‘Twas the night before the shooting of “Bury me in the backyard”

I’m sitting at my parents’ kitchen table as I’m writing this. Outside, the ground is covered with snow, which I can’t see because it’s already dark but I know it’s covered in snow because it’s been snowing all day. Anna, my producer, is in the house next door that we’ve rented for the week and the rest of the team arrives later tonight. Tomorrow is our first day of shooting.

It somehow crept up on me today, for the first time since we started this project almost a year ago. It’s like I haven’t really believed it’ll be happening, until just now, or rather when we were heading into town with my dad today to make a few final purchases and one of the actors phoned me to double-check what to bring, and that’s when it really hit me: this is happening… and I finally got nervous about the shoot, and not just a little bit nervous either, oh no… I’m making up for lost time here. All those months of pre-production when I was cool as cucumber about the whole process and the obstacles that popped up along the way, I was apparently saving up nerves for a last-minute freak-out!

But it’s a good freak-out; I’m super excited. I’m buzzing with energy and inspiration. I’m in my element. I wish I never had to be anywhere but here!

Anna and I went up to Ljusne ahead of the others to prepare for the shoot and that’s what we’ve been doing for the past couple of days. We’ve cooked six different soups (one of which was pumpkin soup and I made my first Jack-o-lantern ever with the remains!) Anna has made bread, I’ve redone the storyboard and gone through all the props and costumes and everything. Now, all we have to do is wait, really. Which isn’t really helping with the nerves, so I’ve been doing some doodling and sketches for the illustrations to my children’s book.