John Malkovich perches on sunlit rocks, Atlantic rollers crashing, waiting for the call of 'Action'.
In front of the camera is Javier Bardem, the Spanish film star who is tipped to match the international impact of his friend and former co-star Penelope Cruz.
Bardem tries a few phrases, changing the emphasis each time, wanting to hear how these foreign words should sound. This is a Spanish movie with a Spanish star, but America's Malkovich is the director - and English the language.
Pedro Almodovar may be the champion of modern Iberian cinema, but the Oscar-winning bad boy from Castilla-La Mancha represents only a fraction of the modern Spanish industry.
There is plenty of technological know-how in Spain, as well as acting talent, and no-one cares what language the director of photography speaks. Movie-makers here recognise that Hollywood reigns supreme, and since they can't beat the American industry they must try to emulate it. Fantastic Factory is one example of the new business mood, fruit of a meeting in Sitges, the Catalan beach resort known for its gay night-life and its horror, sci-fi and fantasy film festival.
Julio Fernández of the Spanish company Filmax, fed up with importing genre films for sale in Spain, decided to make them himself for export. Over dinner he hooked up with Brian Yuzna, whose unnerving movie credits include Re-Animator, Return of the Living Dead 3 and, on a more wholesome note, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
The first project, Faust: Love of the Damned, directed by Yuzna, is already in post-production. A rather different Barcelona flick is Gaudi Afternoon, a flamboyant comedy directed by Susan Seidelman and produced by Lolafilms, a major production house and winner of the last Spanish Oscar, awarded in 1992 for Belle Epoque. Lolafilms aims to turn out mainstream English-language movies such as Malkovich's directorial debut, The Dancer Upstairs, which finished shooting last week.
This autumn should see the premiere of That Girl from Rio, starring Hugh Laurie as a samba-loving bank clerk who flees his adulterous wife and heads to Brazil with his employer's money.
Andrés Vicente Gómez, doyen of Spanish producers and the man responsible for all four films, says the move to English is simply a question of market forces, even for the heavily subsidised Spanish industry. Since the death of Franco in 1975, governments have strongly supported the local movie business, considered part of the country's cultural heritage.
Under the present rules, any film made here (unless X-rated) is entitled to a state subsidy worth 33 per cent of its budget. This costs the government some 5,000 million pesetas (almost £19m) a year.
