BA had arrived while we were out, so we set about using him to catch up on a couple of missing shots featuring the Young Boy.

As time had progressed, my thoughts turned to the indoor scenes we needed to do. I’d had a re-think over night, because of the lack of time, and decided to re-write that scene by changing the setting of that opening scene. I suppose these are the luxuries of directing your own script?

Anyway – Three important things had to happen in that first scene

1. The Younger Brother had to offer the Older Brother his lucky charm
2. The Older Brother had to refuse it
3. The Younger Brother had to put his lucky charm into the Older Brother’s bag without the Older Brother seeing.

I suggested these changes to DG and MM and they seemed to think it might work. They tried various cars, of those belonging to the crew, but decided in the end to go for my sister in law’s car, as it had tinted windows – making it easier to film. without light overload from the outside apparently.

It took a while to set up and then we bundled the two actors in the back, sister in law driving and MM in the passenger seat calling the shots.

Again from the rushes I saw on the day it worked really well. The cricket bag was between them and point 1, 2 & 3 got played out in the back of the car ending with BA hiding the charm in the bag as WD talked on his mobile. Better still – the cricket pitch and filed appears in the background of the GoPro shot, nicely brining us to the location of the main action to come.

About the GoPro – Having done a few shots with it, I was really impressed.

However more impressive was the selection of mounts DG had that we could use to attach it to almost anything. That and the extended battery life provided by the cage housing/DSLR battery combo I’d purchased a few weeks back (by Tehkron CagePro) – made it an invaluable tool.

Only a few shots had to be taken care of before we tackled taking BA out to the quiet road area to film his shots, which we would then intercut with the ones with the bike earlier. There was one scene BA enjoyed, where the Young Brother trips up as he runs into the pavilion. Luckily for us the cricket club had a large sack of sawdust – which we put on the floor. We covered it in a coat and got him to fall on it a few times. Shot from behind it actually looked really good. So BA, I can confirm – a bit like Tom Cruise – does his own stunts with great enthusiasm (rare gems indeed)!

Finally everything else was done and it was BA’s curtain call… We set off to the road again… once more in the pouring rain. It was raining so much I started get panicky about the light. It was fading fast and I had no idea how the D610 would cope with it. We got to the road and parked as we were before. Then DG and MM drove off in their cars. I sat and waited.

They didn’t come back.

So I drove up to find them parked a little way along the road staring at a side entry grate at the side of the road. I had seen them in my location scouting but wasn’t sure they were useable, but no – They were perfect apparently.

We set up in the pouring rain. Everyone was ready to go, and someone asked for the cricket ball.

Which we’d left behind at the field….

KA (Posh Woman) was sitting in my car keeping warm… so we hightailed it back to the pitch, got a number of balls and sped back. The daylight if anything had faded more… Trying not to panic I pulled back up at the wet crew loitering around the grate and we set to work.

It took a while to get all the shots, so long in fact the rain faded and the sun actually started to emerge. But we were nearly there. My takeaway memory from this set of shots was the shot of the Posh Woman shaking the Young Boy’s dead body at the side of road. We used The GoPo to film this, from the Young Boy’s point of view.

We had KA looking upset and tearful doing the shaking and pulse taking and BA laughing silently because the shaking was tickling him…. Oh and the fact he was lying on the boot liner from the MX5 to keep him off the wet road. It’s all glamour this film making lark…

Back to the cricket filed we headed. One final shot of WD shoving the charm into his cricket whites… and we were done.

We packed up, we tidied up. The cards from the GoPro and the D610 got backed up to my laptop and went with the Editor (SE). We said our goodbyes and made plans to meet again to watch an edit. DG’S Audi TT somehow swallowed all his kit and MM. SA head off to pick up her kids from a motorway service hotel. Everyone trickled away…

Leaving me eating cake… and packing away biscuits from the 80s.

It’s a glamorous job this directing business.

#sendcake

—- Finally – another blog update for the last day’s filming of Lucky Charm. Split in two again. Because of my ability to be concise and waffle free. Right. —-

On day 2 of filming I had hoped for a little lie in, but fluff cat put paid to that by standing on my head at about 5am. So I was up and ready to go at 6.30. The car was repacked with the camera gear we couldn’t leave in the pavilion over night and I was back down at the pitch by 730 (in my now usual two runs) having a ground hog day moment with the coffee, tea and biscuits from the 80s.

