I’ve never run a marathon before, but I imagine it would be as exhausting as my shooting weeks for these documentaries were. Our journey started in Leipzig as Carolina, Samantha, Andre and I left the documentary festival there a bit early to take a train to Berlin and then a plane to Madrid. Spain was our first stop to film a flamenco dancer for Carolina’s documentary. I went into this knowing nothing about flamenco dancing, so I was excited to learn more despite the fact that I knew less than a lick of Spanish. After barely scraping by Easy Jet’s luggage weight restrictions, we headed on our way to Madrid. Before we even took off I passed out in my seat. I fell asleep in Germany and woke up in Spain. It happens.
Once we arrived at Madrid’s airport we had to make our way to our couch surfer’s apartment. This was my third experience with couch surfing and from all the reviews these Spanish students had I was excited to meet them and continue the good experiences. Once we put our stuff down and met our awesome hosts, we set off immediately to scope out the place where Caro’s dancer would be performing later that night. The next day we started filming and I feel like we didn’t stop for a month straight. Every interview for Caro’s doc was in Spanish, so though I was doing sound for it, I didn’t really understand a word of it. The Zoom in my hands just served to tell me that the levels were reading well, but other than that I just sat back and listened to the foreign sounds for minutes on end. We were able to film one of her performances and I literally had a front row seat to her amazing footwork. I didn’t get to see much of Madrid in the few days we were there, but really I think I had a better experience because I got to meet a local and have a back stage pass to a flamenco dancer’s life.
After we wrapped shooting in Madrid, it was just Samantha, Carolina, and I who would be continuing to London to film my documentary. My film is about accents around the UK and how they can relate to social class, at least that’s what it started out as. Honestly, shooting week in London was one of the most stressful weeks of my college career, and possibly life so far. There were ups and downs, funny moments and frustrations, but all in all I wouldn’t have traded my week for anything. One of the coolest things about making a documentary is you get to speak to people you normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to. I got to meet another couch surfer, an actor, a comedian, a business man, a taxi cab driver, and the list goes on. Having each one of them welcome me into their lives for a couple of hours was a really special and unique experience. Although I was lost and behind on my own thoughts sometimes, they were all very kind and willing to work with me. Another great thing was having Carolina and Samantha there, other than experiencing the city as friends, it was great having people who could help clear my mind when I was getting to overwhelmed with small details. By the end of our week in London, I was really surprised at all that we accomplished, but shooting wasn’t over yet.
So far the count is, four days in Madrid, five in London, and now back to Bonn and Cologne to film more of Samantha’s documentary. Sam’s doc is about the love lock phenomenon where couples, families, and other people put locks onto a bridge to symbolize love and then toss the keys out into the water. The day after we arrived back from London we headed out to Cologne where there are thousands of locks on a bridge by the main station. We interviewed a student who wrote a thesis on the phenomenon as well as a couple who had been planning on putting a lock on and were now going to have Sam film it. We had a break on Sunday to celebrate Carnival in Cologne and then filmed some more on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday of that editing week. All in all, it was quite a long couple of weeks of shooting but I wouldn’t have traded any of it. It’s an experience I’ll never forget.
Written by Sarah Bush
