Cómo se hizo «Los otoños del Norte»

Once the scene was recorded outdoors, Cris suggested recording a backlight on Miri from the patio. Her long chiffon dress would look with the sun on her back and the effect would be spectacular. Eze agreed and we all moved inside to record the shot. This was the tone throughout the weekend, even though we had planned almost everything in advance, suggestions and changes on the fly, no matter who they came from, were welcome. And Cris contributed very good ideas throughout the weekend. .

Taking advantage of the fabulous drawing that Toño was making of the south face of the palace, we decided to do a painting sequence. I would be the artist. I put on a super cool green cap from our accessories collection and kidnapped Velasco's easel and his work. He, generous and collaborative, told me how to hold the brushes and left me the cloth with which he cleans them and removes excess water or paint. Wow! What fun! Eze was giving me instructions:

-Look at the painting, paint and then stop and look up at what you are painting. So, very good-

Around the scene, Angela controlled the light diffuser, Puri recorded the outtakes, Pinin took photos (the one below is also his) and Eze controlled everything.

Cuando el director consideraba que ya tenía lo que buscaba en cada toma, soltaba un «¡Listo!» y nos ponía a todos en marcha para la siguiente secuencia. Entre él, Puri y Ángela, la escogían, dependiendo de la luz. Yo era la encargada de vestuario y corría escaleras arriba, escaleras abajo del palacio, distribuyendo modelitos.

En este punto, llegaron Mariajo y Joselón y las tomas adquirieron un ritmo vertiginoso. Sonia, Cris y Puri protagonizaron las escena de la sidra junto al río y Mariajo, Puri y yo vareamos los manzanos y llenamos un cesto con la preciada fruta asturiana. Los que no grababan, miraban. Juan aprovechó para recoger la hierba recién segada y los pintores para perderse por los alrededores a dibujar distintos bocetos no sin antes degustar el chorizo que cortaron Carmen y Pablo en la cocina, y que habían traído los anfitriones, y acercaron hasta el río para la secuencia de la sidra. El ambiente era festivo y alegre. Pablo nos mostró incrédulo uno de los chuletones que había comprado Joselón, encargado de ir al súper, para hacer en la parrilla al día siguiente. Tenía el grosor de varios dedos. «¡Y hay tres! Este hombre está loco, ¡vamos a reventar», exclamó. Y eso que Pablo es vasco y come como si no hubiera un mañana. ¡Ja!

Cerca de las tres de la tarde, llegaron Mamá, Vane y Blanca, la últimas en incorporarse al rodaje, que habían tenido que atender la tienda por la mañana. Cómo ya teníamos todos un hambre canina, la marabunta comenzó a poner la mesa grande, en el jardín (el día, como veis por las fotos, era espectacular) y Eze quiso aprovechar hasta el último minuto para seguir adelantando trabajo. Le di su vestuario a mamá y la grabamos en la fachada del palacio podando hortensias y en el jardín, regando flores. Nuestro director ya estaba reventado. Desde que habíamos llegado por la mañana, no paró, y la cámara que lleva pesa un quintal. Había llegado el momento de hacer un break. «¡Corten!»

Sobre la mesa, colocamos lo que habíamos llevado cada uno de casa. Empanadas, muslitos de pollo, pastel de verdura, tortilla, ensaladilla, chorizo, ensalada de tomate, tarta de manzana, melón… Cómo siempre, muchísima comida y de más. Juan escanció sidra de casa, riquísima, y Joselón se lamentó porque había comprado poco vino. «¡Cómo bebéis, jodios!». El ambiente, imaginaros. Cachondeo, pullas, risas, conversaciones entrecruzadas, jaleo… Una maravilla.

-Hey! A selfie! - Joselón, from his height of 1.93, stood up and focused his cell phone on the table.

-Not like that, ready! Horizontally! - Toño rebuked him.

No, if here he who doesn't run flies. Ha ha ha. In the end, I got up and took the photo on a chair, which is not even close to my friend's height.

Once the farce was over, Eze and his team set off again. On stage, Vane and Blanca. They had to record a shot fishing in the river. Sonia and Pablo dared to challenge Joselón and Pinin to a game of tute. Mom, who loves cards and finds them a lot of fun, decided to stay with them watching the game. Others went to take a nap and the rest of us moved about a hundred meters from the palace, guided by Juan, to The Factory and The Valdelagua Mill, two rural houses run by our host and that overlook the Pigüeña. We didn't know them and we were amazed. What lovely places! Restored by him with exquisite care, the two buildings, a small power plant and the old mill, linked to the Palace of Cardinal Cienfuegos, seemed straight out of a fairy tale. There Carmina came to meet us, a woman who comes from Albacete every year with her husband to spend a fortnight in the fall. Hospitable and charming, she offered us a coffee that Carmen and I accepted and drank quickly because our director was driving like a motorcycle.