Oh yes. Forgot… It was pouring with rain and it really didn’t stop raining for most of the day. Except an hour or so – just when we needed it.

Crew arrived first (today I was being called Andy), followed by the actors. OAK, playing Posh Man came back though he wasn’t needed. He wanted to be a runner. It’s fantastically rewarding to see people wanting to be involved in something.. doubly so if it’s something you are responsible for…

Today’s task was filming the bike crash and picking up on a few scenes of the cricket game we’d missed yesterday. We also had to make a call on the opening scene that needed to be filmed inside. I’d had some thoughts about that overnight, and re wrote it. I say re wrote it.. I didn’t write anything. I just worked out a different way of doing it…and we ran with it. More on that in a moment.

Shooting the bike crash scene had always slightly unnerved me. First I didn’t want the actor BA (playing the Young Boy) anywhere near the bike, being driven by my brother in law (AD). So we decided to do it in two takes. Secondly I was keen to film it as fast as possible so as to minimize our exposure to those that be that might wonder what we were doing.

The road and weather worked in our favour at this point. It was such an unused road only 2 cars passed by in the two hours we were there: one a police car – that completely ignored us, and the other someone who just seemed to be lost. The weather was so grim no one even seemed to be out visiting the fast food chain, whose rubbish was cluttering up the top of the road. In a couple of location scouting trips I’d been there, I had seen people parked at the top of the road eating their burgers… even they weren’t about that day.

AD arrived in his BMW beast of a motorbike at 10 and we set off in the rain to the location. In reality it was very quiet road down the back of a trading estate – but it had enough hedge and greenery that we could fake it to look like it was the track leading to the cricket field.

At the location – We set up the cameras. The GoPro on the bike and the D610 on the tripod. DG’s big camera didn’t do bad weather well – but the D610 and its weather sealed body worked a treat… as of course did the GoPro – it was in its element. 

With most of us at the bottom of the road and AD on his bike, we all huddled under brollies and talked through the shots we wanted. At that point the rain got harder and it started thundering.. and there we all were holding nice lightning conductors… I mean umbrellas…. I must confess I did put my brolly down and put my hoodie up… no one else seemed to care tho.

Nutters.

Eventually the rain eased off, as did the thunder, and AD and the bike went up to the top of the road, just out of shot. DG (sound guy) went up in his car to warn us of any traffic, and to tell the bike to go when we texted him.

We were ready, I texted DG (yep I used their initials as contacts on my phone) to say we were ready – release the bike…. And nothing happened. I gave it a minute or two and then thought I’d better call. I pressed dial on the DG contact and found myself speaking to a lawyer friend of mine who’s initials are also DG. Ooops. I apologized and scrolled through my contacts to find DG – Sound… (oh so logical right!)… and off the bike set off.

In the first take AD on the bike was wearing a bright green hi-viz jacket. Looking back at the shot on the back of the Nikon we thought he looked like a policeman – so we got him to take it off and we re-shot it. Each time he came down the GoPro was attached to a different part of the back – to allow different edits as the bike closed in on the Young Boy. I’ve seen the shots of these ones and they look really good. The GoPro is a fantastic beast.

With our shots in the bag we went back, in the rain, to the cricket field. Well the rest did.

AD’s bike chose that moment to get a flat battery. Fortunately the old MX5 suffers similar issues – so we have some jump leads permanently in the back…. Out they came…

and we were indeed all on our way again.

Next time: Day 2: Part 2 – It has to stop raining at some point. Doesn’t it?

I know in stills photography harsh sun can play havoc, you can for example need a flash to fill in dark shadows created by the sun’s glare.

Well, the sun was diving in an out of clouds and we didn’t have those fill in lights and there seem to be bloody shadows everywhere – but we somehow muddled through.

Quite quickly we discovered we had a distinct lack of extras. It was the Easter Bank Holiday and it also transpired the cricket club was holding a pizza and soft drink mingle for their younger players… so we were a few men down. No mater. Everyone pitched in. The sounds guy (DG), the lotus owner (CN), the editor (SE) and the runner (GB) all donned whites leant by Gavan Burden – the Chair of the Management Committee for Sevenoaks Vine Cricket Club (who’s ground we were filming on). I got them spread about the pitch a bit

…where it became very obvious here were 7 people, a director, line manager and DoP that had no idea how to play cricket.

