4th April 2007
The main shoot is two days away and I’m struggling. Struggling badly. I’ve concentrated so much on the producing that I haven’t got round to the basics of making the film. I haven’t finished the storyboards and I don’t even know where my script is…
Mike has been brilliant producing the call sheets but the more I look at the schedule, the more intimidating it looks. I must have been off my chump to ditch my original idea for a film. It had one main character, a handful of supporting cast and a local shoot. This is a fucking epic!
We’ll be making a short film every day and need just one day of bad weather and we’re fucked. The forecast says we’ll get at least four days of rain with the possibility of snow later in the week.
Ray rings me and suggests we leave with the van at 4am. We have to pick the stunt equipment up, get to Hanwell for the props, pick up our sound recordist Curzio in West London then pick Lee up from Croydon before heading off to Bentwaters.
The last time the van did over 50 miles was three years ago when it was being towed by Green Flag.
5th April 2007
4am at Rays and we head towards London. Everything goes OK until we get to Men at Work Props in Hanwell. The telephone box is massive and the guys there just laugh as we open the back of the van which is already packed with lighting gear, props, costumes, camera equipment and bedding for the barracks. Thankfully they take pity on us and somehow we fit it on board.
On the long drive up to Suffolk I start to realise I need more of everything – food, bedding, etc – and I can see the money pissing out of the budget. When we arrive on location at Bentwaters and I hand over the cheque, I feel like I’ve been physically winded. Not only that but I question whether anybody else’s missus would let their partner spend money like this.
The afternoon is serene and very peaceful. The weather’s warm as Lee, Ray and I sit out back of the barracks and relax. Up yours, Bastardi! My worries seem to vanish and I know I can do this…
Over the course of the next few hours we unpack the kit and everybody starts to turn up. David Beaumont appears like Dracula at midnight, the stunt team arrive and bed down. We’re all here and amazingly we have enough beds.
I share a 6ft by 6ft room with Mike and begin a week long flatulence competition. He wins.
6th April 2007
Bentwaters – Shoot Day Three (aka The Long Good Friday)
Probably the worse day of my life.
Good news is that everyone turns up, we have plenty of extras who have given up their Easter weekend to appear in the film and our make up team do a grand job in quick time and we have an army of zombies.
The bad news is that everything mechanical we touch turns to rat shit. The mechanical cherry picker we’ll be using for some of our crucial shots doesn’t work and the roller doors in the Hush House pack up half way through a take. This is a show stopper – it’s Mr Ree’s big entrance and we’re completely screwed.
Luckily Ray manages to find a way to open them manually but there’s already some tension in the air. I’ve assembled a completely new crew and none of us have worked together before so everyone is a bit unsure of how things will pan out. Despite Ali and Mikes warnings, I haven’t sorted the catering properly and there is discontent in the camp. I’m worrying too much about peripheral items instead of taking control and directing the film.
I get a call from the people renting the cottage to Seb, Sophie and Doug. They won’t let them stay because they thought I was staying there. Drive to the pub to meet the owners and placate them. We get the keys but this detour has cost us time.
We crack on with filming, desperately behind schedule, and I face another problem. The Figure In Black character isn’t working and Mike looks more like the Gay Caballero than Yul Brynner’s gunslinger from Westworld.
We finish at midnight. An unhappy camp. This was supposed to be the simplest day of the shoot to help ease us in.
7th April 2007
Bentwaters – Shoot Day Four
The second worst day of my life.
Slept for three hours. Got up at six brought Mike a cup of coffee. He worked through revising the call sheets and didn’t even grace the room with his flatulence. Shit. This must be serious.
The weather is glorious but will the extras be back? We treated them pretty badly yesterday but Ray has done an inspired job of wrangling and they start arriving at 7am. Once again, I am humbled by their dedication to the film. It takes a special kind of person to give up their holiday weekend to spend it running round a disused military base in Suffolk covered in latex and fake blood with nothing more than a curled up cheese sandwich as payment.
Today is the day of the big action scenes in New Town. We split into two units with the main camera crew working in New Town and the secondary team working with the stunt team. It’s early morning but there is already some friction regarding the time spent on the main shoot and the time allowed for stunts and prep.
We drop a shit load of scenes planned for the afternoon but get some great footage.
Food continues to be an issue despite the magnificent efforts of Ali and Lianne. I realise that I haven’t eaten anything for 24 hours.
Mike and I wrestle with the schedule. He has a plan and works on my laptop till the wee small hours. We can’t keep dropping scenes- the schedule is due to get busier.
The showers flood and the kitchen floor is under water.
