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making the film
During the financing process, it became evident that in order to raise funds for a Farsi language film by a first time writer/director the film would need to be made on a very low budget.
This low budget production methodology had been well practiced by Julie Ryan over ten years of working with Rolf de Heer, and it was a method also familiar to Kate Croser having worked with Julie on both TEN CANOES and DR PLONK.
With production assistance from Bahman Ghobadi, and financial backing from the Adelaide Film Festival, the South Australian Film Corporation came on board as principal investor.
In July 2008, the producers and director of photography Bonnie Elliott traveled to Tehran where casting and pre-production were already underway.
The first task was to finalise the camera equipment. The team established early on that an alternative had to be found for shooting the film on 35mm, which is still the preferred shoot format in Iran, because of the fact that in Iran most of the 35mm equipment is controlled by the government. A digital shoot format was also preferred because the rushes had to be transported back to Australia for the edit, and shooting digitally would allow the producers to carry the film back on hard drives, unlikely to be detected at the customs checkpoint. The digital system chosen was a Panasonic P2 camera with a P&S adapter and 35mm prime lenses. Using the 35mm lenses delivered the filmic look with shallow depth of field. Each day the footage was downloaded into a Final Cut Pro edit system and two sets of backups were made onto hard drives, which allowed the producers to store the rushes in two separate locations in case one set was discovered by the authorities. At the end of the shoot, the film was taken back to Australia on three, 1-terabyte drives and carried out of Iran in backpacks worn by the producers. As an extra precaution, Julie Ryan left first on a flight straight after the shoot ended, and Kate Croser followed on a flight two weeks later once the first set of rushes had arrived back in Australia and been checked for completeness by the post production team.
The team spent 4 weeks in pre-production and the 6-week shoot began on Monday 28 July. With support from Tehran-based filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi, a small and flexible shoot crew was assembled which consisted of 11 people: assistant director, production manager, art director, continuity, make-up, 4 in the camera/lighting department and 2 in location sound.
In order to protect the crew, they were engaged on the basis of making a short film, and were not shown several key scenes in the script, which were deemed risky by the local production advisors. The riskiest scenes were scheduled for the end of the shoot when many of the crew had been wrapped. The crew weren’t told that the film had Australian producers as it was feared this would arouse suspicions about the nature of the project which could be fed back to the authorities, so Kate Croser and Julie Ryan worked mainly from a separate production office, having separate meetings with key personnel, the director and DOP, and attending rushes screenings daily.
Most of the Iranian crew was male apart from continuity and make-up. It was unusual for the camera/lighting team to work with a female DOP but they quickly accepted Bonnie Elliott once they saw her showreel and her work on set and Bonnie developed a fast and efficient shooting style with her team which enabled the set to achieve the exterior shots quickly and move on, thus reducing the risk of interference by the authorities.
In the Iranian film industry, crews generally work 7 days per week until the film is shot, with no restriction on the length of the shoot day - there are no film unions in the country. The producers had budgeted a 6 week shoot and were alarmed that initially the Iranian production team wanted to shoot the film in 18 days straight! Eventually the Australian producers managed to negotiate a 6-day working week, to allow the director and DOP a day off to reflect and plan the week ahead, and the 1st AD was persuaded to allow more time on each scene so the shoot stretched to a 5 week shoot allowing for an additional week of second unit and pickups where much of the footage of Tehran as a city was shot.
The shoot days were generally very long with power blackouts occurring on a regular basis and stopping shooting for up to 3 hours at a time. All the exterior scenes were shot on Fridays, being the “weekend” - the one day off per week in Iran. On Fridays the streets are almost deserted and all the shops are closed so exterior and low-loader shoots could be shot without attracting too much attention from the public or the authorities.
The notorious Tehran traffic also caused delays. With up to 12 million people living in Tehran and a negligible public transport system, peak “hour” ran for most of the day and driving across town required negotiating a never-ending series of traffic jams.
The weather conditions were another factor to contend with. During pre-production and the shoot it was very hot, averaging 40 degrees each day. For the Australians, it was essential to work in hijab – wearing a headscarf and long loose clothing to cover the whole body (only hands and face visible) – which, because of the heat, was one of the most challenging aspects of the work.
