Mercury On Set Diary & Lily’s Production Blog - DAY 1
We have just finished shooting Mercury and we are now focused on raising the rest of the money we need to edit and complete post production of the film. This is Lily’s first fully fledged right from the beginning film project through Life to Live Films and I wanted to share some of her experiences through her production blog:
Mercury is a short film project by Kyla Simone Bruce and Life to Live Films. The story began with an idea from Kyla. She wanted to explore her own past, question the decisions she made when she was younger. She wanted to see the intimate conversations between friends on screen in a way that we’re often not permitted to see. In collaboration with Gorana Jovanovic, her fantastic writing partner, she was able to make a script that captured the way that in serious moments girl talk and chatter can happen with tension bubbling under the surface.
It was these ideas that drew Ohna Falby to the project initially, and attracted Shorts TV who backed the project after hearing Kyla’s 60 second pitch at Cannes 2017. Thus began the development process for ‘Mercury’ and ‘The Cockatoo Inn’.
Skipping over the development process and going straight into the shoot.
First day of production was a shock with 4 am rises for everyone and a few last minute tweaks on costume and hair and fake tattoos for Harriet and Izzy. We drove our brand new hero car, the Nissan Bluebird called Gregory, to our first location, The Broadwater Farm Estate, in Tottenham.
When we arrived at our first location it was just getting light and there was a thin layer of mist covering the location, which meant that we looked like we’d invested in a very expensive fog machine for the first few shots!
The first big shot involved a car rig. This was set up by Giovanni Mattei, our super grip, who made sure none of the equipment would come flying off half way through shot.
We were mostly on the Broadwater Farm Estate on our first day, and we had lots of extras with us. Corin Silva, Aiden and Bud Brennan Williams, Azi Brown and Ozonna Soludo were part of the team. We also had the fabulous Gloria Price, who played the flamboyant fan lady.
By the end of the day we had attracted quite an audience, with a lot of the locals gathering around to see what was going on. They may have been disappointed to find out we weren't shooting the next Star Wars movie, but they still stayed quiet enough that we managed to get our last few shots.
Find out more
We're in production and development so things are always changing. Ohna will be keeping the news page and Twitter feed up to date. But if you want to know more please do get in touch!
