Spanner Films - Finding Characters

"I hope there's no more war in Iraq"

sylvia — Tue, 15 May 2007 21:35:19 +0000

Met up with the family from yesterday this morning. Filmed a great interview with the mother (Rasmia) and then were happily sitting drinking tea when something kicked off between Rasmia's brother and sister and a full-scale slanging match ensued. Never quite established what that was about.

Dropped down dead when he heard the news

sylvia — Tue, 15 May 2007 21:28:58 +0000

Franny, and our fixer, Khulood, interviewing Iraqi widows on the streets on Amman<

Best ever team

sylvia — Tue, 15 May 2007 21:16:44 +0000

Crude Team with taxi

Have assembled a crack team with miraculous speed:

Ra'fat (Palestinian), fixer. Well connected & persuasive.

Eyes Wide Open

sylvia — Tue, 15 May 2007 21:09:51 +0000

Amman, Jordan.

Wonder how much oil goes into one tray of airline food?

sylvia — Tue, 15 May 2007 21:03:53 +0000

Not sure what exactly changed - perhaps panic that we haven't even found our final character yet - but we're heading out to Jordan, despite the ongoing war.

Lizzie's a few aisles away being tortured by a screaming baby. I have the headphones and laptop. Sure is good being the boss.

Some pretty profound life and death stuff has been going on post Crude-Camp-with-Mark. Like when someone is diagnosed with terminal illness and gets six months to live - or if they survive a near-death experience - they often say their whole perspective changes.

London is melting

sylvia — Tue, 15 May 2007 20:20:55 +0000

London is melting. Today was the hottest ever day in July. 36.3 degrees C. I'm happy to say this is not going unnoticed.

The Middle East is also in meltdown.

A Top 10 life moment

sylvia — Tue, 15 May 2007 19:07:30 +0000

Met Friend's Sister in the park at a jazz gig tonight, when in Rome. We explained all our worries - could Al handle the potential fame? What if he loses his job? His sanity? Is he too fragile for the film?

Possibly my strongest ever doc character

sylvia — Tue, 15 May 2007 18:59:21 +0000

Filming Al on the flattened site of his old house.

Photograph: Chris Graythen

Anyone know an interesting person working for an oil company?

sylvia — Tue, 15 May 2007 18:15:59 +0000

A thousand people work for Big Oil in New Orleans. All we gotta do is find the interesting one, right?

We've got a few leads - and the phone book - but it all seems a little hit and miss. How do real filmmakers do this?

Can't really speed the process up, either - a lot of waiting around for call backs - so we're trying to adapt to the not-knowing grey zone. Writing diary, struggling to get through chapter two of The Prize, press-ups, logging tapes and, frankly, sleeping.

Have we walked into a trap?

sylvia — Tue, 15 May 2007 11:56:49 +0000

Found our fourth Crude character yesterday. She is Layefa Malemi , a 22-year-old who has been fishing all day every day for the last two years to save up enough money to go to medical school so she can become a doctor and work in her village. She is quiet, calm, intelligent and funny. Absolutely perfect.