The Moment

Today I shoot the most challenging scene of the movie. A young woman wracked with unacknowledged grief and guilt, full of anger at herself and the world, comes by chance on a weekday afternoon into a church in which the choir is practicing Bach's "Sleepers Awake." It is the turning point of the story--the point at which she begins her difficult uphill climb to peace, acceptance and understanding. And it all happens because a few chords of music strike her heart and her soul in a particular way.

How do you shoot a thing like that? How do you convey what is going on without subtitles?

We're putting her in the center of the aisle with three tall--and very beautiful--stained glass windows behind her, and we are doing a very tricky thing where the camera pulls back from the actress at the same time that it is zooming in on her. This keeps her the same size in the frame but makes the background--the stained glass windows--appear to be getting bigger and closer. This technique was used in The Mask the first time Jim Carrey sees Cameron Diaz, to underscore just how knocked out he is by her. It's hard enough to get dolly-out-zoom-in right on a feature with a 70 day shooting schedule. On a 19 day schedule, with all the work I have to get done today? The actress has to stay EXACTLY the same size in frame or the whole thing looks joggly and the trick is blown. How many tries will it take???

And beyond that--will anybody buy that a few bars of soaring Bach can really have that effect on her? I'm going on the knowledge that a few bars of soaring Bach have had that effect on ME.

And what else do I have to go on?