Surely you drew on personal experiences to create this film? Yes?

Sure! I guess I always do on every project somehow but don’t count on me to reveal which scenes are inspired by my real life.

I tried to fill the script with as much detail as possible. The key of the idea was to create a strong bond with the audience, involving them, touching them, making them laugh with direct connections to their own lives. So I fed the story with my own experiences and my vision of a couple and their intimacy, but I also peppered it with friends’ stories and anecdotes. Finally, all the relationships have loads of common points, and the tricky part was to pick up the best one.

The cast are a good match, how did you find them?

We did a casting session in London. I wondered for a while if a real couple could be a good option for the video but we auditioned actors alone as well. I was looking for the right balance between beauty and attitude. Finally, it turned out that the actors we chose didn’t know each other but they had something very natural and friendly about them to make them an iconic couple.

Were there quite a few statistics that you shelved – or did you have everything worked out before the shoot?

I had pretty much everything in mind before the shoot. I did a very detailed breakdown (more than 80 set ups) documented with picture references (especially for the art direction and the framing) and the subtitle links. But I have to say, I reworked the copy in the edit for a few of them. I didn’t change the whole meaning of a scene but I tried to enhance and polish the copy with regard to what we shot to make the humor more instantaneous. Also, as English is not my native language, I collaborated with Ellie Johnson (my editor at Speade) and Joe Walker (my producer at Able & Baker) to make it sound perfectly clear and to add an English sensibility to it.

Any major headaches in the production of the film?

The success of such a concept depends essentially on the amount of scenes. I wanted to get as much material as possible to be in a position to have choices in the edit and pick up the strongest scenes so for me the main hurdle in the production process was to find a way to work fast enough to shoot approximately 80 set ups.

We scheduled the shoot on two days (one day studio and one day house location) but it was still challenging. Hopefully, I had the chance to work with a very efficient crew, full of resources. The collective Sets Appeal took care of the art direction and managed to set all those scenes in an incredibly short time.

Did you make this in the UK or Paris – there’s an English tone about it, perhaps it’s the pints?

We shot everything in London, it was a 100% UK project. I promise I was the only frog involved.

I’m really pleased to hear you found an English sensibility in it. I thought it would be hard to do that but finally it came quite naturally. As I was surrounded by an English crew, it was easy for me to get an English point of view on a scene immediately. Or perhaps it’s just the time I spent in London lately.

So you working between Paris and London now?

Yes, I’m still based in Paris but I work both in Paris and London.

LINKS

Remy Cayuela

Able & Baker