Flexibility was very important to Godard, who wanted the freedom to improvise and shoot whenever and wherever he wanted without too many technical constraints. He and Coutard devised ways – such as using a wheelchair for tracking shots and shooting with specialist lowlight filmstock for nighttime scenes – to make this possible. Godard’s method of directing A bout de souffle was even more radical than his technical innovations.Much to the producer Beauregard’s disapproval, he often only filmed for a couple of hours a day.

Sometimes, when lacking the necessary inspiration, he would cancel the day’s filming altogether.Early on in the shoot, he discarded the screenplay he had written and decided to write the dialogue day by day as the production went along.The actors found this procedure strange and sometimes forgot their lines,however, since the soundtrack was to be post synchro nized later, when the actor’s were lost for words,Godard would call out their lines to them from behind the camera.