Sunday 9th November 2003

Sunday didn't turn out to start much better than Saturday. We got our 5:30am call and were picked up for the drive to nearby Barlaston (which was coincidentally the village we shot 'LiMBO' in). We arrived - eventually - around 7am and Darren quickly went into his make-up routine. The schedule called for us to be back at the hospital location for 9am, but Kev had decided to reschedule for 10, we finished shooting in Barlaston at 10:30, can you see where I'm going with this? It wasn't really our fault, the equipment conspired against us to prevent any really constructive film-making from happening. The jib that worked so wonderfully on 'Autumn Heart' just would not function and the ground was wet and slippery. Those on set were frankly just happy to be leaving that field!

So we got back to the hospital at 11am and started to set up the mornings shoot. First up was the front half of the shots from the field (i.e. going from hospital to field) that had Darren running to camera and 'opening doors'. A lighting rig would simulate the opening of the doors and Darren's Assistant Kate Elkin got her first taste of film-making by being an assistant gaffer for the shot. The next set-up was back in the kitchen set from yesterday and was one of the most problematic shots of the weekend.

We needed to have Darren reflected in a knife and then for the knife to move and to reveal a second person (Hester) without showing the camera or equipment. It was a huge collaborative effort from both sides of the camera to set the shot properly and to pull it off, but pull it off we did and it's effectively creepy. This took us to about 12:30 and Nigel Leonard, Helen Norman and her son Max were on set so it was on to their pick-ups. We started with Helen's shots, as she had more than Max and Nigel. All these shots were complicated because of how they are to be edited in post-production, meaning that we needed the shoots of the actors and then a clean plate with nothing in frame. It was complicated and we had to be sure that the camera would not move so that both shots can be lined up in the edit. The series of shots are MUCH more complicated than they sound and can only really be understood in the edit, so even for me they don't really make full sense yet. Helen was first to wrap on the film, followed by Nigel and Max and once they had we broke for lunch, it was 2:00pm. After lunch we moved back to shooting more of Darren on his own in a variety of locations doing various actions, mostly reactions to things that weren't there. We had to get through Darren's stuff so that he could go back into make-up.

We must have finished this round of shots with Darren around 4:30 and sent him off and finally turned our attention to a group of 'friends' who were also shot together followed by a clean plate for the edit. They got to sing a well known congratulatory song traditionally sung on the day people become a year older that some very clever person once copyrighted so that we can't really use it. Kev and I are going to work with Steven Coltart to make that scene without the use of said song. Once we'd wrapped the friends we FINALLY moved on to Hester, who had been patiently waiting all afternoon as her scenes continually got rescheduled to be later and later in the day.

Hester got to be sexy (something Darren isn't in this film!) for her scenes, I'm not sure how sexy they were for her to shoot, but they look fantastic. We would have wrapped Hester about 6:00 and started to de-rig what we could as we waited for Darren to return from make-up. He appeared at 7:00 scaring the brown substance out of everyone and we quickly got the remaining shots that we needed to be able to call a wrap for Darren. at 7:30 he was done! By 8:45 we were packed up and ready to leave, after having shot an alternate version of a shot we did yesterday in the kitchen, that didn't require any actors. Kev and I should go on record to show our appreciation and admiration to Darren who worked longer and harder than anyone else on set for the two days, giving 110% with every take. To you Darren, Thank You!

And thank you to those that have given freely of their time to help out the production and make it what it will undoubtedly become, especially those lucky few that had never been involved with film-making before and were thrown in at the deep end and to those that have returned after working with Kev and I before. You few, you lucky few, you band of buggered!

And now on to the editing. . .