The Greek gods II

Our director Amadeo is one mad man, whose the vision of greatness and perfection can drive him to totally oblivious of others, and, most dangerously, to ignore their safety.

We were to film the number Zorina tonight. At 9pm, lightning began to strike. The sky was heavy with dark clouds and the sunset was indeed beautiful. They had just managed to film the song once when the first raindrops started to fall. That lasted a few minutes. We covered the equipment and brought the music instruments indoor. Amadeo told us to stay put. Maybe the weather would get better soon, he hoped. Maybe we could resume the shooting.  After just twenty minutes, Amadeo felt confident that we could get ready again for the shooting despite signs of an imminent storm coming back to us: wind blowing harder, lightning striking again, a perfect illustration for the lyrics of the song: “She’s the daughter of Heaven / Sister of the Sun / Fire is her lover…”

I was taught in primary school to calculate the distance of the rainstorm: count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder, each second roughly equals one kilometer. Tonight, there was barely five seconds between lightning and thunder. Then four, then two…We were right in the eye of the storm. Yet, still no rain. With the wind and the lightning, Karen indeed looked like a goddess of the Elements. “Give me more emotion! Give me more love!!!” Amadeo was yelling incessantly in the microphone. “More attitude! More love!!!” Our poor ears...

I was still counting. The lightning was lighting up the pitch dark sky. Now, nine seconds between lightning and thunder. Would the storm be blown away by the wind? This was getting dangerous. We were surrounded by metal. Seats and stands were all made of metal. One lightning strike and it was a direct ticket to the Underworld. Amadeo was yelling the same instructions in the microphone. “More emotion! More love! More attitude!!!!” Karen bravely kept on with the number until heavy rain suddenly began to pour. Finally, but perhaps too late, Amadeo answered everybody’s prayer and called the shooting off. Again, we dashed everywhere to salvage the equipment. Within seconds we were all soaked.

Amadeo loved the sight of everyone running under the rain, dashing right and left on the stage. He was cheering happily with Karen. All of this for the sake of art! His soldiers weren’t scared to sacrifice themselves for the show! 

Mad man and his vision.