Jan 26, 2024 · Megan Hoetger
What is Happening Where? · Filming days four and six
Tucked behind the flower market between the Singel and Herengracht canals, the What is Happening Here (WIHH) underground art gallery inhabits a former bank building now gutted of all its once plush interiors. The structure itself is a cavernous brutalist maze with multiple levels, hidden corridors, and staircases descending into unknown, unlit corners. In its subterranean floor, the metal walls of what were once vaults loom heavy like menacingly corporeal ghosts in the shadows. The disorienting presence of the architecture is emphasized by the dense installation of hundreds of art works that span every media, from painting and photography to robotics and immersive environments.
It’s a cacophony in a maze. It was the fourth day of filming.
On set, it was a challenge to understand what was happening where. Keeping everyone together for shooting was like a delicate game of hide and seek. Cast members would disappear to another level and take thirty minutes to find their way back to the styling a make-up area. At moments, you could walk around a corner and end up in a space you didn’t know existed where a scene had been set up that you didn’t know was about to be filmed.
It’s a cacophony in a maze. It was the fourth day of filming.
On set, it was a challenge to understand what was happening where. Keeping everyone together for shooting was like a delicate game of hide and seek. Cast members would disappear to another level and take thirty minutes to find their way back to the styling a make-up area. At moments, you could walk around a corner and end up in a space you didn’t know existed where a scene had been set up that you didn’t know was about to be filmed.
“QUIET ON SET.”
Move back slowly, back into the shadows. Head down the stairs. Back into the maze, and come out on the other side in the safety and warmth of the group again.
Given the complexity of the space, the filming team returned to WIHH weeks later for a sixth, half-day of filming. Together with the lead actress, they recorded footage of this experience of being lost in the maze that the cast and crew members had experience off-set one month earlier.
