Do
Elephants
Pray?
Monday 20th - Wednesday 22nd August 2007
I crawl into consciousness courtesy of the ringing phone again. Seanne our Production Designer says the Art Director is not happy and could I call her. With coffee in hand I call to find out the problem. Simply put she wants us to pay for her accommodation in London. I casually remind her that I have arranged for her to stay for free with someone she knows well so she has no need for us to pay for her accommodation but this is still not good enough.
“I will feel guilty about that!” She says. I am so taken aback by this comment I spill coffee on my legs.
22, just graduated from University and she has been offered an Art Director’s job on a feature with an experienced cast and crew and she feels guilty about crashing at someone’s place for a month? What’s wrong with ex-students these days? A few hours later she emails and says she has decided she doesn’t want to work on the film. That decision wasn’t in fact hers, I had made that one for her the second I hung up the phone.
“Shame,” says Seanne later. “I could have offered her a lot of paid work after this.” Shame indeed.
Williams and I battle with the wireless network again but to no avail. It is still proving to be elusive and I have single-handedly boosted BT’s share value through the number of calls made in the last few days.
Crew members. 0 gained. 1 lost.
Day 7 Tuesday 21st August 2007
The day, like so many recently, starts badly. I get an email from Job saying his circumstances have changed and he can’t be our Grip any more. However, unlike our errant Art Director, he feels guilty about letting us down and has found a replacement called Matt. I chat to replacement Matt, whom I remember having also worked on the same short film, and agree to meet next week. He is very keen and sounds ideal.
I post ads for a new Art Director and Sound Recordist and almost instantly get a reply from BECTU the technicians union threatening legal action over our “unlawful contracts”. I contemplate several possible ripostes all consisting of two short words but decide not to prod the wasps nest further and simply ignore the email instead. Paul texts me from Gatwick having returned from Morocco and asks for the latest news. I break it to him gently in drips ending with the Bectu email.
“Good,” he says with a manner that suggests this is a marker, an inevitability of film production and a stage we must pass through in order to continue. Sort of like reaching the end of level one on a computer game. Congratulations you have reached the level of Bectu-annoyer you may continue. Next stop the one from Equity. Boosted by this I print out the email and stick it on the wall.
Crew members. 1 gained. 1 lost.
Day 8 Wednesday 22nd August 2007
Today we are location scouting. I get up at stupid o’clock in the morning and grab a train across London. It is clearly monsoon season in the UK as the world outside the train is flooded and I look decidedly out of place in my shorts. I am glad the line is elevated or there could be water lapping at my feet. I meet Paul and Willesden Junction station. The rain is relentlessly pounding us by the bucketful. I take a deep breath and we swim to Seanne’s house.
“I’ve never been here during the day,” says Paul as Seanne shows us into the kitchen and on to the conservatory. He looks at me with a weird grin, the sort of one that usually comes with a call of “bingo!” Instead he says...
“Emma’s house.”
“Really?” I reply. “Does Seanne rent it then?”
“No, Emma, the character Emma, the one in the screenplay you wrote!” He can tell this is going to be a long day, but it is early and the tea is only just starting to take effect.
Seanne picks up on Paul’s sudden childlike glow of excitement. She is cautious, sort of seen this before fear sweeping over her, she probably knows what is coming.
“I think you’d better ask,” I suggest in a low voice.
“Seanne,” he begins, placing a comforting arm around her which she eyes suspiciousl. “If we use this as Emma’s house then that is one location you don’t have to find or travel to.”
As angles go that's a good one, there is a certain logic I suppose. Through natural survival instincts Seanne argues against the idea. Like most people in the film world she knows what location filming entails and is reluctant to allow anyone to film in her house, kind of like the Groucho Marx I wouldn’t want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member, philosophy.
Paul bombards Seanne with a barrage of reasons why we should shoot at her house intercut with blatant flattery about how wonderful the yellow and orange paint looks. Knowing that resistance is futile as Paul will just lambaste her until she agrees she capitulates and we splash our way to her car buoyed by the success of having found at least one location on our list. The car scythes its way through the flood water en-route to our first stop to pick up Williams who gives me a gift of a statue of Ganesha, Elephants – praying – you can see the logic there. He is drenched and has a sort of ‘Why did I ever leave the Pyrénées’ look.
We head to the first apartment, high up in the attic of an old converted post office. Paul and Seanne inspect the layout whilst I hunt around for some of the numerous lost letters that have never arrived at my house over the last decade. Surely if I look hard enough I will finally find that letter from my ex-flatmate with the back rent he owes me. I wander into the kitchen and see a young woman sat at a computer checking her emails. She smiles and says 'hello' in that way people do when it is not for the first time and I wander back out again frantically trying to remember where I know her from.
“How are you?” she asks ever so politely and I instantly feel embarrassed at my lack of recollection. I look around for inspiration to jolt my memory and overhear Seanne discussing the location.
“Do you like it, I like it, do you like?”
