Production Notes

ORIGINS AND PRE-PRODUCTION

The concept that would eventually become Lite Socker began in the fall of 2003 when Hasse Billing and Henrik Sköld were thinking of ideas for an acting showreel. The rough ideas never got past the planning stage, and were put away.

A year later, Hasse was in London attending film school and Henrik was doing the same in Stockholm, and they decided to write a short film. They revisited the concept but in order to flesh out the film they added several layers to make it multi-dimensional. With the story worked out, Hasse started writing the screenplay. For the following 6 months Hasse would write a draft and then meet up with Henrik whenever they both happened to be in the same city. By March of 2005, they had a script they were both happy with.

In April, Hasse had to return to Stockholm for an operation, which forced him to be away from school for a month while recovering. They decided this would be the best time to shoot the film. They auditioned some actors and found both Christian Magdu (Ola) and Jenny Lampa (Sofia) very quickly. Hasse had written the part of Pippi with Britta Forsberg in mind, but when she would be away during filming they tried to find someone else. When they couldn't find anyone else to match the charm required to play the porn star with a heart of gold, they decided to cast Britta, but leave her part until later and go ahead with the rest of the film.

PRODUCTION

They rented the HDV-Z1E camera to get a quality far superior to DV, but still affordable since they were paying for everything themselves. A couple of scoutings later they had found all the locations necessary for the shoot, which was to take place Thursday to Saturday, with a bit of sneak filming of flashbacks on the Wednesday. Time was so tight that they were actually rolling tape about an hour after they had picked up the camera from the rental company.

The idea was to record the images and not worry about the sound which they would recreate afterwards with foley and ADR. The shoot went well, with a long day on Thursday but managing to get everything with Sofia and the Collegue (Anders Menzinsky). Jennifer Kelly made sure things went smoothly with the make-up and costumes, and Martin Pender made everyone feel at ease when they shot the living room scenes at his flat. The actors had a good time and gave great performances, but finally the day had to end. The following two days were spent filming with only Christian in the flat and at the office. Jessica Billing joined the crew as an assistant and stand-in, and Maria Sköld was cast as a co-worker at the last moment.

Happy with how things had gone, they were hoping for a summer shoot for the remaining scenes, but when Hasse's films dragged on in London, it wasn't until November that they were able to reunite with Christian and this time also Britta to finish the rest of the film. They were able to borrow Jonas Hed's HCR-HC1 camera so they wouldn't have to spend more money renting one, and they filmed in a studio in Henrik's former school. But they were almost stranded without an actress.

The part of Pippi required partial nudity, and Britta hadn't become aware of what this entailed. It dawned on her the night before the shoot, and the became nervous about the role and unsure about the project. But after talking with Hasse for a few hours they came to a compromise, deciding on her wearing a bra, which enabled her to do the part with considerably more comfort. They spent a whole day filming the Studio scenes, and at the end it was a little sad to see it all end, but there was still a lot of work to do.

POST-PRODUCTION

Hasse and Henrik made one big mistake after finishing filming. They didn't ask to borrow the camera to transfer the footage onto the computer, and since it was an HDV camera, regular camcorders couldn't read the footage. Trying to get hold of Jonas proved to be a struggle and when they finally were able to borrow his camera again, it had become May, and another 6 months later. And just when they had managed to transfer the 5 hours of footage onto the Avid, Hasse got a job in London for another film, so Lite Socker got postponed again.

It wasn't until September and October that Hasse had some quiet time that enabled him to sit and edit the film, which he did while in the US, Spain and Sweden. Another job in London took up the time in November, but upon returning to Sweden in December, the film was finally in a solid rough cut, and Hasse and Henrik sat to watch it and discussed how to take it further. It was decided that it would be beneficial to shoot an additional scene to strengthen the love story, and since they had to shoot a couple of cutaways they had missed before, they could do it all in the same day.

At the same time Christian and Jenny saw the rough cut for the first time, and the excitement for the finished product gave everyone another boost. A week into December, Hasse rented some sound recording equipment and recorded Sofia's and Ola's ADR lines. Pippi's had to be left until later, but since they had to reunite again for the pick-ups, they would try to do it then.

However, a last minute change of plans halted the work to have it all done before Christmas, but has given Hasse some time to put all the sound in place before returning to Sweden. The plan is to do the pick-ups and the last of the ADR in March, just a week before Henrik moves to Tokyo.

To be continued...