Today I spent again at the film set I have talked about before. This time, the location was in an old machiya-style house in Kyoto, and there were scenes with talking involved (not by the extras though).
I could get a bit more insight into how movies are made, which was interesting. For example, every time somebody was speaking, the take was repeated “sound only”, with the speaking person talking straight into a microphone. And that was although during filming the scene, sound was recorded also; I presume that it’s better or easier to cut in the conversation later.
It was also interesting that there was a cameraman to film the scene, and somewhere else somebody else was sitting whose only job it was to focus the camera via remote control. I had no idea the cameraman wouldn’t do that himself, but maybe he’s simply there to make sure the shot is from the right angle and shows the correct cutout.
Also, as my friend remarked, the whole thing ran very smoothly. Nobody needed directions (except the actors, of course), everybody knew exactly what to do, how to do it, and where to do it. I can only speculate as to how this is possible – the crew was quite large – but obviously, those are all professionals.
Of course, once again, the whole thing took hours, mostly of waiting. At least this time, the group of extras was much smaller, and to my mind, also more interesting, so we had some nice conversations going on. What I did not like was that there was no compensation whatever this time. As we were working/waiting over lunchtime, at least paying us a bento would have been a nice move…