There was a MOUSE in the ROOM

Today we all met to discuss what are we going to do next in our film. Because I "Mayye" am in the US right now we had to have the meeting through skype. We did a lot of progress in editing as we are very close of having a rough cut for the whole film. Unfortunately the hard drive where the footage of "Dahlia" and "Rawya" are has some problems. And since we ran out of money as usual we can't even afford buying a new one.  Anyway we decided that it's time to apply for a fund to help us finish the movie but to apply for a fund we have to have a trailer and to write down some documents in both Arabic and English. We all agreed to the following schedule to work on that.

March 21st: Mohamad El Hadidi and Mohamed Zidan will start making the trailer.

March 23rd: Ahmed Magdy will shoot some remaining shots in "Amr".

March 27th: The trailer will be finished.

March 30th: Mohamed Zidan will shoot some remaining shots in "Rawya".

March 31st: Hend Bakr will finish writing all the needed documents.

April 3rd: Mohamad El Hadidi and Mohamed Zidan will make the budget.

Nermeen Salem, Ahmed Ragab, Mohamad El Hadidi, Ahmed Magdy, Mohamed Zidan in a video call with Mayye Zayed

Hend Bakr was a bit late but she joined us later and right before she arrived a mouse came inside the room. Ofcourse everybody was afraid and ran outside leaving Mohamed Zidan and Ahmed Magdy to take care of it. I was watching the whole thing through skype and it was really funny to see both of them trying to find the little poor mouse. So yeah there was a mouse in the room literally !! We don't know if it's a good or a bad sign and we are wondering if we should keep the name or change it. Some of us like Nermeen Salem really hates the name "The Mice Room".

Editing

In January 2012 we started editing FINALLY and 2 days ago we finished the first rough cut of Ahmed Magdy's segment "Amr". At the beginning we were planning to edit the film or the different segments ourselves but then we realized that it would be much better for the film to be edited by someone with fresh eyes; someone who hasn't been there since the beginning during screenwriting or preparation or shooting. We wanted to have only one person to edit the film but it was hard to find someone who is available all that long time. This is why we decided to have more than one editor working together. Right now Islam Kamal is working on 2 segments "Rawya" and then later "Maha", Nada Riyadh is working on 2 segments as well "Amr" and "Moussa" while Mark Lotfy is only editing "The Girl" so as Mohamed Zidan and "Dahlia". On February 7th, 2012 Nada finished the first rough cut for "Amr" so now she's working on "Moussa". 

Mohamed Zidan while editing Mayye's segment "Dahlia"

We are not 7 anymore !!

Unfortunately in January 2012 we had to take a hard decision which is to start the process of editing without "Hassan"; the segment written and directed by Mahmoud. Mahmoud was the 2nd one to shoot his segment in November 2010 but due to many obstacles he couldn't finish shooting it. We were planning to be done with shooting and start with editing or post production in general in July 2011 but due to the revolution and financial issues we were delayed to January 2012 so we decided that it's best for the film to start editing without Mahmoud even though we were sad to do so.

End of Shooting

On January 3rd, 2012 we finally finished shooting our film "The Mice Room" after 1 year, 4 months and 18 days and now we are working in post production. We really would like to thank all the people who helped us all the way. Without you we couldn't make it so THANK YOU :)

The 6th Segment "Amr"

On Friday, December 23rd, 2011 we started shooting the last segment "AMR" starring Zeyad Salem as Amr. Ahmed El Shazly was the Assistant Director but since he got a new job in Cairo he couldn't be available all the time of shooting so Ahmed Nabil became the Assistant Director. Mayye Zayed is still abroad. yet, she offered to work on this segment via Skype but no one believed that could work. All of us except Mayye for sure were there to help and this unfortunately costed Hend her new laptop. Someone came in to the hospital where they were shooting, took the laptop in front of everybody and just left. The people in the hospital thought he was one of the film's crew and whoever was there from the film's crew thought he was someone from the hospital !!

Sameh Nabil is enjoying what he's listening to

Sameh Nabil is wishing everybody a Merry Christmas

Finally there is a lady on set

Zeyad Salem is no longer Amr

The 5th Segment "Rawya"

Mohamed Zedan and Islam Kamal trying to find the perfect frame

The 5th segment was shot in August 2011. The great Hanan Youssef has agreed to play the main character "Rawya" in it. Hanan has met the 6 filmmakers in the independent filmmaking workshop in the Jesuits Centre and on location in Ibrahim's El Batout's feature "Hawi". One of the film's main rules was to have the main crew members like the DP, assistant director, .. etc from the 6 filmmakers themselves, in order to increase their chance of learning. However this rule was broken when Mayye Zayed has travelled abroad to study. She was supposed to be the DP for this segment as planned, but since she won't make it, Islam Kamal was chosen to do it.

Nada Riyadh is praying Islam Kamal won't fall

Sameh Nabil finds his perfect spot to record sound

The house where "Rawya" takes place is a very old house. Since the floor is really old and not stable enough for the dolly we have, we had to build a stable wooden floor ourselves for the dolly's rubber tracks. It was either this solution or buying a new dolly with steel tracks, not to mention we are borrowing this dolly from Ibrahim El Batout :) We also wanted to have a shot from outside the kitchen so we had to build another wooden thing for the camera to be fixed on. Ahmad Zayan and Islam El Tayeb were the great guys who did these two jobs, building the wooden tracks and the camera's stand from scratch. Thank you guys :)

Mohamed Zedan and Islam Kamal testing the new dolly tracks

The wooden camera's stand

You can check the video here :)

http://themiceroomfilm.blogspot.com/2012/08/making-dolly.html

The 4th Segment "Dahlia"

On Sunday, July 21st, 2011 we started shooting the 4th segment "Dahlia" starring Noura Saafan as Dahlia the bride, Sherifa and Sahar as the hairdressers, Azza as the mother, Elie as the father, Batoul as the sister, Omar Elhamy as the groom, Heba Ayman and Isis Khalil as the friends of the bride. It was shot in five days; two days in Mohamed Zedan's house and three days in Sherifa's hairdresser "Bella Donna". We finished shooting today, July 29th, 2011.