Making of The Prompt
“Mamaan!”
A young woman is standing at the base of the stairs. She is locked out.
“Mamaan! Let me in!”
There is no response. Frustrated, the girl climbs onto a nearby rooftop and calls out yet again.
“Mamaan!”
The shutters of a window above fly open and a woman leans out.
“Suri! Come on!” The woman yells before shuffling down to let her daughter in.
“Cut!”
Upon hearing the director’s call, I finally let out my breath. I peer out the window at the set and the two actors conversing. We have been running this small shot for over an hour.
“Did we get it?” I holler.
“We got it!” The director shouts back. Sweet.
This is The Prompt. A short film directed by Kitsann Means, my former drama teacher, one of three films following a similar theme: the relationship between a mother and daughter. It is early summer of 2022 and we are a small group of highschool-age interns in Izzalini, my small village in the region of Umbria, Italy. Secluded from the ruckus of larger cities such as Rome, which is only a short drive away, it contains a variety of locations. Olive orchards, castle ruins, stone archways, and scenic backroads, all of which I have personally scouted for production. My other job is to translate between the Italian actors and the group.
The Kiwi and the Slipper
The process of making a movie never goes without its fair share of misadventures.
We are several hours into a new day, now shooting a scene in which Suri, the main character, is sitting at the kitchen table speaking with her mother. As she listens to her mother’s words, she takes bites from a freshly-cut kiwi. Being a long dialogue scene, one mistake can mean losing the shot and having to restart. We run the scene over and over, but no shot seems to be good enough.
As time passes, the kiwi slices begin to dwindle at an alarming rate. Suri takes more and more sparing bites, but to no avail. We are stymied. We only have two more kiwis on hand, and they have been a centerpiece on the table for many prior scenes. Do we halt production and send someone to the market to buy a single kiwi? We can’t. It would take twenty minutes each way. At that point, the continuity that we had been so desperate to preserve would be shattered.
After some hard thinking and many years taken off of our lives, we decide to borrow the midsection of one of the table’s kiwis and stick the remaining ends together. That goddamn kiwi.
Just as we think we are safe, another conundrum surfaces. Upon entering the house, our actors swap out their outdoor shoes with indoor slippers; while they are a part of the costume and display the mother’s insistence on tidiness, they also help reduce noise on set. We have previously purchased two very cheap pairs of slippers for the actors and, unfortunately, after several days of use, they have begun to suffer from their own shoddy quality. One of Suri’s slippers, having clung to life as best it could, lets out its last breath and promptly disintegrates. We make it through the scene with copious amounts of tape and staples.
Lunatic Blocking Cars
We have just finished filming a scene inside of a library, and it is now time to film the exterior and on the surrounding street.
“Hey, Marin,” the director calls. As I approach her, she says, “We need somebody to block traffic from entering this street, and you’re the only one here who is free and speaks Italian.”
I stare at her blankly.
In the previous shot, I had been an extra, playing a library patron. At the time I had been only visible from the knees up and wearing a hijab. Now, I am partially out of costume, with no time to change. Sporting an orange grown-out buzz cut, a purple blouse that is several sizes too large, a “skirt” constructed from a safety-pinned scarf, extremely hairy legs, and military boots with metal spikes, I look deranged. I begrudgingly make my way to the mouth of the street. One by one, I flag down drivers and ask them kindly to use a different route. A handful of them, upon first seeing me, wave their hands dismissively, assuming me to be a street beggar or something of the sort. I get it, I guess. As they try to maneuver around me, I nonchalantly step in the way of their car until they cave in and roll down their windows.
“Scusi, stiamo girando un film su questa strada, è possibile usarne un’altra?” I say, and their expressions immediately soften from discomfiture to understanding.
I was a lunatic blocking cars, but at least I got the job done.
Sunflowers and Chicken Shit
In Italy, sunflowers are a valuable crop, and are farmed for their seeds and oil. In several regions, Umbria being one of them, you can find rolling hills carpeted with blooming yellow sunflower fields. It is the end of June, and they are at their peak bloom.
Midway through the film production, I realize that sunflowers have become a prominent theme throughout the movie. I can see it now, a montage of Suri biking along the side of the road, beautiful girasoli filling the background. I even know the exact road to use, and it is no more than a ten minute drive from our base of operations, Izzalini. The director thinks this is a wonderful idea and, soon enough, we are standing beside the field, preparing to film.
One thing you need to know about me is that I have an exceptionally acute sense of smell. Lord knows where it comes from.
As we roll up, a nauseating smell drifts through the open car windows and into my nostrils. I had forgotten. Just beyond the sunflower field, still adjacent to the road, are two large chicken mills. Massive half-cylinders filled to the brim with chickens and, consequently, their feces. It is noon, about 100 degrees outside, and the poop is cooking.
I look around me at the other members of the crew. They are setting up, seemingly unaffected by the noxious fumes that fill the air. Not fair.
After about four minutes of trying to withstand the nausea brewing in my stomach, I resign my position for the day. I’m out. Instead, I join the director as she goes shopping for props. At least the store has air conditioning.
The Denouement
I am an extra yet again, this time in a flashback sequence, taking place at an Iranian dinner. I scoop more saffron rice into my mouth. We are back in Eugene now, filming our final shot in the director’s living room. The other extras and I pass around chocolates as we chat amongst ourselves silently in the background.
Glasses clink together, and murmurs of congratulations are heard.
“I would like to thank everybody again for coming this evening,” a man announces after a sip of his wine.
A woman discreetly tucks a poem into her hand, tied up with a little red ribbon.
One more close-up of a man chewing his chocolate.
“It’s a wrap!” The director calls.