Exquisite week end

I've had a trully enthralling week end, full of twists and turns and if there was a plot, well, it never unfolded the way you'd expect in a Hollywood movie...

I was producer, director and actress in the movie being made as we went along, yet I didn't have full control of the situation as the lead male character (yet little known to me at that point) had at least as much power as I had in the movie making. I am writing the American word "movie" because I'm talking about Hollywood, but maybe I should be using the British word "film", as I was told that to an extent "film" relates to good art while "movie" contains it all, good and bad (at least that was my understanding of it). And this scenario would most definitely enter the "film" section.

As the producer, I was very much aware of the difficulties that one has to put up with, the moral barriers that cannot be crossed, the collective pressure to go with the flow and keep to wide and crowded avenues, the practical constraints that are there to stay and that cannot be avoided or forgotten, the time ticking away when a scene has to be shot again because it's not quite good enough but you know deep down that nothing better will come out of the actors at that moment...

As the director, I had scribbled down and planned a scenario, thought through the lights and pace of the opening scene, heard in my head the music accompanying the romantic encounter between the two lead characters, imagined the costumes perfectly fitting their period and status in the world, put myself in the shoes of a spectator paying his ticket entrance at the cinema door and coming to watch the finished product with a critical eye...

As the main female character, I was to follow my director's instructions given to him mostly by my producer, yet interacting and adjusting to the other part of the film, the man, without whom there would have been no scenario; I felt free and strong to behave as I wished knowing full well that I would need to report any wrongdoings in the eyes of my director and producer; it was the role of my life, experiencing all possible emotions from exhaltation to boredom, worthlessness, despair, love and excrutiating heart pain, fear and sadness... you name it, I felt it!

Of course, my difficulties, moral barriers, constraints, timing considerations were plain different to those of the male character and his own on site producer/supervisor. It cannot be helped, and negociations were to take place...
Of course, my ideas for a scenario, ambiance, interpretation and cuts were not shared by the male character's own cinema director. It cannot be helped and negociations were to take place...
Of course the realm of my emotions cannot compare to that of the male character and little of it can be said here as I have not much knowledge of it. Feelings that the emotional range experienced by him might not have been as wild as mine, but it is only my side of the story...
Would I have signed in to watch such a story? Yes, triple yes, several times. The making of it was intense, sometimes bringing all persons involved to the limit of insanity as each scene was emotionally charged to the limit.

In the end, the finished product gave a snapshot without a beginning or an end showing the meeting of a man and a woman on a dance floor, their paths crossing again in a big city over the course of a few days before parting at rush hour in an underground station. Plain, simple. Yet not "Before sunrise".

(Disclaimer: I cannot speak for the persons involved with the lead male character and you will have to keep in mind and accept that this view is extremely partial)