CN, he of the bravely lending us a 1 of only 40 in the world Lotus, stepped up. He could play cricket, he could bowl, he could tell us which side of the stumps the square leg umpire stands. He saved the day. He’s also not bad an actor either…

See… Rare gems… all over the place.

At some point I went back to the pavilion to get the GoPro, so we could do some close up work and slow motion capture. It was I think during that or a n other time I was needed elsewhere, that a Panther apparently appeared on the edge of the cricket field. I didn’t see it, but everyone else out there did… and DG managed to get his camera on it. I am not sure at the time of writing what will be on the film,– but I am so hoping it is not just an oversized domestic cat… another reason I can’t wait to see the raw footage!

*panther update – it was sadly just a domestic cat. I sent the footage a big cat expert and their reply is below –

Hi Andy Yes that is merely a domestic cat. I’m amazed as to how many of these I get sent each year. A black leopard (panther) would be three-times the size of this, a square-ish head, and a tail almost as long as the body. Kind regards, and thanks again for sending me the footage. Neil

Rats! Though a black cat is good luck right? I’ll take that as a win!

More cricket scenes were filmed and then it was the turn of the Lotus to be centre stage. It was a rare and truly beautiful thing.

The Lotus with The Posh Man and the Posh Woman.      Photo by Sam Errington

As it wasn’t around the next day we made the most we could of it. Its owner had said one of the actors could drive it, but having discovered the actor (OAK) playing the Posh Man, had only passed his driving test weeks before, I thought… perhaps not.

At this point the actors playing Posh Man and Posh Woman (CA) were up. They had been sitting around doing to be honest, nothing, for a long time. It wasn’t their fault. That’s just the way it is. I had stopped asking if they were OK way back (after the 3^rd or 4^th time I asked – as they look at me like I was weird). So suddenly it was there turn.

It’s fascinating as a non-actor, to be in such close proximity of someone switching from not acting to acting, yet managing to looking like they are not acting… if that makes sense?! It is impressive to see, especially when for the last 3 hours you’ve done nothing but now, you are playing a drunk happy women with no care in the world, and shot 40 minutes later but about 4 mins apart in the film, and shot out of sequence – the same woman who’s just made a gruesome discovery. So – Fingers crossed if the shots on film are as half as intense as it felt being there and looked on the monitor live, it will be quite a powerful moment.

Like being in an emotional tumble dryer, going from good too bad in seconds… Hopefully – objective achieved.

We went on to film the Posh Man and Older Brother having their argument scene. Again an intense thing to watch. I’d written no dialogue so any that happened was improvised. Both actors proving once again they were the right people for the roles. I can’t wait to see what DG, the sound chap, does with the voices. Some I suspect will stay – some will be turned into something else… role on the rough cut!

We finished filming at 6ish. BA – the Young Boy, had been sent home earlier – he was looking rather tired but had done amazingly well. We had the majority of the cricket scenes shot and tomorrow lay ahead the motorbike scenes and the interior shots that open the film.

The latter got a quick re-write overnight… well OK – to be honest I slept on it.

Serious space cadet brain weariness had overcome me by the time I packed up at the end of day 1 and got home. To the extent apparently I had a whole conversation with the other half about one of our NCT friends. They had tried to come see the filming and had gone to the wrong field. I have no memory of that conversation.

It’s a glamorous job this directing business.

Next time: Day 2: Part 1: It’s raining. Lightning too & we’re holding umbrellas.

INT. ANDY’S HOUSE – MORNING.

CAPTION: Saturday 19^th April 6:45am.

It’s looking a bit less messy. I’d managed to pack most of the stuff into the CRV and run it down to the cricket club earlier. I was picking up the bag with the cameras in and saying my goodbyes to the cats… Well OK, I was whispering – my voice had gone completely. I was at the ‘it hurts to speak’ stage.

I drove back down to the pitch in the MX5, leaving the larger car for my wife to bring down lunch and a baby visit later. The sky was part cloudy and it was a little cold. There was no sign of rain as promised. It looked like it might be a good day. Once in the pavilion I stated unpacking the essentials – the drinks, coffee, & croissants. The biscuit tin had the batteries taken out of it, and filled up with custard creams, chocolate bourbons and other biscuits from the 80s. I was putting out the sugar and coffee cups when the crew started appearing. I greeted them with a croak. The production manager called me Dan (the name of the new DoP) and continued to do so for most of that day.

