GETAWAY DRIVER
Marco's day goes from bad to worse as the getaway driver for a band of thieves!
The film was shot during the Terre di Cinema workshop of 2021 in the span of 12 hours; on 35mm film of which we had a total of 14 minutes to use; in an average temperature of 39° in Catania, Sicily.
The crew was formed on the first day of the workshop through pitching sessions and mostly through conversations over Aperol Spritz. The team was a mix of Italians, Polish, Canadians, Israeli and French.
The way Terre di Cinema works on the director side is that you apply with a short script and go through two scrip development sessions with a directing tutor. It was through his help and the feedback from the other directors that the final script for the film took form.
Forming the team was the easy part. Casting was a bit of a struggle as I did not speak any Italian and had to go by pure gut feeling. I spent a whole day with my director of photography looking for the right alleyway, finally deciding on one which was just a few meters away from our favorite bar.
Directing was extremely easy. Due to the short amount of available film, we could only do around 1-2 takes at most. So with a bit more rehearsing, a good technical team and just an overall stress free mood we managed to get good performance with the help of my first AD who was ensuring the dialogue was going smoothly.
I still remember the conversation we had about the cars. We had asked a member of Terre di Cinema, to help us find more vintage cars. He came back to us with two options and a quote - 100 euros per car. I had spent some amount by that point, mainly on pasta and arancino so I was considering only getting one of them. Thankfully my cinematographer managed to convince me to dish out the cash and honestly I think this was crucial for the film. The two cars bring a more cinematic look to the image compared to what a modern car would have done.