Vane and Blanca put on their fishing boots, crossed the basket, took their respective rods (all the props were provided by Juan, from things that were around the palace) and headed to the river. Our host gave them a few tips on how to handle the rod. Eze, Puri and Ángela recorded them from different angles and distances.

-One two Three! Action! - Eze shouted in the distance, from the bridge that connects the road with the rural houses.

Vane and Blanca had a great time casting the rod and doing the paripé.

"They sting, they sting!" Vanessa shouted, laughing and throwing her body back as if the weight of the fish could drag her.

Blanca abría su bolsa y hacía como que tenía que encestar la trucha en el cesto. ¡Menudo par de payasas! «Jo, ¡qué divertido! ¡Les ha tocado la escena más guay!», le lloraba yo a Mariajosé. Pero para nada, nos lo estábamos pasando genial como espectadoras.

-We have it! "Come on, let's go for a walk!" Eze ordered.

In the next scene Vane, Blanca, Cris and Carmen would appear walking among the trees, next to the river. Everything was happening at incredible speed. At the end, we said goodbye to Carmina, we returned to the palace and, on the adjacent farm, Angela discovered a dandelion. The recording equipment stopped dead.

-Let's see! We are going to record a shot blowing the dandelion, but there is only one, so whoever does it doesn't have to fail. We only have one chance," Eze warned.

"Then it has to be mom, it never fails," I suggested, knowing how photogenic and professional my mother is after taking hundreds of photos of her for Thursdays with mom.

-Brilliant! "Well, go get her!" the director urged me.

I ran for mom. What stress! But it was so fun... I took my mother out of the game, who was having a terrible time with the kids' playing cards, and I took her to the farm next door. We explain its taking. Meanwhile, Juan had obtained two or three more dandelions by searching the meadow, in case the capture failed. No, as I told you... Everyone got involved in some way... But even though they were used, it wouldn't have been necessary. Mom doesn't fail and her sequence was perfect.

The afternoon progressed and the light was changing. Puri, from time to time, took stock. He took out his ladder and…

-Let's see... This one is there, this one too, the one with the cake, tomorrow, this one is there, the one with the cookies tomorrow too... What if we do the one with the dance? How do you see it? - he asked the team.

-The one with the dance later, before it gets dark, in the patio. There may be a cool light. How about the firewood now? -Angela suggested.

-Perfect! "Let's go!" Eze urged.

Juan took us across the street, to a neighbor's house, who has a really cool woodshed. I ran with the model, it was Mariajo's turn, to my room to put on the checkered jacket that I had reserved for the firewood collection. We went down and recorded our protagonist chopping firewood and loading it into the basket. I no longer remember the order. At some point, Eze filmed a group scene with the drone in the backyard, some playing with the dogs and others jumping rope. What I do remember is that we were left bottomless and sweaty as hell. We are already too old for so much jumping. How great some of us were with the rope!

Back at the palace, the piano scene was playing. Miri would be its protagonist. Not in vain is she a professor of Musicology at the University of Oviedo and played this instrument in a chamber group of which she was a part along with her brothers, also musicians, years ago. With his usual joy, he sat on the stool in front of the keyboard and filled the palace with music. What a moment! Wonderful and unexpected concert. In the sequence, Vane came out leaning on the piano listening to her friend and Cris and mother looked around the kitchen when they heard the first notes. It was one of the great moments of the weekend.

Después del recital, tocaba el baile. Antes, en la cocina, Eze grabó a Mariajo echando leña al fuego. Y allí, al calor del hogar, Toño hizo una acuarela de Pablo mientras éste gestionaba un pedido de ropa (es agente comercial) por teléfono. Todo era actividad, bullicio, diversión. Juan buscó unas luces muy bonitas que tenía guardadas para iluminar el patio y darle un aire festivo. Toño Puri y Eze le ayudaron a colocarlas. En esa escena salíamos las diez «actrices». «Esta toma pide vestidos. ¡Venga! Todas a mi habitación a prepararse», indiqué. Ángela nos advirtió de que la luz que querían duraba muy poquito. Una vez más, teníamos pocas oportunidades de repetición. Tenía que salir a la primera sí o sí.

Bajamos todas engalanadas y empezó la danza. Joselón puso música en su móvil, pero como no teníamos altavoz, no se oía nada. Tuvimos que cantar y bailar. ¡Qué desastre! Puri se arrancó con el «Chiribi» de los Gipsy Kings. También entonamos la sevillana «Algo se muere en el alma» , el «No estamos locos», de Ketama, y un vals. ¡Ya lo sé! Nada muy asturiano, pero bailar a ritmo de tonada como que no. El equipo realizó varias tomas, desde el corredor y desde el patio.

"You can continue dancing if you want, but we have it," Eze announced with his usual irony.

