Our Gayxample mobile headquarters was once again on the move, this time parked on the corner of Diputació and Casanova. We’d even managed to add a camera car to our caravan (Iván Yáñez’s car, which we’d practically turned into a transformer). Our mobile studio had also turned into a mini hotel suit today, where Milca and her little Jan (ooops I forgot to tell you Milca is pregnant) could rest for a while.
Josep and Iván Yáñez were losing their virginity with us (no, no sex scenes today), as it was their first time in front of the camera for Gayxample. It’s set in TONI’s (Iván Yáñez) car as he drives through Eixample. It sounds easy enough, but it took us all morning to shoot.
The mounting of the camera on the car, the diffusing silks, antiglare reflectors, testing the audio, setting the camera for the interior car scenes, and the shoot itself, set us back about an hour and a half behind schedule.
Since we couldn’t all fit in the car, only the actors and Giuseppe, who watched the scene through a monitor as he crouched down in the back seat of the car, had to endure the heat, red lights, retakes, and wonderings of whether to drive all the way to Badalona or turn back for more shots. Meanwhile, the rest of us enjoyed a nice glass of wine as we anxiously waited for the actors and director to return and meet us at Berro (another sponsor restaurant). Once they’d shot all the angles and reverse angles, and because they were starving, we heard that they were practically machines, delivering every line as it was written and not skipping a beat.
After lunch the team split in two. Iván Bertrán and Babeth (this time as an actor) went to the apartment in Bruc looking for Mireia (as ALICIA) and José Luis (as ALICIA’S HUSBAND), who had a scene that afternoon. While they went through make-up and rehearsed, Giuseppe, Giorgio, Iván Yáñez, Josep and I, finished shooting a few scenes between TONI and LLUÍS outside the car.
When we were done, we piled into said car and drove over to meet up with the other team in Bruc. We were happy to see José Luis again, who we hadn’t seen since the table reading about a month and a half ago, and we were also surprised to find Mireia in full prosthetic maternity belly.
The afternoon scenes required some action, suspense, and some comedy all rolled into one. As is often the case, life is often stranger than fiction, and there was plenty of suspense, comedy and action behind the scenes.
Let me set up the scene for you. The girls are supposed to race out the building and jump into the car and try to start it, and in true movie fashion, it doesn’t start. They desperately try and start it to no avail, only to have it start up again all on its own. So what happens when we try to roll? The car decides to go all method on us and doesn’t start at all. No movie magic assistance needed. We had to call roadside assistance, more out of sheer desperation than conviction, because we’d tried everything to get the damn thing started. We’d pushed it down Bruc Street while Iván Yáñez kept yelling at Babeth to “try it again, MONTSE!”
Hell, we even tried sweet-talking it, and coddling it like every good actor needs. Nothing worked. Until it started up, as it had been scripted, all on it’s own. Not missing a beat, we started rolling. Just then, as if on cue, the tow truck driver arrived, even after we’d called to cancel the call. Oh, and yes, he was in the shot.
All in all, it was anything but a boring today. And as intense and as behind schedule as we were, we managed to shoot all of our scenes.
Tomorrow we have Andy (as CARLES) with us for the first time on set with Kikko; his father on the show. We’ll have an emotional scene where ÁLEX breaks down in front of XAVI, and we’ll also have, for those who enjoy this sort of thing, a second round of sex scenes between ÁLEX and IVÁN.
Cenzo Álvarez De Haro - Translated and adapted by: Norman Giovanni Zelaya