Sunday, February 13, 2011

In the Cape yawn the ravens and we melt in sweltering days.

We worked on a shoot in Stellenbosch last week. It was incredibly hot. "So warm, die kraaie gaap" and "snikhete". Two wonderful expressions in Afrikaans. I fed them into Google Translate and it came up with the title above. I see many hours of amusement ahead...


On the first day we watched as the mountains became darker and darker blue. Later there was a thunderstorm. Stellenbosch has changed a lot since I was a student there. They have rush hours now! But what really blew me away was how incredibly friendly
and helpful people were.
Our location was just out of town - Mulderbosch wine estate. They make one of my favourite chardonnays.


Spent a few hours doing beauty shots of lettuce. Zzzzzzz. All these lights and reflectors for one head of lettuce. I helped the food stylist reset her salad bowl for take after take. This meant picking out bits of carrots and nuts with a tweezer. (Surely there's a name for this job - like the Fluffer on a porn set?)


In the afternoon we moved on to the cellar set. Rubbed shoulders with some great legends in the world of rugby and wine. The most fun part of the day: recording wild sound upstairs - corks being popped, wine being poured, a rubber stamp being stamped.
It was a pleasant change to work with a down-to-earth Afrikaans director. He knew exactly what he wanted, no bullshit, no tantrums. Impressed.


1 comment:

arcadia said...

Ek is verlief op daai houtrakke. Pragtig.