By 830 ish all the crew were there. Things were looking busy. People were huddled over kit and tripods and lights. The runner, GB, arrived and was helping shift things around, set up stumps and write details onto the clapper board.

I was dealing with a fridge.

The bastard wouldn’t close… it had frosted up so badly the door wouldn’t shut. So there I was on my hands and knees with a knife hacking and slashing at the solid mass of ice clinging to the top of the fridge…

It’s a glamorous life this directing business.

The first actors started appeared at around 9… Things progressed…. Many many cups of coffee were being slurped… the first scene was being set up in the changing room.. lighting was being adjusted, a cricket bag was unpack, repacked, and the unpacked and repacked again just for good measure…. The lead actor (the older brother) WD took his place on the bench in the changing room… and we were off. Someone called for me to shout action. I tried. Failed… No one heard me croak. I whispered for MM do it in my place…. And so – ‘Action…’ was shouted for me.

It’s a glamorous life this directing business.

A few takes were in the can, the lighting was being adjusted. The B camera shot was being set up. Just then the H appeared in our midst with husband in tow. I was introduced to them and must have looked blank. I suspect I was thinking about focus and the Nikon D610. Cakes? Someone said. Ah yes – cakes! This was H from @chataboutcakes. I apologised for being miles away and we went out to their car. In the boot were so many cakes I honestly thought she was taking them some elsewhere next. But no. Joyously they were all for us! Victoria sponges and scones. 4 massive sponges and 2 enormous boxes of scones. Amazing!! And boy did they taste great. (There was so much I had to take scones into work afterwards…)

I was dragged back to the shooting and H disappeared – her job here was more than done.

The first shoot scene seemed to take an age. Just to get the light right seemed to take what felt like a decade. I suspect this is when I began to understand how slow things can move on set. I was pondering such thoughts, and speculating when I could get away with attacking the cake, when the production manager SF sidled up to me. ‘Dan,’ she whispered. ‘I think we need to get outside. Use the fact its not raining. We’ve got lots to do out there’.

After a brief chat with DG & MM, we filmed a quick few shots of the Younger Brother (BA) finding the Lucky Charm and set off outside.

It can be too sunny for filming. Once outside this became obvious.

Next Time: Filming Day 1: Part 2: Now it’s too sunny and look is that a panther?

—-

PS – For those who might remember and were expecting a possible panther in this entry, I have had to split my blog for filming day one into two parts. The original – At just over 1700 words – was a tad long. Sorry!

Things took a bad turn.

The problems started, me thinks, when I began ignoring the producer’s advice. Oh dear. I can hear you thinking…and you’re right.

It’s like a moment from a film where you see someone do something really stupid, predictably stupid, avoidably irrationally stupid – yet they still do it. And if you’re me you shout at the screen (some not so charitable remark) about their mantel capacity.

That was me, with the slow mo. cameras. I couldn’t let go. In my head I was seeing wonderful slow motion like they had on Sky a few years back for the Cricket. Where you actually see the bat bend and wobble as they batsman struck the ball. But, I was that stupid character and I couldn’t let it go – so a week later I was in spreadsheet budget hell from all directions.

The hits came thick and fast about the cameras and other things…

1) The prices didn’t include VAT.

2) The prices didn’t include delivery.

3) The prices didn’t include insurance for the kit.

4) The DoP was bringing 2 or 3 extra crew who’d need expenses and were going to drive but they couldn’t car share.

5) I wanted a MUA they wanted a kit cost and expenses paying.

6) The public liability insurance quote hadn’t include the brokers fee…

7) Arghhhhhh….

The list went on and it was just too much.

I had got this far and everything was just turning negative and wrong. I couldn’t see a way to balance it all… and I felt defeated. I started writing an email to JH saying I was giving up. I came up with some feeble not really real excuse for it, but I’d had enough and I just wanted to walk away. I wrote the message without JH’s email in the ‘To’ box. I sat staring at it for long time. I could press send. It would all just go away.

Just then my phone trilled its text message alert.

Ah ha – reeeeeeally?!

