Day 1First of all I apologize if my English is far from perfect. I promise you that my Hebrew is better but I want to share movie fans all over the world with my experience.
Today the shooting of my second feature started. It's unbelievable but the first draft of the script was written at 1999 and in few months people all over the world will be able to watch it. Two weeks ago my first movie, "Good Boys" won the Grand Jury award in Montreal LGBT film festival. This award reminded me NEWFEST 2005, the first film festival that we took part and surprisingly we even took an award back home to Israel. I hope we could do the World premiere at NEWFEST 2007.
The first 3 days of the shooting are going to be very exciting because we are going to shoot the first 20 minutes of the movie that include 4 sex scene, lot of nudity and full frontal. Yes, it's going to be very hot and very different from what Israeli audience is used to see in the local cinema. But I feel that it's going to be very different and risky for any kind of audience in the world.
The star of the opening sequence of the movie is Ofer Regirer and he plays the role of Boaz, very famous choreographer that brings every night new guy to fuck with.I don't want reveal too much but Ofer is one of the hottest guys I ever met in my life and the character of Boaz is even more dangerous then Brian Kinney. The sexy actor said to me, "I'm feeling like a kid a night before he's going to Disneyland".
Day 2-3
One erection, two cats and three crazy sex scenes. This is what happened in "Antarctica" in the last two days. We finished shooting in very fashionable with high tech look apartment. Boaz could rest for a week and today we are starting to shoot Omer's apartment with the actor's Tomer Ilan and Lucy Dubinchik. About the erection and the sex scenes I'm refusing to write, you should see the movie but the cats is another story.
We have one scene with a cat and we brought cat from the street, you can imagine what happened. We didn't shoot the scenes this day, the cat went under the bed and when we took him out he scratched one of the actors. In the third day in the apartment the producer hired a professional cat that play in advertisement and television shows. In the end the cat even agree to play in two scenes.
I love the result of what we shoot till now. Today the editor is sampling the tapes and starting the editing. I hope that till the end of the week the 15-20 minutes the open the movie will be ready.
Day 4-5
The shooting in Omer's apartment has finished. The chemistry between Tomer Ilan and Lucy Dubinchik that are playing brother and sister is amazing. The two talented actors have a history – They learned acting in the same class at "The Acting Studio" , managed by Nissan Nativ. The two look like brother and Sister and I think that they are the most beautiful brother and sister in the Israeli cinema ever.
I love it when the actors have ideas and improvise. I believe that when a good actors reads the script deeply, talking with the writer/director could enrich the personality of his character in new ways then the creator of the figure.
What happen with Lucy and Tomer was great fun for me to see the actors developing there scenes together during the shooting.One of the best advantage with shooting in video is that you can do lot of shots and don't think about waste of expensive film. So if you only starting your career as filmmakers I definitely recommend to use video and not film. Then you can check the scenes with the actors more and more and more :-)
Day 6-7
We moved from Omer apartment to Ronen and Danny apartment. And in the first day we filmed 13 scenes with Guy Zo-Aretz. We worked almost with out stopping from 8am till 9pm. I looked on Guy way of work and I must write that I'm a big fan. He is very serious, devoted and talented actor and human being.
He did things for the movie and for me that I know that not a lot of actors in his position will agree to do. Guy is a star in Israel. He is working in the Theater, T.V and composes music. Every one in Israel knows how Guy is. So it's very big honor for me that he agreed to help me to bring Antarctica to life.
He has lot of ideas and lot of desire for taking out the best from himself. He never compromise and agree to take lot of shots again and again. Most of the crew including me is only starting our career so it's a very big pleasure to have a person with such experience like him on the set.
Another actor who is the discovery of the movie, is the young dancer and actor - Yiftach Mizrahi. To look on the 20 years old face through the monitor is one of the biggest pleasures on the set. You are going to fall in love with him – I promise you. And to see an experienced actor like Guy working with Yiftach, the young in heart but sophisticated in his mind working together is a big treat.
And for the people that are interested to visit my house, now you have the opportunity to do so. The location of Ronen and Danny apartment is my home. So you can see the guest room, my office (that became Danny room), the living room, kitchen and more.
Day 15
I didn't write for a few days. The production of Antarctica is very complicated and took from me a lot of energy so when I returned home I just wanted to sleep. Now, before the last days of the shooting I found myself writing about my experiences with new actors that I didn't write about them and other events and feelings.
Noam Huberman plays two roles in this movie: the mother of Shirley and Omer and Amram an old man that Omer thinks he's having a crash on him. Noam stage name is Miss Laila Carry and through this extraordinary actor I try to pay tribute one of my most favorite directors of all times, Mr. John Waters and his leading actress, Divine.
It's a pleasure to work with an actor that comes from very different background of performance. The first time that I saw Noam on the stage I just knew that we must work together. It was in a club 5 years ago in Jaffa. A year ago he started to perform in Hasimta theater with a one man show. I went to see it and after it asked his phone number.
Noam is one of the funniest people I have ever met in my life. He constantly aspires for completeness. Until now the actors that I knew did not use makeup, accessories and special costume to develop a character. This is the first time I had to deal with these theatrical method. We shot Noam in a fancy boutique in Dizengof Street, in Kfar Sava – my home town and in the apartment of my grandparents.
He is the only actor that made me laugh so much that I had to shout "CUT!"
