Intimacy Coordination

Prepar­ing for inti­ma­cy is an intri­cate task. I will study the mate­ri­als and con­sult rel­e­vant spe­cial­ists to pre­pare for the work. This might include any spe­cif­ic kind of inti­ma­cy, rela­tion­ship style or forms. I will study any spe­cif­ic aspects of inti­ma­cy in ques­tion. I will also seek to bet­ter under­stand the con­tent and form we want to present. This helps me frame my spe­cif­ic approach­es and ways of work­ing for the project.

I will cre­ate an inti­ma­cy break-down based on the pro­duc­tion plans (script, clothes etc). With a writ­ten ‘rough break-down’, I will then lead dis­cus­sions about any spe­cif­ic demands of inti­ma­cy and about the time and resources we need.  This break-down gives a rough sup­port mate­r­i­al for all the design­ers when they do their work. I pre­fer that every­body knows before­hands what kind of work­flow to expect when it comes to the scenes of intimacy.

While craft­ing the Break-Down, I will need to have mul­ti­ple dis­cus­sions with direc­tor, actors and key heads of depart­ments. Inti­ma­cy is a lit­tle bit tougher for everyone.

I will craft an inti­ma­cy plan based on per­form­ers’ expressed bound­aries and direc­tor’s vision list­ing the prac­ti­cal choic­es rel­e­vant to the all the areas of respon­si­bil­i­ty. The plan will then be dis­cussed and fleshed out into prac­ti­cal sched­ules and to-do lists as the dis­cus­sions con­tin­ue. I will often include some back-up plans and safe­ty go-to’s so that we know what to expect in case of any problems. 

I pre­fer to cre­ate a plan — and not just a ‘inti­ma­cy rid­er for a per­former’ which most inti­ma­cy pro­fes­sion­als use. I will include all the same infor­ma­tion that a rid­er would — and even with more detail. As a signed inti­ma­cy rid­er could be inter­pret­ed as a con­tract, I feel that with inti­ma­cy we have to leave room for set­ting new bound­aries even on set what­ev­er we have planned. If we write an inti­ma­cy rid­er, there has to be a com­mon under­stand­ing that those plans are always a con­tract of inten­tion and we might need to accom­mo­date them for the performer.

The Inti­ma­cy Plan should include infor­ma­tion about cam­era angles, dress­es, props, make-up, sounds etc. That is, I need to have on-going dis­cus­sions with all the key design­ers dur­ing the plan­ning process to make sure I have all the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion to present to everyone.

Chore­o­graph­i­cal work has already start­ed in coop­er­a­tion with direc­tor. We have dis­cussed the char­ac­ters and sto­ry focus­ing on the choic­es dur­ing the scenes of inti­ma­cy. This same work will then con­tin­ue with direc­tor and per­form­ers in the same rehearsal space. After we cre­ate a com­mon sto­ry base, we can go into prac­ti­cal act­ing choic­es, “chore­og­ra­phy”.

Depend­ing of the actors, pro­duc­tion and the inten­si­ty of a spe­cif­ic moment this might take a form of very sub­tle move­ment choic­es to describe the com­plex growth of a par­tic­u­lar human rela­tion­ship through­out the whole per­for­mance — or some­thing very sim­ple to just give a tool for actors to play with. The cho­sen moves serve the sto­ry and should let the peo­ple doing them to do their best pos­si­ble work. Some­times the moves affect the sto­ry too: a moment that sim­ply ‘works’ does still need a rea­son to exist in the story.

Dur­ing chore­og­ra­phy days we delve deep­er to the chore­og­ra­phy in col­lab­o­ra­tion with all the involved artists (actors, direc­tor, hods when nec­es­sary) in a set­ting as close to the real set as pos­si­ble. We make all the chore­o­graph­i­cal choic­es and make sure that every­thing prac­ti­cal that might come up has been pre­dict­ed at this point. The chore­og­ra­phy day can be any­time before the actu­al shoot but should be treat­ed as an inten­sive day: breaks with­in the day, and before and after the day are necessary.

Before the shoot there should be time for inti­ma­cy chore­og­ra­phy to set­tle to the space. This final chore­og­ra­phy rehearsal can be done dur­ing the pre­vi­ous day, or it can be on the same day a cou­ple of hours before peo­ple come to build the set — or after the set has been built. As the sto­ry evolves and we have the actu­al space, props and cam­era angles, some pieces of block­ing might need to be re-chore­o­graphed to bet­ter solid­i­fy the new con­text. Addi­tion­al check-ins might need to be done if some­thing has sud­den­ly changed between the per­form­ers — or in some­one’s pri­vate life — which makes it nec­es­sary to rebuild some part of the inti­ma­cy choreography.

That is, chore­og­ra­phy days will cre­ate a chore­og­ra­phy to be fol­lowed and on-loca­tion check-ins will make sure that the chore­og­ra­phy is adapt­ed to the actu­al cir­cum­stances before we start work­ing on set: both of these need their time.

These are when we film. There should be time for inti­ma­cy to do their final check-ins and a cou­ple of run-throughs (first as a reminder, then with cam­era) just for the shoot, and there are some things to con­sid­er with height­ened inti­ma­cy: extra dress­ing times, make-up, exact cam­era angles, exact use of props, more com­pli­cat­ed chore­og­ra­phy etc. that need their time. 

Dur­ing these days, I will make notes of any changes we do in the chore­og­ra­phy and cir­cum­stances we did­n’t agree on before­hands as a short record­ing report.

I will still help with the post-pro­duc­tion com­mu­ni­ca­tion around the inti­mate scenes. This can be to check in with the edi­tors about some par­tic­u­lar moment of inti­ma­cy and which pic­tures to choose for clar­i­ty and bound­aries, or some check ins about mar­ket­ing mate­ri­als, or any oth­er fur­ther com­mu­ni­ca­tion around the piece. 

I am not a cer­ti­fied fight direc­tor or fight coor­di­na­tor, but have prac­ticed thou­sands of hours of dra­mat­ic com­bat tech­niques while work­ing with Dra­mat­ic Com­bat Fin­land and Nordic Stage Fight Soci­ety. This makes me con­fi­dent in my abil­i­ty to sup­port sim­ple screen vio­lence and abil­i­ty to blend my knowl­edge of both worlds to cre­ate mean­ing­ful phys­i­cal sto­ries. With a more spe­cial­ized stunts, an actu­al pro­fes­sion­al should be used.

When work­ing with live per­for­mance, sim­i­lar process is called inti­ma­cy direc­tion and the per­son doing the work an inti­ma­cy direc­tor. 

Even if I am on this page con­cen­trat­ing in film work, I am actu­al­ly a trained inti­ma­cy direc­tor with a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pend­ing sta­tus by Inti­ma­cy Direc­tors and Coor­di­na­tors. I am still look­ing for a pro­duc­tion to be used as a final exam to become ful­ly cer­ti­fied ID. That is what I am trained to do. 

So… with any inti­ma­cy direc­tion needs you have, I am hap­py to be flex­i­ble and make good use of my thou­sands of hours of prac­tice and work with live performances.