Dish Pit: Anna Hopkins on shooting a restaurant two‑hander

Constraint and solution. The film was shot inside a functioning restaurant with a small crew. The answer was rehearsal and minimal kit: rehearse real kitchen behaviour into the actors, keep the camera small and stay close.

Method

Hopkins built the film's physical truth around behaviour rather than props. She rehearsed in the location until movements lived in the actors’ bodies, then locked those physical beats into blocking. "It’s such a privilege as a writer to be able to immerse yourself in another world and get to observe," Anna Hopkins (writer/director) says; she used that immersion to capture natural, occupational gestures rather than staged flourishes. Chef Jon Pde choreographed kitchen work and served as a hand double for actor Matthew Gouveia; Hopkins also filmed Jon cooking during rehearsals and adjusted the script to incorporate authentic moments captured there. Austin Hutchings, who had worked as a bartender in the restaurant, provided spatial fluency that reduced on-set correction.

On shoot days the crew stayed small and mobile. "We were small enough on the day as a crew to move around seamlessly and really capture as much spontaneity as possible," Hopkins says. The production exploited short, real-service windows — a few hours each night — to film without shutting the restaurant, and used existing tools and practical lamps so the actors interacted with genuine objects rather than props. The blocking process favoured fluid exploration first, then repetition: once a behaviour worked it was rehearsed until it felt automatic on camera.

Crew and kit

• Cinematographer: Mat Barkley
• Director/writer: Anna Hopkins
• Chef/hand double: Jon Pde
• Actors: Matthew Gouveia, Austin Hutchings
• Camera: RED Komodo X
• Lenses: Zeiss Super Speed lenses
• Format: not stated
• Frame rate(s): not stated
• Shoot days: not stated

Lighting leaned on the location: fire from a central pizza oven and practical lamps supplied warmth and a cohesive colour palette, allowing the film to read intimate without extensive lighting rigs.

"Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances," Hopkins says, and that principle guided the film's physical rehearsal and blocking.