Well no – not quite so dramatic sadly! That particular text didn’t stop me sending it… but it turned out the person who sent it, would. I saved the ‘I quit’ email, and went to meet MM – who was looking to help with the film doing continuity.

We sat on the benches outside my work, with some house wine from the pub across the courtyard. We talked about Lucky Charm , or I moaned. MM listened and sympathised and then hit me a whole bunch of questions – from what lights would I be using, to had I thought of crowd funding to raise money to get a colourist, to what B camera was I using, to how were you backing it all up, to – are you going to watch the days footage when you get home in the evening to, how will you watch what’s being shot, to do you know what the weathers like, to have you done a mood book, a call sheet or a shooting script?

I was becoming an expert rabbit in headlights impersonator, fairly quickly. But you know what. All MM said to all of my no’s was… ‘Don’t worry. I can help with that.’

Some people are rare gems. You really realise afterwards – things would have been completely different had they not been there. For example – MM thoughts on the slow mo camera issues?

“You’re not Sky….”

I went home that night and deleted that unsent ‘I quit’ email.

Family life goes on outside film life. So… We ended up going on holiday the week before filming. While we were away, in the midst of a long string of emails about camera spec, the DoP suddenly queried the number of days of filming. I am not sure why he chose to ignore it until then, or maybe I didn’t remind him of it enough. He’d originally wanted 5-6 days, but after discussing the budget we agreed it needed to be shorter. Everything had been organised around a two-day shoot. Anyway – The long and the short if it, after a few more emails on shooting days and times, the DoP quit. He wasn’t prepared to shoot everything in two days. He was done.

And breathe…

I emailed JH & MM telling them the news.

JH came back very quickly – he must have been up late. He was calm and focused. It’s fine we can find another one, he said. MM was the same – she’d worked on multi million pound projects where she’d seen this happened – the message was clear – we’d survive.

I realised at that point, I felt a sense of relief. The stress and trouble that had had me nearly quitting the week before, was suddenly gone. We had bigger issues, in that we needed a new DoP, but we were back to not being Sky… And I for one was relieved.

Another email string in play while on holiday was that of a cast meet and greet. JH organised it to be at a pub, just down the road from my work. Mostly everyone was going to be there, including BA and his Mum and Dad, which was lovely The evening turned out to be a blast… We even had a new DoP in place by then – DG, as well as a production manager SF. There were 8 of us there, and we all seemed to get on really well – considering we were all strangers. A few beers and a number of glasses of wine were consumed… and everything started feeling very real. We were actually going to be making a film here!

And then I started losing my voice.

Next time: Filming Day 1 – Part 1: Do things normally go this slooooowly on set then?

There is so much I know I don’t know about making a film… I was truly unconsciously incompetent

The secret, it seemed to me, was to surround myself with people who were unconsciously competent. Those who know what they don’t know – err. You know what I mean… Right?!

So I’d somehow convinced a producer that Lucky Charm has legs, yet I had no real idea how I might actually make it. So I turned to the Ugly Boy for advice. One of his sage thoughts (don’t tell him I said that) was his list of four things needed to make a successful film:

1. A great Director of Photography
2. A top Sound Guy
3. Keeping the actors and crew fed and watered.
4. Having fun and eating cake.

OK OK, I confess… the 4th is all mine…

I added number four to the Ugly Boy’s list, as I think people working for nothing bar expenses need to enjoy themselves.  Also, I often think you can see in a film that people had fun making it. It adds an extra something that makes the film greater than the sum of its parts. The Deal (2008), for example, written by and starring William H Macy, I’ve only seen recently, but I bet they had fun making it.

My job as director I figured was to try and achieve the above and to let everyone get on with what they do best with minimal interference from me (because let’s be honest, that’s what it would be). I just needed to create an atmosphere where I could herd, cajole and bribe (with cake), coffee and fun as needed.

As I’ve said earlier, I’m slightly obsessed with cake. I regularly use the hashtag #sendcake when something happens (good or bad). So cake needed to be part of making Lucy Charm. I approached someone I’d met on Twitter (@chataboutcakes) and asked if she could make cakes for the shoot. At first she said yes (yay!) then she said she would be away (boo!), but a few days before filming she said she could (thrice yay!) And boy did she deliver. So many cakes. So little time!  The rest of the food and drink still needed planning though.

