Back in May I told you that the film company FILM.UA started production of a 4-episode TV drama series «Moths» about two young people, who fell in love during the Chernobyl disaster. Recently I’ve visited the shooting area of the series, and it felt as if I returned to my childhood: a quiet provincial town, the architecture of the 80s, yellow Ikarus, posters of «Long live May 1st!»...
Anyway, I saw the scene of evacuation of Pripyat’s citizens, which was shot in Slavutych - the youngest city in Ukraine, which was built after the accident 50 km from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant for workers. The place was not chosen by chance: the town is similar to Pripyat in 1986.
- Of course, aboriginals of Pripyat will take a look and say that everything looks wrong, - says Anna Skok, Production Director. - But we are entitled to a discount - it's not a documentary. In 2012, when all cities (including small ones) acquired the attributes of modernity, Slavutych still reminds Pripyat of that time. We had a great scouting - considered, above all, the nearby towns: Energodar, Svetlodarsk, Neteshin, Schelkino. But they didn’t fit, because we needed a new state of the city. Slavutych - a very well kept and the youngest of them - architecture, houses and atmosphere fit great.
To make it more similar to Pripyat, the inscription «Energetic» was attached the facade of the local culture palace. Another landmark building of Pripyat - Hotel «Polissya» – will appear in the frame with the help of computer graphics. In Slavutych, there were also other objects that survived the Soviet entourage - sewing studio, hairdressing salon, children's garden.
- For buses, which evacuated people from Pripyat (and most of them were yellow Ikarus), we searched all over Ukraine and neighboring countries like Belarus, - says Anna. - Collecting from all sides - Kharkov, Kiev, Sumy ... But the problem is that in many cities these buses were removed from the route a long time ago. Many of them have been turned into a pile of scrap metal - cut up, without engines. And we had not only to find these buses, but also to make sure that they were able to arrive to the shooting area and work in the frame.
According to director of production, they also had to busy themselves a lot with other vehicles: ambulances, police cars and even Zhiguli without modern devices became a rarity. And the things that you can get still need to be repaired, painted or decorated. Military equipment is another thing: helicopters, armored personnel carriers, cleansing cars were used at the shooting area of «Moths».
Here is another «prop» in the arsenal of a modern army. It’s called MRPV - RC (military reconnaissance patrol vehicle - radiochemical), it is designed to measure levels of contamination by chemical exposure. For thirty years, only the look of these machines has changed, so at the request of the studio this instance was prepared to the shooting - a modern camouflage was removed and painted green.
Military equipment is quiet a spectacular thing, but let’s return to the main storyline of «Moths», to the story of love. After graduating Asya comes to Pripyat before the accident, and has to stay in town for a few days. The girl is not being evacuated along with everyone else, she meets her first love - soldier Pasha, with whom she was destined to stay not for a long.
Creative producer Olesya Lukyanenko and second director Irina Gromozda near the Palace of Culture «Energetic».
Creative producer of the series Olesya Lukyanenko told me more about the plot:
- The «plus» of the script is not in the actual material, but in a very strong emotional component. In addition to the main characters, there are a lot of bright memorable images and broken lives in the film. After all, we are talking about the disaster, during which incredible love originates.
- Why it is incredible?
- Girl, the main character of the film, hardly imagined that she could fall in love. This is a self-confident, somewhat spoiled, self-willed tomboy, who can and knows how to take care of herself. But then she meets a guy for whom she changes completely and does things, about which she could not even think of. In fact, she sacrifices herself for the sake of a loved one.
- How you worked on the actual part?
- We were very lucky with the director. Vitaliy Vorobyov is a scrupulous man, very attentive to details, it is important for him to understand how it really happened. We have reviewed a lot of chronicles, went to museums, met with eyewitnesses - director has a strong desire to make the series as realistic as possible. Director of photography Pavel Kulakov pursues the same goals: he uses a lot of hand-held camera so that the picture looked «alive», there are few still frames.
- Not so long ago few films about Chernobyl were released. How your project will win the audience?
- Most of these films were dedicated to the date and were positioned as films about Chernobyl, about the events, about the liquidators. Our film, first of all, is about love. And disaster is its catalyst, for any emergency situation forces a person to be more delicate, have stronger reaction, open new opportunities. This film is about it: about a pure, all-absorbing, self-sacrificing love. And films about love, in our opinion, are always interesting. We should also bear in mind that our heroes are 17-18-year-olds. This is their first strong feeling. And when the world collapses around, you love ten times stronger.
- How to work with young actors?
