Do
Elephants
Pray?
Monday 3rd - Tuesday 4th September 2007
Having worked throughout the night again last night in my nocturnal doppelgänger role as radio button-pushing- nonsense-talker I crash into bed at 7am looking forward to a long and peaceful sleep to start me off in the right way. Of course this fantasy is never going to happen. I get a call from Seanne after just three hours, she is in Venice for the film festival where a film she was the Production Designer for is screening, she says that we need to get Elephants there next year. I promise to take some actual elephants to Venice next year if she will just let me sleep, but no, she is a little concerned about the Art Director situation.
“We have an Art Director, a good one called Am,” I remind her hoping to put an end to the matter.
“Erm...no, she called me this morning, apparently she has been offered a job...”
I cut Seanne off “I know about that, not to worry, it is the gangster thing, she is doing ours instead.”
“Gangster thing? What gangster thing?”
Bugger. She lasted about five days, surely a new record. I am feeling terrible and Seanne is sounding desperate, I can hear it in her voice when she says...“Will you be my Art Director? I'm really desperate!”
I like Seanne and we need an Art Director so I agree, though a little perturbed by the “really desperate” bit.
I hang up, get up and mark up myself on the Art Director's list, the promptly go back to bed.
Ten minutes later I get a call from Am, apparently she hasn't quit, it has just become a force of habit on our part to assume so and she is ready to start work properly. I officially quit as Art Director making mine the shortest tenure so far.
Paul comes round later and we have a very important discussion about what type of contract to give the dog. In the script the Soldier has a dog with him and we need to decide how to categorise the four legged actor. Character, supporting role or extra? It is mentioned by name and interacts with the principle actor, that should warrant at least a walk on or in this case a walkies on.
We decide on featured extra and I start to translate a contract into French for a dog. Thankfully they have no union and is not likely to bicker over the finer points of the small print such as what dog food to supply or which arses it is allowed to sniff.
The office is again flooded with people as Williams holds his great Elephants Runners run-off. Paul has been bugging him for weeks to sort out his on-set production team for the shoot and so he decides to meet all the potential runners at the same time. Not what you really want after three hours of sleep. No, wait, make that three hours and ten minutes. I have no idea how Williams is planning to chose his runners, personally I would challenge them all to go to the shops and bring back a packet of biscuits, the one who brings chocolate hobnobs would be the clear winner.
Lewis comes round again to sort out the wireless network. I offer him the magic cup of tea whilst he looks at the computer and, seemingly without touching anything, it starts to work again. Obviously my approach of shouting at it and getting very annoyed doesn't work, temperamental thing that it is.
A friend of Stephanie's arrives from Paris and reads for the role of the Soldier outside the front door on the little patch of grass by the car park. It is fairly warm and sunny so any excuse to actually get outside for once.
The postman arrives but no sign of the gun I re-ordered. “Waiting for something?” The postman asks. It is the first time he has ever spoken to me. I think about being honest “Yeah a gun!” but think better of it.
I spend the evening wrangling with my conscience about whether to ask my six year old niece and three year old nephew if I can raid their birthday money fund for a £500 each to invest in their uncle's film. It is a morally bad thing to do but on the plus side they can't touch the money until they are adults so I'll have plenty of time to pay it back. As long as they are re-reimbursed by the time they reach eighteen I am safe, round about the age they can legally watch the film! (It is likely to be an 18 certificate with the full frontal nudity involved – mainly from me.) Then again do I really want my niece and nephew to see me fully naked on screen after having paid for the privilege ? These kinds of quandaries were never mentioned in the film making handbooks I read.
Crew members. 4 gained. 1 lost (me).
Day 18 Tuesday 4th September 2007
I start the day posting out dozens of Investment Packs to potential life savers. Paul and I have collated a list of people we think we can tap and settle in for a morning of stamp licking and cover note writing.
“What shall I write for this one?”
“You are fucking loaded and will you give us some money?”
I look at Paul with an 'are you serious' expression.
“It's alright he's a friend of mine”.
I print the cover note and hope I put it in the right envelope.
“Who's the cleaner?” pipes up Paul.
“I don't have one,” I reply. “I do what I can and Stéphanie helps out...”
“No, the cleaner in the script!”
I sit and think trying to recall at what point I had written a cleaner into the script. Thankfully Williams chips in saying he knows someone who can play the part and I no longer suffer the embarrassment of memory failure.
The gun has still not arrived and Paul is getting twitchy and wants to shoot things. Jaki our Art Department Runner calls and doesn't quit, so that is good.
Paul heads out through the striking Tube network to the Blue Posts to meet a potential Sound Recordist (a notoriously difficult position to fill on a shoot). The person he is due to meet turns up an hour late to say he has another job and can't work on our film.
Back in the office Sarah gets a box of free condoms courtesy of a woman called Faith who also offers us a bunch of sex toys should we need them. It is 3pm and Sarah, I notice, hasn't eaten or drunk anything, in fact she never eats or drinks anything. I try offering her tea coffee, green tea, nothing. I ask her what she does want and she replies...
“I want to produce horror movies.”
No food, no drink, horror movies, now it all makes sense. I ask if she is a vampire and try to find a mirror. I threaten to throw garlic at her but her look makes me think otherwise and I decide not to pursue it.
Paul trudges back from his wasted trip to the Blue Posts and I break the news that we can't get the Alexandra Palace location for less that £1000. The idea of using Kensington Roof Gardens instead is raised and Williams asks Paul if he likes it?
“If it is free I like it.”
Such is the mantra of our film.
“This is a film production office,” he adds. “We should get everything for free.”
I tell him about the condoms.
“Good,” he says. “Product placement, that's what we need, I want truck loads of things turning up every day. Food, equipment, anything, if we don't use it sell it!”
I mention the sex toys offer and we agree that there has to be a line drawn somewhere. He stares out of the window longingly searching for a delivery truck.
“How much paper do we have?” he asks.
“Just over a ream,” says Sarah quite prepared to count each sheet separately.
“Right, give me the phone,” he says and within minutes puts in a stationary order to rival the needs of a small publishing house.
Crew members. 0 gained. 1 lost.
Part 6 ...
Part 8 ...
T
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