Recently I assisted my partner Rowan Stuart on his first ever short film, entitled 'Instrumagicka'.
Rowan had recorded an EP of 6 instrumental tracks and decided to combine the music with a movie. He wrote a script, and asked my opinion, and I was like YES - do it! So he worked on it a bit more and got a few more opinions, and they each said 'do it, do it, do it'!
This was his first time directing, filming and editing a short film. As his assistant, my main roles were to take behind-the-scenes photos, to check continuity from scene to scene, to cater for the cast, and to help set up and manage the gear.
We filmed over 8 or 9 days in multiple locations around KZN, South Africa.
We got some of Durban's best actors/actresses to star in the film; Bryan Hiles, Cara Roberts and Mpilo 'Straw' Nzimande.
I'm going to tell you a little - actually, a lot - about what happened behind the scenes.
Here I go...
Before the first day of shooting, rainy weather was predicted, so we set out to buy waterproof covers for our cameras, and changed the script accordingly to suit the feel of the weather conditions.
On the actual day, the weather turned out hot and sunny, with not a drop of rain. Nonetheless, we managed to get our shots, and it was a good start to filming Instrumagicka.
The next day, we headed off to the Kloof & Highway SPCA, where we filmed the jewellery shop scenes. Then we headed off to Pietermaritzburg to film Bryan and Cara on a high rooftop.
On day 3, we headed off to one of the most beautiful venues that I have been to, called Torwoodlea Lodge (an amazing wedding venue).
We booked in for the night so we could film our forest scenes into the night.
These were some of my favourite memories: taking photos of the couple dancing in the dark forest, while the rain fell gently. Luckily we have battery-powered lights, because there def weren't any plug sockets nearby haha. I was multitasking here a lot - holding lights, taking photos, running back and forth to the accommodation to fetch and charge batteries (definitely got my workout in!).
After a long session of filming, we headed back up to the cottage, where we had dinner, chilled, chatted, and of course played Uno. Can you guess who won??
The next morning we woke up to heavy rain, and had to sit around waiting for a few hours, just hoping the weather would clear up.
Now the pressure was on, because we only had use of the venue until 5 pm that day, and we still had quite a few important scenes to film.
For one of the most epic scenes of the short film, the actors had to jump into a really cold dam, with Bryan pretending to be drowning. Apparently, there were reeds wrapping around his legs the whole time, so I don't think he had to act much!
Straw was required to dive in and pull Bryan out, and the two sat on the banks literally shivering (especially Straw, who must have about 0.2% body fat).
Cara even had to get in the water while wearing a heavy wedding dress, which became much heavier when wet - she decided that she never wants to do that again haha.
After a day of rest we had a few underwater shots to film using my GoPro. It's an older GoPro with no screen, so we had to run back and forth to the laptop to check the footage. After a few trips from the pool to the laptop, I forgot to close the latch on my GoPro, and I jumped in the pool, and guess what happened next? No more GoPro :(
So we had to come back the next day with another GoPro to film the scenes, and this time I didn't get into the water haha.
One of the last days of shooting was done at my parents' farm in Camperdown. My parents even acted in the scene, along with myself and a few extras as wedding guests. My dad played a wedding officiator, and I heard comments from people who viewed the film, saying that he did so well and really looked the part. Well done, Dad!
If you haven't seen Instrumagicka yet, I recommend it. It's mysterious, dreamy, and gets you thinking and feeling in really unique ways. Plus the music is epic.
Watch it now on this link: https://youtu.be/5ugpNJhbbcg
Photo taken at the Durban premiere of 'Instrumagicka - The Short Film'.