—- 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?