Onboard Diary

Impressions of the filming

Directing a film is a weird sensation. I have always compared the days that the shooting of the film I'm directing last to that of a powerful drug. 

It is hard to explain the sensation you feel when you're pending of millions of different details. When you are responsible for each color, rock and sigh that has a place in the frame of the camera. When you need to put pressure on each department into reaching their full potential. When you need to answer quickly and precisely each uninterrupted question directed at you from the very beginning of each morning. When you have in your hands the power to manipulate the actor's reaction, to provoke sensations, tones or inflections on his character's voice. 

It´s hard to explain the sensation of power that one feels when having so many elements in your hands and to be the architect that has to fit all the pieces of the puzzle.

But much harder to explain than all this, the adrenaline rush that creeps up on you on set and enables you to neither feel pain or exhaustion, to remain in permanent activity for hours and fully aware of every single microscopic detail, is that it's much harder to keep your sanity and avoid the temptation to compare oneself with that of an old and almighty god.

Having a great team helps a lot, because the creativity is shared and everyone does its part. It introduces their sensibility and their small vibration in every moment. 

It is crucial to have a good team.

Why am I telling you all this? Because, as many of you know, we've had the first week of shooting The Cosmonaut.

It wasn't a conventional first week of shooting, but a small advance party. A reduced team (Luis Enrique, director of photography; Margarita, designer of wardrobe; Alisa, Sasha y Julia, our production team in Russia, and me). A small preview where we took our main actor to shoot some takes of him as a cosmonaut wandering on a deserted earth. Where we needed some takes with snow to ambient the years that passed in our story.

It´s been a week in which we have filmed stock shots, reference shots, landscapes and some important scenes of the movie. We have reduce everything to its minimal expression. Margarita has taken the role of the hairdresser, I was the camera assistant, and our actor has cooked for us. It´s been like living as a family for a week.

We filmed in Moscow, in Star City, in a dacha (a Russian rural house) and in its surroundings. We feel, for the first time, the thrill to film. After two years of hard work, we can finally feel that The Cosmonaut is real. That we are going to make this movie. That we are already doing it.

In addition, luck is on our side. We've found the perfect locations. We've got incredible things. We were lucky with the weather. Each detail has been ideal. The ambient has been relaxed, joyful, filled with laughs and jokes, of absurd language miscommunications and of happy moments. Not even in my best dreams, I'd have ever thought that things could go so well. That I would feel so good and safe. And we haven´t even started to film the movie. In the real shooting of the film, not five but thirty people, will work to make it as good as it was planned. Where I will have to face the actors, the scenes and the pressure of time. 

I can barely hold my nerves. June, please come now.

Carola goes to the airport to wish us farewell. We took all the material for the camera with us. The flight takes 4 hours. A weird mistake with the catering ends up with us eating dietetic food. It's good.

When we arrive, Alisa and Sasha, of whom I will tell you more soon, welcome us. We start our trip by going to Margarita's grandmother's house, where we will stay for more than half of the time we intend to stay on Moscow. After the arrival, we have our first production meeting: we make a schedule for the week, we discuss the pros and cons of filming in certain locations, we leave everything wrapped up. We are amazed by the efficiency of Alisa and Sasha. We have never met face to face. I didn't know what to expect from them, but I think the early predictions will run short.

-Thursday: 

We leave early to go to Valeri Illich's (Sasha's father-in-law) dacha. Valeri, we'll discover it in the next few days, is an incredibly generous, hilarious and interesting person. Many Russians have rural homes where they go to spend their weekends. When we arrive, we found ourselves at a comfy and well prepared home. I'd live here without a second thought. 

We spend all morning filming landscapes, because the main actor won't arrive until tomorrow. Each lunch is a small party filled with delicatessen. All food is delicious and filling. Luis Enrique and I turn to each other in glee. We both have been in shootings were the food didn't help. Having such a quality "catering" makes us feel lucky.

The snow reaches our waists. We spend the evening trying to move through the forest, carrying the photographic equipment to film shots. Mercury marks minus 17 degrees. We are soaked for hours. Pain doesn't exist. We barely notice the minutes go by flying. All of the sudden, night falls. Our last shot shows an old 70's car abandoned in a ditch at sunset. We do it in a different location since we couldn't reach our first choice in time. We are on the edge of giving up but, we decide to give it a try.

Sasha covinces a local cab driver from a nearby town to come with his car and let us film it. The cab driver is suspicious; he asks us why we want to go to a place so far away, he keeps repeating that we'll kill him and steal his cab. Despite this, he decides to come. 

