Production Notes: Susan
After extensive pre-production, the Dutch crew and cast were assembled for 3 weekends of shooting re-enactments for “Mata Hari- The Naked Spy.” I flew in from San Francisco as a record heat wave hit Amsterdam. The initial production days were predicted to be over 100 degrees Farenheit with the first location on a beautiful party boat, The Princess Orange, but wait-for-it- there was no air conditioning. We would have to close all the heavy velvet drapes because every room was surrounded by windows. This was sure to create a stifling shooting situation. What to do?
Machiel and I went to 3 different stores where all the portable air conditioners were sold out but at the 4th store we got lucky and bought the last one available. Turns out the only place we could run it was on the lower deck in the “changing” room. ARGH! No help at all in the rooms where we were shooting.
We had a rough first day adjusting to working together with unfamiliar crew and cast. And it was so damn hot, plus our gaffer had Tungsten lights which only heated things up more. We were all sweating buckets, but everyone hung in there and did their best.
At the end of the first 16 hour day, Machiel dropped me off at the mansion where I was house sitting (more about that later) and as I was trying to figure out how to turn on the shower, he called me. I could tell he was very upset. “Bad news,” he said. “We had a bizarre technical problem and none of our footage is useable!” OMG! “But it checked out on the monitor when we played it back,” I protested. I won’t bore you with the technical details, but he was right – everything was lost.
Still reeling with shock, I pulled myself together and said “SH**#! happens, at least no one has died or is critically ill.” In life, when things go south, that’s my go-to mantra to put things in perspective. I took a deep breath and said, “We’ll survive this, let’s come up with a plan to deal with it.” And we did. We threw out the scenes we didn’t need and the ones that weren’t working and reshot. Luckily I had brought our brand new video camera with me but we hadn’t used it the first day because Machiel hadn’t had time to set it up. The next day he winged it and amazingly it all turned out for the best. The second day we did everything faster, better and our images were much higher quality with the new camera.
And that’s when Machiel and I knew we were going to make it as a team – we encountered a filmmaker’s worst nightmare on our first big production day and we didn’t kill each other, or blame each other or give up. The boat owners were incredibly gracious and our terrific cast/crew rallied. We were able to turn it around and move forward. Things could only improve– and thank god they did.
Credits:
René Wielings: Casting
Irene Klomp: Set Designer
Machiel Amorison: Director/Cinematographer
Susan Wolf: Producer/Director
Ellis Tensen: Wardrobe
Liesbeth Stoelinga: Craft Service
Oscar Moreno: 1st Camera Assistant
Geert Klaibeda: Gaffer/Electric
Nataliya-Alexandra Makhortova and Maartje vaan der Zon: Makeup
Arno Kloningstein and Boen Tan: Owners Cruise With Us Amsterdam
Cast:
Florence Rapati, Miranda Oude Veldhuis, Jelle Chin, Ellis Tensen, Bas Amorision, Bert Maurits, Victoria Romanova, Astrid Noordhof, Nick Boerson, Caspar Van Lissa, Myrthe Ter Host, Amber Cavalli, Bodine Ester, Wini Di
