Production day 2, a dogsbody's report.

In many ways the Sunday shoot was much smoother than the Saturday. Mark, in his Producer role, had arranged permission to film in the Y Pentan bar in Mold. I would like to make a special mention of the managers and staff of this establishment. We could not have had more support from friendlier people. In particular I’d like to thank the manager Simon.

Mark and I came to realise just how supportive and enthusiastic people can be when you try to put together an artistic project like this. If you live anywhere near Mold, please patronise this establishment, they deserve all the business this blog can rustle up for them.

As for the bar shoot itself, it was, in many ways, easier than the park. Sound and lighting were far more under our control and our romantic leads offered stunning performances on the day. My role on the Sunday was comprised of looking through the viewfinder and answering the question “Peter does this look good to you?” and panicking about the boom being in the frame. In our three hour shoot we got almost everything we needed from the pub interior, but faced the biggest setback we had all weekend. Our third actor, Richie, was sick and wasn’t sure he could make the shoot. We needed him for two shots outside the bar, but more importantly the pickups from the park shoot. This was, to shamelessly steal lines from Blackadder, “a twelve-story crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour portage, and an enormous sign on the roof, saying 'This Is a Large Crisis.'" Without the pickups of his lines for editing, all the footage involving him from the previous day would be essentially unusable

To describe the production as low budget would be an insult to every Bruce Campbell movie ever made. This is not a low budget project. This is a zero budget project. The equipment rental and insurance covered the shoot for this weekend and this weekend only. There was no option to reshoot at a later date. It needed to be in the can by Sunday night. With Richie’s health in an uncertain state, the understudy was called for his big break. (Guess who?) I genuinely thought I would have a heart attack. I haven’t acted since amateur productions in college and I wasn’t much good then. I spent ten minutes hyperventilating because I didn’t know the lines (no fun for a smoker I can guarantee) then the dreadful thought occurred; will Mark want me to mask my Irish accent? At this point I had a lie down under the bench. Thankfully for my sanity, health and dignity Richie managed to get himself to the park and we took the reshoots in under an hour.

With regard to the reshoot of my scene as an extra; my wardrobe choice that day was … ill advised. I was wearing black jeans and a black t-shirt (Julian from trailer park boys being my hero) but because I felt this may not look well on camera I borrowed Mark’s shirt (a couple of sizes too big and very light coloured) to wear over the clothes I had on. On camera this give gave the impression that I was wearing a leotard and off to teach a dance class.

We decamped and made our way back to Y Pentan to film Richie’s final scenes. Mark took these in a few takes and shooting on Little Things was wrapped. There is a long way to go before we have a finished product, there are some scenes with Chris[1] as yet unshot that may or may not be scrapped and then there’s the quick and easy editing process. Sorry, did I say quick and easy? I meant the other thing.

Finally on behalf of the cast and crew of Little Things I want to thank Mark from the bottom of our hearts for getting us to be part of his vision and wish him luck with this and all future productions, in which, I for one, wish to be as involved in as I can.

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[1] Between the time of writing and publication these shots have been completed.