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Eric Redman
as
Van Vliet
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| The Director's Film Diary |
| The Lottery have turned us down. I
feel appalling. |
| As Samuel Beckett once said, "I can't
go on, I'll go on." Our first rehearsal with the two leads, Tom Chadwick
and Tess Tomlinson, goes well, and I try to put the gaping San Andreas
fault-sized rift that is our financial plight to the back of my mind (or
someone else's, which would be even better). |
| Rehearsal with the two gangsters, Watson
and Grange. Everything comes together really quickly, which is very exciting
to watch. The actors decide to play them as Dutch "business men", so we
will need to think of new names for them. They also laugh at the funny
lines. I know its bad to laugh at your own jokes, but I start to laugh
as well. Either I can tell good jokes, or I am starting to suffer from
stress. |
| Financially, another Bad Day at Black
Rock. Another investor has failed to put his money where his mouth is.
Blackadder's comment about his life being littered with cowpats from the
Devil's own satanic herd seems extremely apt at this point. This is the
third investor we've lost in as many weeks. Do I smell or something? |
| With six days to go before principal
photography, Franz, our DP, learns that he has to go into hospital to have
an operation. A light fell on him on his last shoot, and he now has a clot
in his left eye and is suffering from constant headaches. He has already
spent a day in Moorfields, which explains why I wasn't able to reach him
yesterday. The operation is scheduled for Day 2 of principal photography.
Worse, the doctors won't tell him if he will recover the sight in his eye. |
| I have to try and hold a rehearsal
today for a difficult scene which we haven't tried before whilst trying
to find a new DP. Today is one of those days where the producer and director
need to be two separate individuals. People are dispatched to look for
a new DP while I carry on with the actors. At 15:00 I am telephoned by
Steve, the production manager. A new cameraman is coming over in 20 minutes,
will I still be there? 20 minutes is far in the future at this precise
point. Yes, I'll still be there. The meeting with John, the new DP, goes
well. He suggests shooting on Super 16 as he has his own kit, which would
mean one less thing to haggle for on Monday. I give him one of the few
scripts I have left, its dog-eared and looks horrible, but by now so do
I. |
| Evening. Have just watched some shorts
that John lit. They are all on Super 16 and look great. I think we have
a DP. One crisis over. We still have to find a sound recordist and the
rest of the camera crew. |
| John and I have our first - and, given
the chronic lack of time (chronic lack of everything, come to that) only
- meeting after I manage to spend the day at the meditation course I was
banking on to keep me calm through the shoot. |
| The calm and mild euphoria I felt yesterday
in the meditation hall have now evaporated. I have to rehearse and try
to renegotiate a new set of deals with the lab. Worse, I have to find a
new lab and we also have no stock, as that had been another deal particular
to Franz. We call Kodak, who give us a better deal than a certain supplier
in Wardour Street, who were giving us no deal at all. The trouble is, its
cash up front. As we have two days to go before shooting we can't get it
any other way. This presents something of a cashflow problem. In fact,
there seems to be very little cash left to flow. |
| A day of frantic running about, recces,
calls from the car, calls running down the street, calls from wherever.
The hell of yesterday is beginning to abate. |
| The first day of shooting. We are in
a pub. I have not met all the crew yet and keep going around when I get
half a chance to introduce myself. Strangely I feel very calm. After lunch,
Hampstead Heath. Some cast and crew get lost en route and are not happy
as a result. We start to lose the light and are running around trying to
find patches of sunlight like some demented form of hopscotch. "Quick!
Its over there now!" We are on schedule, and are - amazingly - sticking
to a shooting ratio of 2:1. |
| I realise that we need to decide on
a new name for Watson, the chief gangster, so I choose Van Vliet (tribute
to Don). I will need to tell Eric, who is playing him, as he is still mulling
over a list of names we had discussed in the depths of the DP crisis last
Friday. Van Vliet is a suitably sober name, which is necessary for the
scene where Danny confesses to Sadie. If we use one from Eric's list it
will undermine the scene completely ("I'm in a lot of trouble with Van
Brusieputs!"). |
| Trafalgar Square. I had been dreading
shooting here, fearing huge crowds of unruly bystanders, but the bystanders
are more interested in the pigeons. I'm not sure what this says about filmmaking,
tourism, or pigeons for that matter. |
| Another crisis. We go to my flat to
shoot one scene and my landlord, who lives downstairs, throws a gigantic
wobbly and throws us out. The rest of the day is spent filming Van Vliet's
flat scenes, which go very well. However, when I return to my flat, the
landlord is virtually delirious (ie drunk) and vents his wrath in the most
rambling and disjointed fashion imaginable. I don't bother to remind him
that his wife gave us the go-ahead to shoot there. He wants me to move
out, but has trouble saying so in as many words. Maybe its the wine (a
wine for laying down and avoiding, as the Python sketch puts it). |
| Shooting in the Temple. I am still
in shock from the encounter with Mr Sanity in the early hours. We wrap
early today and get fed in Pizza Hut. They mess up and we are in there
nearly all afternoon. One of our investors - I think I shall call them
The Few - is with us today and he picks up the tab after having a row with
the manager about the quality of service. |
| A certain degree of calm has returned,
to me at least. My first port of call today is the flat where we shot on
Saturday, which is where the equipment now lives after my landlord did
his Krakatoa impersonation. We get everything (including an HMI) into the
car, which only a pygmy could describe as large. I am trapped under something
in the back seat and when my mobile goes I am totally immobilised and can't
answer it. The antique shop scene. We find a beautiful globe which turns
out to be a rotating drinks cabinet. Its a pity we can't take it with us,
we may need it later. |
| Our first day in Harrow. We have to
shoot the final scene first, as two of the actors have auditions in the
afternoon. As no one's getting cash up front I feel I can't say to them,
"no you can't go to the Luc Besson call" and blow their chances of big
bucks. We finish the day behind schedule for the first time. Our shooting
ratio has gone up to 4:1. I think the change of scenery has had a debilitating
affect on us all. For the first time I get worried; we may not get this
in the can. I start to fill with fear. Its as if someone has taken the
top of my head off and poured it all in. I cut 14 pages from the script
when I get home and go straight to bed. Strangely, I sleep well and have
great dreams. |
| In order to get back on schedule we
have to work quickly, but not in the Withnailian sense. We shoot 11 pages
before lunch, and another half a dozen in the afternoon. Total madness,
but good madness. |
| We are back on schedule thanks to yesterday's
lunacy. The big painting scene is skin of the teeth territory, as one of
the actors has to go by 14:00. We get it in the can - only one take - with
minutes to spare before his taxi whisks him away. |
| We are filming in sunny Camberwell
(carrots conspicuous by their absence). The actor in whose flat we are
filming is nowhere to be found. I start to wonder what has happened. Maybe
he's at his girlfriend's; maybe he's in police custody; maybe he died on
the tube and is going round and round on the Circle line with no one noticing
(which apparently happened to somebody recently). Luckily, he arrives just
in time, apologising profusely and explaining that he had become horribly
entangled in a party last night. Actors. Drink. Commotion. I tell him not
to worry, worse things happen at sea. No, worse things happen on this shoot,
come to think of it. |
| Perhaps not. Its not exactly been Apocalypse
Now. In fact I can't believe how smoothly its all gone, despite the
injured DP's, mad landlords, incompetent waiters, and dud radio mikes.
But maybe these are just trivialities, there to remind us that what really
counts is working well and trying to make the best film you can. If the
atmosphere we had on set can be transferred to an audience - however small
- then it will have been worth it. |
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