There is no photo of the dance scene, but there is this other super nice one from the reading sequence, which Puri and Eze recorded at some point in the Poniente gallery.

Después del baile llegó la calma. Aunque no era muy tarde, ya no teníamos luz natural y el equipo dio por terminado el rodaje de ese día. Juan encendió la calefacción del palacio (con la ausencia del sol, el fresco otoñal se notaba) y fue a por más leña para avivar el fuego de la chimenea. Yo recogí cuidadosamente toda la ropa y ordené un poco la habitación. Los demás, se distribuyeron por los diferentes rincones del palacio, aunque finalmente, todos terminamos al calor del hogar en la cocina, donde Sonia puso a remojo los dos kilos de fabes que había traído de Tineo para comer al día siguiente. «Quiero ir a la galería pero no sé cómo», escuché decir a Puri. «¡Jo, menos mal! ¡Tú también! Creía que yo era la única que me perdía», le contestó Vanessa entre risas. Me acerqué a ambas y les indiqué el camino. La distribución laberíntica del palacio les estaba jugando malas pasadas. «No veas la de vueltas que estoy dando a lo tonto porque aún no me sitúo», confesó la productora del spot.

Juan and Cris announced their departure. They would return the next day for the second day of filming, but they wanted to sleep in Oviedo, with their children. The host gave me instructions to close the palace doors and showed me where they kept the firewood. On the way home, Cris told me the next day, Juan stopped the car to pick up chestnut urchins as props for Sunday's shooting. Don't tell me that's not implication! Wonderful.

I began to summon people to go, heading to Belmonte, where Cris had reserved a table for us at La Fuyeca. Before, I went around the building closing doors and turning off lights. Frida, Boby and Rita, Vane's dogs, Toño and Miri, were left sleeping faintly. They hadn't stopped running around the farm all day either. We divided into cars and left.

In La Fuyeca we had a scary time. Toño came up big and was telling jokes with great skill. And he knows it. Pablo, who sat between Pinin and Joselón, who had taken to liquor during the game and were having a hell of a party, asked the rest of the diners for help to get him out of there. We all chatted incessantly, shouted, laughed... another party. A man who was dining alone in the dining room confessed as he left that he had had a wonderful time. Goodness! Because we gave him dinner. Despite the lunchtime binge, we didn't cut corners when ordering, which is normal when Joselón leads the charge. Everything, absolutely exquisite. La Fuyeca is highly recommended if you go to Belmonte, especially the cabritu, according to most diners.

Al abandonar el restaurante, donde compramos hielo, decidimos volver a la cocina del palacio, que es amplísima, y jugar a las películas mientras a quien le apeteciera se tomara una copa. Ya en la casona, Pinin me preguntó cómo salir al jardín para recuperar la ginebra y las tónicas que se habían dejado allí por la tarde, tras la partida de cartas. «Otro que se pierde», pensé con gracia. Le indiqué que había dos opciones: salir por la puerta del patio y atravesar la finca hasta el jardín, o acceder por la galería de Poniente. «Vamos por el patio, que es más fácil abrir la puerta. La de la galería ya está trancada y todo apagado. Te acompaño», le dije. Salimos al exterior, bajo una noche estrellada.

-Mira a ver no nos vayamos a topar con un oso»-, me advirtió de pronto.

-Don't mess around! You're kidding, right? - I responded.

-No way! Juan advised us not to leave any food outside because the bears can smell it from more than a kilometer away. Do you see those lights over there? "They are from the house of a woman who had to put up an electric fence because the bears came down on her every now and then," he said.

I noticed the lights my friend was referring to. They were there, up the mountain, very close. I started looking around. I only saw absolute darkness and my imagination, which is very wicked, began to see movement where there was none.

-Fuck Pinin! Hurry, I'm scared shitless! What do we do if we get one?

-I have no idea. "Run, but we have it screwed," he admitted.

He was scared too, he was serious. I thought about the attack that a woman had suffered in Cangas del Narcea last spring, and that had appeared in all the newspapers, and I quickened my pace. The road seemed eternal to me. We took the bottles and rushed back the way we had come. When I reached the palace courtyard again and locked the door, I sighed. Phew! Test passed! I felt like when I was little and we went to the cemetery in town to tell scary stories. Terrified.

