Do you want all the scenes to be penetrative?': how working with an intimacy coordinator made my film better

"Outside, it's early afternoon at the Port de l'Arsenal in Paris, bright and unmistakably day. Inside the houseboat that acts as the main set for my film Amarres (Moorings), the team has installed track lights and covered a ceiling porthole with black fabric, turning the bedroom into something closer to night. Red velvet walls, and a platform bed tucked into the curve of the bow; it's meant to feel intimate, private. But of course, it isn't."

"We have just come back from lunch. My actors are half-undressed on the bed, waiting. The set is closed, with only six crew members in the narrow hallway leading to the bedroom: camera, sound, myself, the first assistant director, and Nathalie Allison, our intimacy coordinator. We're behind, and I have less than an hour to direct three sex scenes back to back. What I'm about to ask for has to look real, spontaneous, desirable the kind of intimacy French cinema has long prided itself on capturing without instruction."

"I hesitate, unsure how to give that note without embarrassing the actors. Amarres, a story set on a Parisian houseboat where a young man unravels under the watch of a tight-knit port community, marks only my third time directing, and my first in France and in French, and I feel momentarily out of my depth. I've asked Nathalie to stand with me at the monitor, and the look on my face when I turn to her must say enough. Let's reset, she says, gently."

"She adjusts the actors with precise instructions. You're leading this moment, she tells Sofia Benner Nihrane, our lead actor, and you need to imagine an anchor point. In less professional words, move as though there is a penis inside you. I can't say that, and I don't want to; I don't have the language for what I'm asking my actors to do. I know when something doesn't look right, but I don't know how to fix it. It's up to Nathalie to translate something I can feel into something we can actually film."

A Paris houseboat set is lit to simulate night, but the production must quickly stage three sex scenes after lunch. The director feels out of depth directing in France and lacks language to communicate the desired spontaneity and desirability. Only a small crew is present, and the set is tightly controlled to keep the bedroom private. The intimacy coordinator resets the scene and gives clear, practical guidance to the lead actor, using an anchor point and movement instructions that help actors perform naturally. The coordinator translates the director’s felt sense of what should look right into specific actions that can be filmed.

Read at www.theguardian.com