- We are very happy. They are young, and really eager to fight. They have an incredible desire to work, to seek, to train. Maybe they do not always perform technically precise movements, but their emotions are always very convincing. And for the director it was the first condition. When Vitaliy saw Maria Poezhaeva, he said - I want to make this film only with her, without her it would be a different picture. And Maria has to pass final exams at the institute, make her diploma performance and work in the MAT. It was very difficult to cope with her busyness, eventually we had to delay the launch of the film. The same thing was with Yuriy Borisov, he is very serious about the role. Whenever possible, Yura comes to the shooting area, even when he does not shoot. For him, complete immersion in the material is very important. We are worried whether Jura will agree to shave off his hair, because in the finale we see him bald. But it seems that such experiments with appearance only please him. It should be noted that not only young but also well-known actors shoot in the film: Yulia Rutberg, Andrey Kazakov, Yuriy Nazarov. They play an important role in the events. Yulia Rutberg has come to shoot in Kiev. She plays a doctor who takes injured after the explosion and elimination of aftermath of the explosion at Chernobyl. It is emotionally difficult role.
- Tell us about the shooting of the reactor.
- We were shooting the roof of the third reactor: there cleaning works took place; soldiers manually dumped radioactive waste into the mouth of the fourth exploded block. This platform we have built on the ground at the plant. We shot in front of the rear screen in order to «draw» a reactor. Also there is a scene where one of the soldiers starts to panic, loses his temper and falls into the reactor. This part of the scene shot in a burned-out workshop, texture of which - crumpled burned metal and twisted iron handrails – is very similar to what we saw in the chronicle. However, the difficulty was that the workshop was in a dangerous condition - inside it is very unsafe. But our artists built on the remains of the roof of the workshop special platform on which the actor was placed. The camera shot from below from a crane. I was present at the shooting area that day. And when I looked at the monitor I was having a feeling that I was at the shooting area of «Alien».
- So, there will be a lot of computer graphics in the film.
- Yes, quite a lot - basically, it'll be scenes relating to the reactor and helicopter flights. Indeed, one of the characters in the movie - father of the protagonist (Andrey Kazakov) – helicopter pilot, who is one of the first to take part in the filling of the reactor. These scenes were shot in real helicopters. Overflights of the reactor and the crash of the helicopter will be created on the computer. It’s not an easy task for the specialists of the company POSMODERN - to recreate on the screen the reactor before and after the explosion. In order to do this, they study the Chernobyl nuclear power plant archival photos as closely as possible to draw every detail.
- Where did you take the actual information?
- Chernobyl Museum helps us, a lot of material - photographs, information about the military, liquidators, hospitals - we took from them. We also engage consultants: one of the first men who flew round Pripyat on April 26 works with us. This is Sergey Volodin. He helped with the photos, told what time the helicopters were used, corrected the text in the script, because a helicopter pilots have their own language, their own call signs. Not so easy was finding doctors who have helped injured in those days. But everyone say different things. Someone sticks to «convenient truth»: that everyone helped injured, dressed them, washed them. Others say that the first who took the hit, firefighters and plant workers, were changed their clothes in hospital. Their clothes were radioactive so many of the medical staff irradiated.
Meanwhile, at the shooting area a large-scale action unfolded: more than 200 people rehearsed boarding on the bus:
In these scenes clothes are very impressive - I'll never know where to get so many clothes of 80s. And costume designer Tamara Demchenko knows and will share with me her secrets:
- Thirty percent of the clothes are from warehouse at FILM.UA, thirty percent are from second hand market, and the rest is what people have brought with themselves. It's just antiques - they brought what they wore in 80s. However, there was much more difficulties with shoes and hairstyles. Modern haircuts are very different from the style of the 80s. So we had to make new haircuts and we coped with it in three hours. In general, we’ve started collecting everything since March.
According to Tamara, the hardest was to create costumes of the liquidators:
- We had a real reconstruction of the «roof cats» (so called guys who «cleaned» the roof of the reactor, they were soldiers of the engineering, construction troops). We’ve found costumes with a hood, twenty old musty costumes, which eventually narrowed from 54th to 48th size. We’ve also «restored» the so-called X-ray aprons, which are made of solid rubber with lead shields. The hardest thing is to make it authentic.
- And where did you get army uniform from?
- Costumes of 1957 we fetched from warehouses all over Ukraine. And when pilots were dressed, I called up friends from Vinnitsa helicopter regiment, and asked: «Guys, search through warrants, garages, attics». Because I understand that people wear those costumes when fishing and hunting. I’ve also recreated all those costumes, made a complete renovation: some of the details we’ve searched among collectors, went to designers meetings.
- We had a funny story - says Anna Skok. – We chose a place where the old man’s burial is being shot, - such a beautiful tree in the center of town. We arrive in order to take a look, and there water services dug up pipes (laughs). We had to bury it all, repair and start shooting.
Now I want to see the completed series. And I want to wish the creators of the show a painless end of production and, of course, high ratings.