La cocina estaba caliente y acogedora. Qué gozada estar todos allí al calor del fuego. Toño y yo caminamos por una línea imaginaria trazada en el suelo para ver quien elegía primero a los miembros de su equipo. Ganó él y escogió. Mamá dijo que no jugaba, pero se quedó allí sentada dispuesta a disfrutar del espectáculo. ¡Y lo hubo! Hasta las dos y pico de la madrugada estuvimos pensando películas, haciendo mímica para ponerlas en escena, tirándonos por el suelo, adivinando y gritando como niños en el patio del colegio. Mamá se desternillaba, sobre todo con Pablo, que hizo la interpretación más surrealista del mundo escenificando «Rebelde sin causa». Lo suyo, definitivamente, no es la actuación. Sin embargo, tiene una voz grave preciosa y es el que ha puesto la locución a Los otoños del Norte. Bueno, iba ganando con pasmosa superioridad mi equipo, en el que estaban Pinin, Joselón, Blanca, Miri y Mariajo, pero la intervención de Ángela en el bando contrario al final de la partida (al principio estaba un tanto adormilada y prefirió no participar) hizo que la competición alcanzara cierta igualdad. Sin embargo, no pudieron remontar y nos erigimos en justos ganadores. Mal que les pese.

When the fire was already embers, we went to sleep. Eze had long since retired. Poor thing, the weight of the entire recording had fallen on him.

We all slept like little angels, although it seems that there was movement at night, especially in search of the bathrooms (difficult to get to in the dark and in a maze) and fleeing from unwanted snoring.

De nuevo en la cocina, pasadas las nueve de la mañana, comenzó otra vez el follón. Unos yendo hacia las duchas, otros buscando hacer un pis rápido y la mayoría con hambre. Otra cosa no hicimos, pero comer… Puri y Eze se pusieron con las cafeteras y a cortar pan para tostar y yo decidí machacar aguacates y mezclarlos con aceite y sal para untar en las tostadas. Para ello, me había llevado una bolsita con monodosis de aliño que suelo utilizar cuando voy con la bici. Como no tenía las gafas, al ir a elegir una de las bolsitas dudé, no veía un pimiento. «¿Esto qué es? ¿Aceite o vinagre?», le pregunté a Eze que pese a tener la misma edad que yo ve de maravilla. «Vinagre», me contestó. «Jope, casi lo echo mal», reí. Y volqué sobre el aguacate el contenido de otra monodosis, pero de aceite. Seguí con el preparado y tomé el sobrecito blanco donde suele ir la sal. Lo vertí sobre la mezcla, revolví bien y puse el bol sobre la mesa.

We sat down to have breakfast and suddenly Toño blurted out:

-What the hell is this? This avocado is sweet! Gross!-

Earth swallow me, I thought.

-What happen? I prepared it and since I can't see anything without glasses... Haven't I added salt? - I asked.

"No, it's sweet," Puri admitted, "but don't worry, it's not that bad, it's like avocado jam," he added to console me while he ate some toast with my concoction. That's a friend!

Thinking about it later, I think it wasn't even sugar but saccharine. The single-dose sachets of this sweetener are usually the same size as the salt. The sugar ones are bigger. That's what it's like to be blind and leave your glasses in the room, your friends are in danger of being poisoned.

After breakfast, Eze called for order. There was a lot left to record. Puri took out the rundown: the cake scene, the cookie scene, the socks scene, the golf scene, the chestnuts scene, the window scene... Some of the girls started putting everything in the dishwasher, the boys They began to prepare the beans, Toño took out the drawing notebook and began to make another portrait of Pablo, the one from the previous day he had not liked how it had turned out, Joselón to mess around a little, which he loves, and prepare the ingredients for the grill .

And so the morning went by. Before tidying up the bedrooms, we filmed the pillow fight scene. Vane, who wanted to participate, was in the shower and missed it. Eze was not expecting and neither was the light. Blanca, Miri and I star in it. Dressed in loose sweaters and cotton stockings Miss SockWe had a great time hugging each other like little girls on the huge bed in the guest room. Next, I called the rest of the girls together and we all put on different colored socks and poles to film a shot of moving our feet over the corridor railing. The idea had been Cris's. Once again, absolute success, although the host did not arrive from Oviedo in time for the filming and the director was already on turbo. What a pity! Frida, however, did not miss it and stuck her nose out at just the right moment to emerge flat. Another improvisation that was luxurious.

At this point, Puri gave me the following sequences to prepare the clothes and the models. Three in the kitchen drinking coffee and serving cake (Puri herself, who cooks like angels, had brought a carrot cake as a prop), two drinking tea with cookies (homemade oatmeal, which I had made) in the corridor, one looking out of a glass that we splashed with water to make it look like rain and another playing golf in the garden. The actresses would be Mariajo, Carmen and mom in the first scene; mom and Vane in the second, Vane in the third and Sonia in the fourth. Toño, who had already finished Pablo's portrait in the kitchen and was tired of arguing with Pinin about whether to cover the fabes or not, decided to go with Miri, who was free of plans for a while, to Belmonte de Miranda to buy the press. Enrique went to draw with his notebook around the area, but not before giving Sonia a few tips on how to pick up the golf club and hit the ball; Mariajo and Joselón began to prepare the mushrooms for the grill; Pablo and Carmen decided to take care of the fabada themselves and I took the opportunity to sneak into a bathroom, finally free, and take a good shower.