When he finally see us filming his old and weary Lada, putting on lights and a vintage license plate, he burst into laughs. Some men come over to see what's all the fuss. They say us that it's the first time they ever heard someone speaking English.

Finally, the shot is a success. I explain Sasha the meaning of a "happy accident": when sometimes an unforeseen factor manages to improve the expected result. The place where we shoot is much better than the original and the shot is beautiful.

--Friday:

We wake up at 4 AM. We write on a ribbon, that we tie around our arms, our profession for the next few hours : Train Hunters. We go off to hunt trains. We need some shots of trains passing by at dawn. 

After waiting for half and hour in the cold weather, we finally get some shots. We hunt several trains that pass in both directions. We film them near the track, over the bridge. We must crouch so we aren't hit by the wagons as the train, passing at full speed, made all the surrounding structures vibrate. 

On the way back, we hear soviet songs that Sasha had picked out for me, in case we need them for the movie. 

In the afternoon, we go to see a performance in Sasha's kids' school. The parents of the other kids agree with being extras at night if in exchange we record the recital. It's funny seeing us filming their kids singing, screaming and dancing with the same cameras that we'll use to film the movie. We have fun.

Finally, we film great shots of the parents dressed with Soviet-era costumes, celebrating New Year's Eve in the streets of Moscow. They throw confetti, light some flares and drink champagne. 

We film on Moscow's Red Square, where we pretend to be just taking some pictures. It's two in the morning and it's completely empty, except for a couple of guards that are near Lenin's mausoleum, but they don't seem to care about what we do.

Before we head off to bed, we walk the empty streets of the city until we find the statue of Gagarin, where we took some shots. I'm amazed that I'm standing under this statue that I've seen in so many photographs. It looks majestic a in our monitors. Even more at natural.

-Saturday:

We wake up nearly at lunch after going to bed at five AM checking all our filmed material. Today is the day the actor comes, and we are going to shoot another train while he goes to the hair dresser to prepare him for tomorrow.

On the way, we find several strange mounds that capture our attention. We stop and find out that it's a field full of black mud. Black mud, that the name of this small town that a few kilometers away from Moscow. The location is amazing and we decide to change our plans and shoot a take that was programmed for tomorrow. The scene: a cosmonaut falls to the mound with a torch on his hand. We have a beatifull background, some poetic puddles that spectacularly reflect the sky. The only problem is: we do not have a mound.

A couple of wood workers look at us from the distance. We explain to them that we are trying to make a movie and the lend us a shovel. We start to dig by turns. We dig for two and a half hours until we reach the necessary height for the mound. Meanwhile, the wood workers offers us some rice and meat. The russian hospitality amazes us. At eight o' clock the actor comes, just when the sun starts to disappear. We must run. It gives us the necessary time to shoot all the takes in extremis and with few light, but when check them later, we found out that it had enough light and few grains. We have done it. The takes are perfect and the actor has had it first contact with the camera and the cosmonaut suit. 

Back at Valeri Illich's dacha, he offers us a great dinner again. We toast again and again for the unification of various nationalities. We laugh about our only main communication point being the names of English soccer players. We end the night near the fireplace checking the takes of the day. They look good...even though, we still didn't know that the best was yet to come.

-Sunday: 

We get up early on Sunday. Four days of not enough sleep and physical exhaustion. Yesterday's digging session it's taking its toll now. A double cup of coffee and we start the day. Julia is visiting us today. The biggest day of filming is waiting ahead of us.
We spend the morning filming the cosmonaut wandering in deserted landscapes. We film Stas walking by the small burial grounds of a small church. Screaming the skies, over a dead tree's trunk. Walking over a frozen lake. Trying to make his way trough knee-deep snow. When we finish, it isn't even noon. We keep going.

We find an old and abandonded church by chance. It's absolutely spectacular. The floor is covered with snow, it has no ceiling, and the wets are still on the walls. 

Luis Enrique and I look at each other. It reminds us a lot of Tarkosvky. It's our first contact with him. In the next couple of days, we'll keep finding his ghost.  Even though we don't want his movies to be a direct influence, there are so many connections with The Cosmonaut that it seems to come together with us, to impose his presence. Later on, we find some locations identical to the ones Stalker and Nostalghia. In a strange way, we feel as if Andrei is marking his territory, saying to us: This is the Russia that I portrayed, but nevertheless, I lend it to you.

We film one of the most beatiful takes right until now: Stas is desperately drinking water out of a dripping gutter. 

We tell Alisa that we think that luck seems to be on our side. The snow in Moscow usually melts halfway March. It's April and there is still snow. Not only that, but today, being the last day that we can shoot on the field, the snow is slowly starting to melt. This makes everything glow like never before, and the most important thing is that in the next location we'll find everything will be wet, dripping and filled with puddles.

