Two Weeks...

Well weather permitting it is now two weeks tomorrow until the shoot for Little Things, and yes, I am apprehensive. Maybe apprehensive is the wrong word. Fucking Bricking It. Ah yes, the mot juste. Pissing myself as I may be, things are coming together quite nicely. I know I still need to talk about the shooting I did for Grove Park Theatre, and I will, but for this post I'm going to talk about the things that are slotting into place

Equipment first. What kicked off this whole project was me getting my camera. The script for Little Things had been written for a while and I had been toying with the idea of making myself for a while. What really made things happen though was my wife Rach, muse that she is and enabler to a myriad of my insane shit. Rach is a teacher and this summer dedicated a ridiculous amount of time and energy marking A-level papers. The pay that she got for this pretty much entirely went on a second hand Canon XL1. Do me a favour, If you are take
ing the time to read this blog, then take the time to write a small comment at the end saying how awesome my wife is. The Canon XL1 is an old camera, but a good one, and it looks kick ass!

It shoots digital video and was the camera that Danny Boyle used to shoot "28 Days Later". It's not something you could shoot Avatar with but for the purpose of my little movie, it'll be perfect. As well as the camera I've been looking at the other kit I need. I'm going to keep it as simple as possible, so one camera, a boom mike, a tripod and maybe, but only maybe, some lights. I've found a website called Hireacamera.com that hire out all that additional stuff, if you call on the Thursday, they deliver the gear on the Friday, collect on the monday and give a 20% discount! I'm gonna use them for this, if I have a good experience I'll stick a link up.

Second thing that is coming together is locations. Little Things basically only has two scenes. There are a couple of establishing shots but the main story; two scenes. One is in a park, the other a pub. Finding a boozer that looked the part and would be willing to let me shoot in there is something that I was concerned about. Maybe concerned is the wrong word. Convinced That There Was No Way It Would Fucking Happen. Ah yes, the mot juste. As a result I was putting it off, but this week I knew that I had to bite the bullet and start calling places. So I made a list of places to call in order of preference. I called the first one. I asked to speak to the manager. I explained what I was trying to do. "What is the film about?" she asked me. "It's a romantic drama, and there's nothing in it that would show the pub in a negative fashion". "Yeah okay, that'll be fine".

...Really. God that was easy. So I have a pub location which I can reveal as "Y Pentan" in Mold. A lovely little pub with great food and beer and a perfect atmosphere.

Photo courtesy of Garstonian on Flickr

As you can see I am now a whore to corporate advertising. Seriously though I am very, very grateful to them. I still haven't got confirmation on the Park Location, but I have found the location I want, asked for permission and have been asked for more info which would lead me to believe that it should be okay. I'm not going to reveal the location just yet,because I don't want to jinx it,  but here is a little teaser...

The last thing that is falling into place is the cast. I had my first rehearsal with Chris and Lisa on Tuesday and I'm a chuffed with the progress. I think it's fair to say that it was a challenge for all of us. Me because I'd never directed actors before, and for Chris and Lisa, their experience is mostly with theatre which is very different from film. Chris has directed a lot of amateur dramatics and has spent a lot of time saying "they can't see your eyes moving like that in the back row" so me telling him "do it smaller dude, the camera is gonna get everything" is making him fight all of his instincts and experiences. For Lisa it was the first time she had done a character that didn't require an accent and she found it weird to use her natural speaking voice. Both though are really kick-ass actors and amazing at taking direction. By the end of the rehearsal they had the character and performance down. 

Again advice that I can give. If you have luxury of time to rehearse I highly recommend taking it the two hours I spent with Chris and Lisa on Tuesday were absolutely invaluable in getting the performances I wanted so on the day of the shoot I can just worry about the technical stuff. 

More advise, if you have written the script yourself, then be prepared to let it get changed. I know you may have agonised over your precious words, but if they sound weird and unnatural when an actor says them out loud, they're the wrong fucking words. Let actors and directors play with some of the words, as long as the story and the essence is there, it doesn't matter...

...Unless it's a really kick ass line, then fucking shout at them to say it right.

I'm going to leave you with some photos from the rehearsal. If you see a silhouette in the mirror in the background like some sort of fucking Sasquatch that's yours truly. Before I leave I have one further request. There is the option to Follow this blog on the right. I know a load of you read this but not many follow me making me look like a fucking lunatic, babbling to himself on a street corner. Please click on the follow button.

Later all

M