Hello!

I am mega late. Weirdly, I have the photos ready, but needed a moment to sit down and write.

First week of shoot went well. It was hard, that’s for sure, but all things considered it was good. I am glad we are doing it. Also I have been on the island for a month now and it is a rather unusually long prep and time I had with the cast and the crew. I am also glad that my efforts to get to know the cast prior to the shoot were paying off when being on set. I also had quite a few little epiphanies while at work and I am once again glad that I am feeling things, noticing things around me and others as it feels like an emotional growth.

At the moment of writing I feel good. Considering that yesterday I had one of the hardest days, now I feel like my balloon of stress has deflated. I actually did an exercise for that, which worked wonders. Oh yes I still do not smoke. By this point it’s a miracle.

In other news I went diving which was great. I had a call with my family and few little chats with the friends from home. My life feels very rich of people and experiences right now and I am very very grateful.

Love to you all!

***

Monday. Day 1 of the actual shoot. It went relatively well. Somehow it did not feel like the first day and more like a middle of the job. There was no introductory speech and non of the producers asked me how I was feeling. Basically it felt like we were very alone doing what we do. Not sure what’s the outcome of that going to be. We did not complete the day because the light dropped while dealing with the coffee shop in the back of the shot which production didn’t bother to rent out. Weird. The style we are shooting is very European. I was kinda surprised. I like it, but it is very different from what I have expected. At the end of the day we did not have any drinks or together time at all and it felt very anticlimactic. Technically all was well, but somehow it feels off. Maybe that’s just my inner world being in a bit of a mess. So let’s see.

Tuesday. Split day. I woke up at 7am even though we don’t start work until 2pm. Couldn’t help it. Went for a swim, read a book, had breakfast and watched some news. All of my friends are sharing “Google Bucha” I felt ashamed that I didn’t know about it before googling. I felt like a foreigner they were trying to reach with this info. Peace is something I have to work for. I keep reminding myself. We are on a semi night shoot today. The darkness came with a fresh breeze and I got a second wave of energy. It was fun. We didn’t complete another day though so that was a little disappointing, but it was a busy day with a new dop who has never recced the location after having pushed the shoot by the week and having to cramp scenes into those days due to actor engagement contracts. Ok rant’s over.

Wednesday. I came home after another long day. We were shooting at the pier location, the same me and Annie were going diving from. We are barely completing our days and it is all due to the last minute crew changes, aka Si. So our first Ad Simon says that this week is the hardest of the whole shoot, maybe it’s good that it happened now when everyone is still fresh rather than at a later day. BUT AND, during this really difficult week I just got back home to the 4 episodes of new revisions for the scripts. Our turn around is already very questionable and this.. If it wasn’t for Hans I would be considering my future on this.

Thursday. Today is a grumpy Thursday as everyone seemed to have had a very little sleep. I am finding consolation in Simons words that this is the hardest week of the shoot. It is still helping. Last night we were supposed to shoot a scene with one of the actors smoking. In European practice for scenes like that we are using herbal cigarettes, same as we never use real alcohol either. But apparently not in Thailand. On my last job here everyone was an actual real smoker so I have never noticed, but this time, the actor quit smoking 12 years ago and did not want to restart just for the sake of our show. Rightly so. She ended up not smoking at all, which I actually liked for her character. Sometimes I feel like women characters are written to be smokers just to make them seem tough and I thought that our actress was tough enough within herself and didn’t need this “prop”. Today I had one of my little realisations. It started with the fact that I forgot my hairband and the shirt I wanted to wear was too crumbly as I didn’t iron it properly. As I was sitting at work with my hair down sweating into the shirt I did not want to wear I realised that we develop our little routines and get into our comfortable habits because they make us feel good and safe. At the same time if nothing unexpected happens, you would always live your life according to plan, your plan and eventually you would not experience anything new. A lot of things in my daily life are planned and I enjoy my plan, do not get me wrong and for most part I stick to it, but today as I was getting a bit annoyed about my sweaty hair clinging to all the things around my neck I thought, that my plan is something I can always fall back to where is this “suffering” is something I would not deliberately choose. The point here being: “this is something new for me to feel”

Friday. The day started well. I woke up without the alarm with all room lights on, but happy. Put some music on and danced while getting ready. Put a crop top on, went for breakfast, which I had with our new dop and at 8:25 was in the van to set. We are shooting at the market street today. It was such a hot day here last time when we reccede it. But something more magical happened. So yesterday I was thinking about one of our actor’s birthday, because it is today and remembered how back in the desert I gifted away my dream catcher to one of the actors, because I felt it was meant for him. So I thought I would like to get this guy a dream catcher too. So we turn up on set to the market street location, the market is all us, we created it for the scene, but this one stall which was actually there selling stuff, was selling dream catchers. Hurray. I got one for Narayan  as a present and the kind lady gifted me one as well. I had another philosophical thought this week. And that’s about the age or more like what the people assume my friends are when I refer to them. Most of my work friends are over 40, but apparently because of how old I am my colleagues think that my friends are my age. So it was a bit funny, because they themselves are my friends. This industry is ageless anyway.

Saturday. Last night I stayed out way too late again. Toms Dolly have arrived so we were catching up. In the morning I laid by the pool and tanned. Then the Russian girl I met last week on the boat messaged me and we went out for lunch. It was so lovely to talk to someone outside work. She asked me to help her to withdraw some cash as her Russian bank accounts are frozen. I did, it was all fine, but as I got home I realised that I forgot my debit card in the ATM. Weirdly I wasn’t even that upset about it. Somehow now I tend to think that it might mean something for me in the future.

Sunday. Diving day. Phi Phi island again this time. On our way there we were told that there was a whale shark sighting here the day before. It is my goal to see one, I was very excited. However at the end of all of the 3 dives we have not seen it, a bit of a shame as one group on the boat did see it. Well, it was still a very nice day out. Perfect still water. As I was sitting out on the deck my cap flew off my head and the boat actually turned around and fished it out of the water for me. It was very very sweet. As I was sorting out my gear in the evening I just though how I would loved to be diving again tomorrow instead of going to shoot. It is an unusual feeling for me because I actually love going to work and feel very blessed and excited to be doing it.

Highlights:

  • Week 1 of the shoot done.
  • Diving.
  • New boat friends.
  • Positive manifestations.
  • Thoughts and feelings
  • Being alive.

Cheers with a glass full of a positive manifestation!