A gentleman’s disagreement

Today Jake and I haven’t agreed on anything.

Changes to the website. When to start shopping for actors. How to conduct the read-through. What we need to have in place before we can start the final re-write. I mean, we even had ten minutes on what to eat for lunch (pasties won). It hasn’t helped that I’ve been especially fractious today – sorry for that, mate – but such is life when you have to navigate your way through the movie-making-maze without a detailed map.

I’m not sure how it works for other couples that spend all day every day together, but we’ve ended up circumventing most of the established rules of etiquette. An acknowledgement that time is too short to fanny about. Just say what you mean as bluntly as you can, and don’t worry about dressing it up in the pretty bows and ribbons that you’d bring out for normal conversation.

Voices get raised. Views get forthright. Language gets choice. But no offence gets taken.

We like to write it off as passion for the project, but it actually seems to serve the process. We both have the best interests of the film at heart, and whatever solution emerges at the end of the exchange is invariably better than the sum of the parts. The wisdom of a very small crowd.

And whatever’s said, everyone gets a cuddle at the end of the working day. Crushed.