Making of 'One'
Nov 2002. It was three months before the premiere of One. After a few hectic weeks of pre production we were ready to shoot the video part of One. The budget for the film was very low but thanks to the generous sponsoring of equipment by Holland Film and all the volunteers in the film crew, we were able to start shooting at the first location; a fortress on a small Island near Amsterdam.
It was early morning when we took the boat to the small coast Island ‘Fort IJmuiden’. We had booked the Island for a full day to do external shots for the video part of One. It was cold, we were all excited. The fortress has a maze of long stretching hallways, very spooky and the ideal location for some of the exterior shots for the video. Our shooting schedule turned out to be rather optimistic and we ended up with less shots than expected but the scenes we did get onto tape were good enough to carry the scenes. The only way off the island was by boat and we had to bribe the captain of the boat to let us finish the last essential shots on the island before taking us back to the mainland. Afterwards producer Dyveke Rood and me drove a truck to the set builder to pick up the main prop of the video; a large wooden cupboard. The second and third shooting day we build a sound stage in Studio Grasland in Haarlem. The studio is a beautiful multi-functional room that we turned into a dark space with a number of curtains. For each scene we had to move the furniture and camera unit around to make things fit.
Our main prop, the wooden cupboard still needed some color and producer Dyveke was painting all night in order for it to be ready the next morning.
Soprano Barbara Hannigan and Michel van der Aa relive some moments of the production process:
Barbara:
“When Michel asked me for a few lines about the making of One, a few images immediately came to mind. One was of Guido Tichelman, our recording engineer, standing just to the left of the camera, cueing me for the film clip where I am erratically blurting out consonants like “fff”, “ttt”, “mmm”, “shhh”, well, you get the picture. They were completely notated with complex rhythmic placements in the score. There was so much material to cover for the filming session, that much of it I didn’t manage to memorize, and Guido’s level-headed delivery was fantastic, amazingly helpful, and in retrospect, very very funny.”
Michel:
“Haha yes, dear Guido. I wish we had a third camera just filming his facial expressions during that scene. It was a contemporary theatre piece in itself!”
Barbara:
“The second image is of having my feet taped to the floor during an especially long and difficult section of the piece.
Making of ‘One’
“We had to record it bar by bar, which meant a lot of editing later for Michel, and to make this as smooth as possible, I was taped down to ensure as little movement as possible. The restraint was comforting in some small way: a bit of control in a situation where I felt out-of-control.”
Michel:
“It was quite amazing what Barbara did in these scenes. It was like singing only half of the notes of a very difficult solo, the other half she performs live during the performance. Not only the melodic lines were cut but also words were cut into two halves and completed again during the performance. I think it must have felt a bit like running away from a big approaching truck on one leg.”
Barbara:
“Of course, I won’t easily forget the pain of walking on all those sharp little branches, but at least when we shot that scene in the fortress near IJmuiden, my feet were so cold I couldn’t really feel them anymore.”
Michel:
“It was so cold that day in the fortress. Barbara appears in the video in a thin black summer dress and we had to get her out of her coat, shoot the scene and back into her coat before all her bones froze into one position. The crew stayed warm enough since we had to run through long allies, setting up lights and testing the camera dolly.”
Barbara:
“I learned so much from the process of memorizing the piece, working with Michel, the crew and our recording and production technicians in all the different stages of developing and finally presenting One. There was a point where I couldn’t question the piece anymore – there was so much to be done that I just did the work and became completely absorbed in that function. In the final days leading up to the premiere I felt completely unified with Michel in the goal of presenting the piece to the very best of our ability, exhausted by the work but also exhilarated by it.”
Michel:
“I feel that, looking back, One turned out to be a turning point in my career. We’ve taken an huge risk with the piece but fortunately all things worked out, the video proved to be an essential part of the work and Barbara was well…amazing! The piece wouldn’t be the same without her performance on stage and in the video part.”