I try to corner Paul to ask him who this woman is and how do I know her but he is busy actually doing some work and replying to Seanne.
“Not really. Can we reshape this wall?”
“No,” she replies and that is that, the location is no good. We head out to the door covering ourselves in an many layers as possible when the woman looks at me again, I feel a question coming on as we say goodbye.
“Did your friend pay up the bet he lost?” she asks.
“Bet?”
“In Cannes, some football thing with Seanne...”
Suddenly it all makes sense again. Cannes. Yes, 'The Ginger Beacon' Irish Paul and the bet he lost on the Champions League Final. Ah Cannes. It seems so long ago, a quick calculation reveals it to be less than three months. My mind starts to drift off into the void of esoteric questioning... If I hadn't gone to Cannes this year I wouldn't have given Paul the script to read and he wouldn't have decided to make the film and we wouldn't be here now in this woman's apartment and I wouldn't be in this awkward position of wanting to shoot in her apartment but not knowing her name. Then again, I wouldn't have met her either so it kind of evens out I guess.
A few minutes later we are back in the car with the windows steaming up. I call my friend Mandy who is also our publicist to ask her what time we can come round on Friday to look at her Studio apartment.
“Midnight!” shouts Paul from the passenger seat.
“I’ll be wrecked by then,” she says on speaker phone.
“Great, party at 7pm,” says Paul and pretends to call people on his mobile.
I try to reassure Mandy that allowing us to film in her place is a great idea whilst trying to cover up Paul in the background dropping in various lines...
“Yeah mate, we'll all be wreaked by eight...total carnage...we're gonna tear the place apart...”
Sometime later we arrive at out next stop, Alexandra Palace. This is a potential location for the Act one climax where the two central characters Callum and Malika kiss for the first time. However, it doesn't look overly romantic as the rain beats down whipped up by a fierce wind blowing sheets of water in our faces. I shiver in my shorts. This is supposed to be August the hottest month of the year.
“I can see it now!” cries Paul. “The whole scene in one take! (About three minutes) A long tacking shot on a zoom lens ending in a tight two-shot with an old man sat behind on the bench smoking a cigarette. Can we get an old man?”
I fear the water has clogged his mind but he is serious.
We repair to my favourite London bistro, 'Banners' in Crouch End. Whilst waiting for our food and munching on popcorn Paul rues the fact he never found a sheep’s eyeball to eat in Marrakech and is outraged that Williams has eaten something he hasn’t and so begins a trade-off of who has eaten what. Williams is clearly winning when Paul cries out...
“Guinea pig! I’d love to eat guinea pig!” His desire is aimed in some vain hope at the bemused waitress “I’d eat one raw, if there was one running across this table now I’d bite its head off and put teeth marks in its back.”
Bellies full we head reluctantly back into the rain to roundabout in a nearby park. It turns out to be a perfect location for Callum and Malika's first meeting. We are all relieved as it has been a difficult location to find. There is something a little disconcerting about hanging around children's play areas particularly when you don't have a child.
“I've been to more parks than a paedophile,” jests Paul.
We are about to leave when I get a call from a girl called Anna regarding the Art Director's position. She is only in Finsbury Park so we hastily make arrangements to meet and debate about the origin of he unusual surname settling for something Scandinavian which fits in well with our desire to get as many different languages spoken on set as possible. Paul's dream is to have two people on set who can’t speak English communicating through a third person.
We spy her and say hello.
“Hello. Where are you from, Sweden or Norway?” I ask outside the tube station having been charged with finding out.
“Wales,” she replies.
“Do you speak welsh?”
“Erm...yes,” she adds wondering if it is a prerequisite of the job.
We hole up in a café and drink fresh mint tea. She seems ideal for the job and agrees to take it on. However before we can get down to the details she has to leave because her friend is getting a tattoo and she is needed for moral support and we head to Islington to look at a street.
Paul stares at a blank brick wall next to the exit of a building we are using.
“Can we paint a giant flower on this?” he asks.
“That’s not like you,” retorts Seanne.
“Mmm… you’re right we need a flower with ‘Fuk Da Pigz’ sprayed across it, can you do that?”
“Yeah, I’ll get right on it.” I get the impression that Seanne isn’t overly enthusiastic about this but then again she has known Paul a lot longer than I have and knows when he is serious, or not as the case may be. They settle on just a flower without the added social comment.
Williams disappears off to investigate food for the location at a place around the corner I recommended and comes back beaming.
“Great food and cheap! But vegetarian.”
A look of horror falls across Paul's face.
“Will you cope?” Asks Williams.
“I will make sure I have a whole suckling pig to eat when I get home, I'll stick it on my head and eat my way out”.
He is not kidding.
We part ways here for the day and Paul heads into town to meet with Rhys, a young guy whom he takes on as his First AD.
Crew members. 2 gained. 0 lost. Locations. 5 gained. 0 lost.
Part 2 ...
Part 4 ...
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