Done with our first three weeks of shooting this movie – what has all been solving practical problems. It’s good to be back to almost an innocent time where you know how to do nothing, and therefore everything is a tool and an answer.

We wonder how to get the scene in the turkish bath (which is of course still our apartment…) to look more steamy, and for lack of any better knowledge or more professional equipment we make a steamer on wheels using my laundry hamper, an oven rack, a big pot and some dry ice.  One of us lies on the floor wheeling this contraption while another fans it with a piece of cardboard wafting puffs of smoke everywhere.  It all looks precarious and unprofessional.  The “steam machine” – held together with tape – as most of the rest, including facial hair.  (The spirit gum we ordered never arrived.)

The truth is that every day is another challenge and we think quickly on our feet to fix what we can.  We need lights to swirl around romantically while these two people dance?  I have some gaffers tape, and a string of christmas lights, and a broom handle. It’s supposed to be raining in this scene?  Quick — get the spray bottle!  We need first class airline food for a trip to Hungary?  And caviar?  I have some tapioca and a potato…

Now in the week before we go to Annendale-on-Hudson to finish our work, I’ve been reading Godard’s book Introduction to a True History of Cinema (just out in English from caboose) where he talks about filming his first film, À Bout de Souffle and find this something to hold on to: “What became my rule of thumb, which is simpler and lets you do something else, is to do what you can and not what you want.  To do what you want out of what you have and not dream of doing the impossible.  If you have fifty million francs and no lighting, you shoot with fifty million francs and no lighting.  And something else arises.”

Looking forward to it.