A Chus was shot over two days, in the height of summer, back to back with another short film, Carmela, whilst we were all working on our day jobs.
The total cost of the two films was around 150 euros. Most of that went on food and copious drinks in what turned out to be one of the hottest summers on record. A large portion of the budget was also spent on our 'car mount rig' for the second film, which consisted of a plank of wood and some foam rubber.
We shot on DV, on a Canon XL1. Sound was easier to record unsynced which we did on a Sony Minidisc. Since there is no dialogue in A Chus, these were mainly wildtracks. However we had to clapperboard the takes for Carmela and sync sound in the edit.
Having an extremely small budget, we couldn't employ a smoke machine in the bathroom scenes so instead had to rely upon smoke bombs bought from a conjurers' shop in Barcelona. By the last few takes we began to suspect that we had bought tear gas by mistake.
The bird that flies through the background in the shot of the champagne glass was not added in post but rather a serendipitous performance by a young, talented pigeon.