal for the location sound is to have very well recorded dialogues.
In reverse I wanted and required them to record folly sounds and all kinds of sounds from the location. Luckily for them we were finishing our scenes just at time before the day or the night to finish so they were mostly working on the sound from the scenes and nothing else.
We had days and nights when we had to stop shooting because of the noises around us. One night we even called the police because we had to complain about the loud music after 22:00. Why I am saying this is because I wanted to share that even when you think that high up in the remote mountains where everything should be silent and in harmony with nature you still must be prepared for all kinds of surprises when you are considering the sound. Now I completely understand why so many productions, especially in the USA are using ADR, or are trying to shoot the film in control environments like film production studios. It's much easier and quicker that way. We were wasting so much time on preparing for the sound or when we were interrupted because of the noises around us than with the whole camera and lighting set up. However, I must say that all of this attention and time spent was actually not wasted out but in reverse at the end it ended to be one of our best investments. The quality of the location sound was so good that we didn't have to do any ADR but the one made on location for the scene in the waterfalls. Kamen Atanasov managed to mix and work the dialogues only from the recorded sound on location.
SUMMARY
It's very hard to summarize with a few words an experience from such an intense and memorable event in my life. I have learnt from those twenty days a great amount of things about filmmaking, about myself, and about people in general. I realized what I was born to do and what I would love to work for the rest of my life.
As I said before I have worked in my life dozens of very interesting jobs and I have been practicing dozens of very interesting activities. I've been a bartender, a waiter, a chef, a security officer, a builder, an environmental consultant, an entrepreneur, a horse keeper, a painter, a hostel manager and many others jobs. I have trained in my life, full contact karate, rock climbing, football, triathlon, trail and ultra marathon running, yoga and other. However, nothing could compare to the level of intensity, thrill, serenity and zen which I was experiencing while we were shooting the film.
The film production phase is a team work, it is a collaboration of a team effort. A creative process which requires communication and human interaction. It is like an imaginary child game but played with more expensive toys and from grown ups. It is a spectacular world filled with amazing and unique individuals, great talents and fantastic creative people. The world created during the production is going with its own time and in its own space. The news which is important for this world is the news about the weather and which day it is, nothing else matters.
The day in which we wrapped the production we celebrated, everyone felt a great relief from the fact that we have accomplished something unique and something very difficult. I am so proud of everyone who took a part in this magical and mystical meeting of people. Most of us were not knowing each other but who found a common language and common goal to create ART. To surrender to the idea and the story and to try to do everything possible to make it happen. We did it, we survived and we left the mountain with a short film which was waiting to be assembled and edited.
WRAP!
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