The shot list was put together by cinematographer Aravind Shanavaz and executive producer Nicholas Gentile, who is the composer of the opera. In the three-day shoot he literally conducted every take. The process and the vocab were all new to me: thought you might like to hear some of it at random from my diary.

‘That was very fresh, wasn’t it?’

‘She walks slower, slower, then again here … Boom … Boom .. Turn around.

‘Are we good, are we good? One more for safety.

‘She’ll start singing, that’s fine. Just go for pretty, go for pretty, then you’ve got all of her line to get there.’

‘Rob, when you do this, can you find a reason to do eyes back in this direction?’

‘How many takes for this do we have time for after lunch?’ Firm answer from Demi Louise, producer: ‘None.'