Time & Space - shooting a short film in a day

Simon, Niniane and Chris: On Set

With less than five weeks until opening night, the production team of Richard di Gregorio: On Time spent a full ten-hour day yesterday making a short film.

Time & Space: A Love Story in Four Dimensions will premiere as part of On Time, a one-man variety show on the theme of time: how sometimes it moves too fast, sometimes it moves too slow, and occasionally it's just right - even though you rarely notice it when it does.

Yesterday, time moved just right. We basically stuck to the schedule Richard had planned, from meeting at 8am to packing up ready to leave the location at 6:30pm - thirty minutes ahead of schedule. Film shoots are notorious for running behind schedule. This one was so well planned, it went very smoothly.

I've made a few short films before, but all as part of competitions where you've got 15, 24 or 48 hours to shoot and edit - which means there is a lot of compromise to be made. I was always pretty happy with how those turned out, given the conditions they were produced under. But I can't wait to see Time & Space, properly edited and fully scored.

Abbey (Space), Richard (Time),
Simon (eating)

We shot on location at producer Ephiny Gale's home, which provided the perfect backdrop. I operated the boom and recorded sound for most of the day, while Ephiny was the living, breathing clapper board. Then later, my arms got tired from holding the boom (actually a long mop handle, hahaha) and Ephiny took over on boom and I just kept an eye on sound levels.

Richard's friend Simon was cameraman. Richard's partner Niniane made sure everyone stuck to script, when she wasn't falling asleep in a big pile of cushions. And Abbey George stars alongside Richard in Time & Space - doing a brilliant job with the ultimate three-dimensional character, Space.

Chris Broadstock is the director of both On Time and Time & Space - and he was keeping everyone's energy up, even as we were flagging by the end of the shoot. The sugary lollies also helped.

Lots of work still to do on On Time, with a short film introduction still to shoot - and obviously post production on both of these in the four weeks and five days left until the show premieres at the Melbourne Fringe on Sept 23rd.

Melbourne Fringe Festival guide is release this Tuesday, August 23rd. Tickets are on sale then.