We did it. We shot all the insane scenes we wanted to shoot. We have been incredibly lucky with our actors as they were all very motivated, patient (when things took a bit longer than expected), talented and up for it and it has been a very busy couple of days. We now take 48 hours off, to let the dust settle a bit and to catch up on a lack of sleep. Then we will start the edit.
It has been an amazing couple of days, a roller coaster with little sleep and long days, but it has been so much fun and a learning experience too. Shooting on a no-budget forced us to be very inventive and creative but we didn’t want the film to look cheap and home made and I think we succeeded quite well in that.
Would we do it like this again? Well we might do a 60 second movie again but probably not one with such a short deadline (18th of January!), as it really wears you out rather quickly to have long days like this. Watching the rushes on the screen quickly makes you forget how tired you are though, as did the “It was such a pleasure to work with you girls” from one of the very experienced senior (he’s on imdb!) actors and our male lead wants to be in my rom-com feature, so generally everybody was happy and had a great time.
Here is just one of the many things that happened:
In the middle of London (WC1) we had to shoot a short scene which implicated the following:
- shooting on the streets of London (not allowed without permission and we didn’t have one)
- parking the car (which was a part of the scene) on the pavement (definitely not allowed!)
- in front of the car on the pavement a bed with a man and a woman in it, the man being bare breasted (don’t know if that’s allowed, but at lot of people (women!) who passed found it very amusing, because he was a very handsome guy (we know how to cast)) and the woman scarcely dressed. And big up to our actors because it was a clear but freezingly cold day!
Do know that there are CCTV camera’s everywhere in London.
And it didn’t take long before a police car stopped to find out what the hell we were doing and if those two people in bed had any clothes on. In other words, were we shooting an X rated movie or what? The police man was not the only person who asked us that question, lots of men seemed to be amused to stumble upon a scarcely dressed beautiful woman in bed on the pavement in the centre of London.
So in a desperate attempt to save our set I tried to explain the whole setup to this police officer.
Guess what he said.
“Are you having a laff?”?
“I’ll have to ask you to accompany me to the station”?
“I want to watch the premiere of that!” (??)
“Are there any police officers in that script, by any chance?”
Boring question: “Do you have a permit?” More interesting question: “Might I stay around and watch?”
I am really looking forward to seeing this. Your excitement is contagious, so no wonder the actors were all happy.
Now I hope you get some sleep and rest up!
“Can I have your autograph?”
“Can you tell me where you purchased that bed?”
“Can I have your name and telephone number?”
Michelle is right: he said “Do you need any police officers in this film?”
Which again proves that London Police officers are the nicest in the world!