So I’d achieved number 1 and made steps towards number 4. So that left 2 & 3 on the list.

No 2 – a top Sound Guy… while Lucky Charm has no real dialogue, sound will be crucial.  Once again I was very lucky. The Ugly Boy introduced me to a sound guy, DG, whose background is theatre sound. I sent Lucky Charm to him and asked if he might be interested. He was. We met and had an initial chat about all things sound. The way DG talks about sound is enthralling and fascinating and a complete eye opener. He was definitely the right man for the job.

Compromise compromise compromise… is the other mantra I’ve learned on this journey especially as actor wise – things were proving tricky. One of the lead characters is a young boy aged 10ish. The other his older brother aged 19 or so. JH emailed me to say things were tricky with labour laws and children and did he HAVE to be that young?   Actually, No as long as their relationship (in the script) was believable. That’s the bottom line – I said.

Back to the hunt JH went… as did I. I started looking locally and once more the Ugly one came to the rescue… He’d just directed an actor, WD, at one of the drama schools he occasionally works at, who he thought might be a good fit for the older brother. I met WD for a beer and chat. He couldn’t have been better.

The younger brother role was still unfilled. The shooting date was getting closer. People audition and weren’t right, in acting ability, looks or age. Then I met BA, via his mum who applied to a casting I’d done. 10 years old from just down the road… and he was perfect. He couldn’t have been a better fit if I’d written the part for him. He even looked like a mini me version of WD.

Luck really was on my side…. We had a DoP, a Sound Guy, Lead and support actors, the lending of an only 40 of them in the world Lotus, and the promise of cake.

A week later… I was an unsent email away from giving up.

Next time: Rare Gems – Above and Below the Line II – The people you don’t know you need.

In the original opening scene of the script, two young boys play cricket at their school.

A shiny yellow Lotus sits on the pitch’s boundary.

The boys have their ‘usual’ bet – can you hit a ball through the car’s windscreen.

They both try, but kill a young boy in the process.

…I did say it was a horror film.

Even I recognised that this scene wouldn’t work in a nearly zero budget short film, without a few changes.

Stuff happened sure, but none of it filmable without green screens, stunt men, stunt children (do they even exist?) and special effects.

Much wonga would have been required.

So yes– a little re-write was probably in order.

In the end, I lost count of the number of times I actually did re-write it, but after what felt like endless iterations I arrived at a version that I, my other half, the Ugly Boy and anyone else that read it, seemed to think was OK.

About that… feedback, I must confess I am not very good at receiving it.

Some say feedback is a gift…  No! Cake is a gift.  If that’s the sort of gift YOU give, you’re not coming to my party.

Anyway back to feedback – some definitely give it better than others.

(As an aside, I am possibly worse at receiving praise too. It’s all just too embarrassing).

So – at some point you stand by your convictions and say No! It’s not changing!  It feels good. You’re back in charge. It lasts right about ‘til you find your producer.

I’d put out a casting call for a Director of Photography and found one. Let’s call him Alex.

He told me that I should find a producer to let me focus on directing. Made sense to me. He went on to say that he knew a couple, but it transpired that neither was available. So I ended up doing a casting call for one.

Among a lot of applicants was JH from a Canadian production company (I’m using initials here to preserve some anonymity until the film is out). His credentials were impressive, but I was worried. He was in Canada – Lucky Charm had no real budget – I couldn’t possibly afford to fly him here – let alone cargo ship him.

I expressed my ‘I can’t afford to even FedEx you’ worries to him by email.

Easy peasy – came his reply.

OK slight artistic licence there – not sure that phrase is used in Canada, but that’s how he made me feel and in hindsight, he was right.

So I sent him Lucky Charm to read. His next, nervously awaited, email came back with his thoughts. He liked it. Fantastic! But… Would I be open to changing it?  Ah yes – A warm welcome back to feedback. I have missed you!

But I was prepared.  As we sat to talk on Skype I had my script to hand, a list of bullet points to argue about stuff I simply HAD to keep, and ready to explain the nuances of the story.  As I adjusted my headset I got The Fear…

I’ve read so many blogs/sites/script gurus thoughts… where poor spelling, formatting, grammar and the like are flagged as script killers. I’ve read Lucky Charm so many times; I passed not seeing the woods for the trees months ago. Would JH mention them? I was terrified he would. I would be told off and be made to sit on the naught step… (I’m an adult I know – but I felt like a child at this moment!)