We are impressed with the spectacular abandoned constructions. They are absolutely perfect for the movie. We wouldn't ever dream of building something so perfect, not even with all the money in the world. We hugged them with passion and film some several amazing takes. 

Suddenly, we start to feel that if we are going to be as lucky as we are now, and the shots we have taken are half the spectacular we suppose, this movie is going to be something great. The euphoria fills us.

Everywhere we go, we stumble on abandoned cow feeders filled with puddles, drops and moss. I would stay here filming for a month but the light, always the light, gradually disappears. We film the cosmonaut reflected in huge puddles. We film in an abandoned barn. We meet the next door neighbors who offer us a cup of freshly squeezed milk. We shot some flies that float lazily as the sun sets.

Finally, we have to make a decision: to keep filming a little more in this spectacular place in this magical day of the year that may never, ever, repeat itself or shoot the most important takes that were scheduled: the cosmonaut fishing a fish on a river.  We decide to leave the abandoned place for June and go to film the fishing scene. I cross my fingers, hoping that I will not regret this decision.

Luis Enrique and the actor enter in the current of a river whose waters marks around minus twentysomething degrees in the thermometer. The sun disappears and we are left with only a couple of minutes of sunlight. In the end, the fishes decide to appear. We throw them in he river and they start to fidget restlessly. The cosmonaut, with all his might, gets one with his bare hands and we manage to film several spectacular, vibrant and full of life takes. 

We rush the actor to the Dacha to change his clothes before he freezes to death. He's wet from head to toes but Valeri Illich has an ace up his sleeve: he prepares the "baña", a tipical russian sauna.

We finish the day drinking tea while we alternate the over-than-100 degrees sauna with snow baths. We feel alive and lucky. The dinner goes on for a long time. We set off some fireworks in the middle of nowhere for some shots we need. They are the well-deserved ending for an amazing day. We dance and sing. We drink Spanish wine. I cannot stop smiling. 

-Monday:

We travel to Star City early in the morning. It's the third time I visit the city. This time I'm not a tourist, but a guest. We have been allowed to stay in one of the houses reserved for the foreign cosmonauts. It's kind of a secret hotel where important public figures have stayed. Guy Laliberté, the Cirque du Soleil director and the last space turist stayed six months here. 

We shoot some takes of Stas training in Star City, and walking in the city full of snow. When we get to Gagarin's statue I have the idea of a scene that is not in the script. We shoot it. It's incredibly exciting and the actor spots on. I'm sure I'm going to include it in the final cut. Luis Enrique and I look at each other in complicity. We both can see that we are doing something especial. 

With the last shot, they take the actor to the airport in a car on the run so he doesn't miss his flight. The first part of his adventure has ended, but we still have a couple of days left.

At night, we take some shots of the deserted streets of Star City. I feel weird walking around here, without watchers, with no limits. We take some night shots and we locate some spots for our next time in June. 

-Tuesday:

We just have some shots left. Luis Enrique will shoot them while I have some meetings. We visit the Star City military premises in the morning. This time they show us the back areas, the control rooms, the places we'll have to our disposal to shoot in some weeks. I see every single scene before my eyes. 

We ask about every detail. We see possibilities. We imagine what will be difficult and the problems we will find. I find places in Star City better than what I imagined. Some others are worse, so we will try to find better locations. We pass by Sergey Volkov by chance. Luck keeps smiling at us.

Finally, we leave with the sensation of having found a great part of the movie. That this is where we must shoot our film and that all the money in the world couldn't reproduce what we found there, naturally. I feel happy to have had the opportunity to find this place, to have fallen in love with the streets and to have built my story around it. 

In the afternoon, we have the pleasure to meet Artem Vasiliev.  Artem is the producer of "Paper Soldier", a movie by Alexei German Jr., that portrays the last days before Gagarin's departure. Alexei, feeling a little sick, tells us that he can't join us. 

Paper Soldier was a movie I found out by chance and it fascinated me from the very beginning. It has become one of my favorite movies and a great inspiration for the Cosmonaut for several reasons. To share a coffee today with Artem makes this trip even more special. We ask him a thousand questions about logistic problems and I tell him about our project. He´s deeply interested . We say our goodbyes fondly, and with the promise that we'll meet again. He´s deeply interested . We say our goodbyes with the promised fondness that will ever meet again.

At night, we celebrate the end of the shooting. The trip is over and we head back to Madrid with bravery and pride. With the feeling in our chests of doing everything well. Of overcoming each expectation and wishing to be back already. To repeat the same experience multiplied by five. To finally start the shooting of the most important movie of our lives. Ours.