But – no. Not once. Phew!

Take from that what you will (I’m taking story won through – Modest eh!)

Since then however my other half came up with a good top tip – read the thing backwards. It’s surprising how easy mistakes are to spot that way (and how much like Yoda you start to sound). But yes – find more mistakes, you will.

So – back to JH. It transpired that he completely got the script.  To be honest he found more meaning in it than I had.

In reality the only changes he wanted were driven by, you got it, his mantra… Budget, Budget, Budget.

So – Out went the motorbike crash. Out went the stunt people, out went the dolly, jibs, green screen, extra actors and & slow mo. cameras.

And you know what? It made it better… it was tighter, it was more pleasing, it was easier to film… and it was more complete.

If only I’d listened to him about the cameras…

Next time: Above And Below The Line – Crew, Actors, Brothers & Cake

FADE IN:

INT. ANDY’S HOUSE – MORNING

It’s all a bit messy… I’ve never had quite so much stuff in quite such an assortment of bags as when Saturday 19th April 2014 rolled around.

I’d been up the night before packing said stuff into said bags and they were now strewn all over the kitchen, front hall and dining room.  I was very much hoping the GoPro, Nikon D610 & lenses were in there somewhere – along with the various SD and Micro SD cards that each of those took.  I was busy putting the various battery chargers into the biscuit tin when I realised… Things Were Getting Out Of Hand.

All this because I was about to cut my teeth directing a short film I’d written called Lucky Charm.

People have asked me if directing a film was a passion – something I’ve always wanted to do. Is it on my bucket list?

No, is my normal reply. It’s because I am impatient.

I’m not trying to be mystical or even interesting when I say this. No – I am just impatient.  I also hate being late, I’m desperately trying not to turn into a grumpy old man, and I love cake.

None of this has anything to do with directing, but I did get someone to provide cake for the cast and crew via a twitter shout… it was damn good too!

So why directing?

Two things really.

My mum passed away in February of last year after a long battle with Myeloma. At the same time I was getting married in April, and my future wife had just discovered she was pregnant.  As you can probably imagine I was experiencing complete all encompassing, I’m not really functioning properly grief  – contrasting with the joy & excitement that there was a sprout on the way.

I remember the contradiction well.  My Mum’s death wasn’t something I was able to prepare for and because we didn’t want to talk about the pregnancy until the 3 month scan, I didn’t really talk about that ether. I found myself doing a lot of thinking and a lot of internalising.

I remember walking up the hill home from the station and sitting one very chilly evening on a bench on the local cricket field in Sevenoaks… I drank strawberry milk and had a bit of cry – thinking about mum and well… just thinking. Then of course my thoughts turned babywards and I started feeling happier. Two opposite emotions, so close together so impactful. It was like an emotional tumble dryer really.

I think at that point I realised I wanted to explore that contradiction.

If I’m honest it left my head quite quickly, there were too many other mum based thoughts in there to do anything… so in the end I filed it away for later.

The second reason is more practical.

I wrote a full length romcom script and submitted a query letter to 100 or so producers. I had a success rate of about 3%, of those who wanted to read it (which I was actually quite pleased with). Anyway – the way these things work seems to be you send it off and you wait… Then you wait a bit more… And then a teeny bit more…Then you contact them to see if they had perhaps had the time to read it… And then you wait some more… Then you wait a bit more.

Spotting the pattern?

While I waited, I exceeded my impatient threshold. So I went back to a horror script I’d been developing. I got vaguely serious about it. I actually wrote a treatment. I had a beginning middle and end and everything. I even purchased Save the Cat on my kindle. (Not read it yet but shhhh, don’t tell anyone).

The brother, or Ugly Boy as I shall refer to him, is a professional thesp/theatre director/writer. He mingles in the world of actors whose names your Nan would know. Me I’m mucking about in the long grass down the road, over the bridge and in another dimension to that, but none the less – he agreed to give it a read.

Aside from finding it horrific (which I took as a good sign), he suggested over a beer that I should perhaps think about turning the first scene of it into a short film… and so, Lucky Charm was born.

NEXT TIME: getting to grips with the mantra ‘budget, budget, budget’