Live Poets Society

It's actually easy to believe it's been over three weeks since I posted - partly because it feels like about three months.

It's not that nothing's been happening. Rather the opposite.

Talia says goodbye to filming

My leading lady has moved back to London after completing her final scenes in the nick of time, including the scene that we tried to shoot on the very first day of filming and have been trying to schedule ever since, the climactic encounter with the busker, played by Jo Maultby.

Racing against the dying of the light

Another crucial scene is (mostly) in the can, but not without several crises on the way; the date for the Literary Ladies had been set six weeks in advance, and principal cast members all managed to keep it clear, and I found four guest players to fill the small but vital roles of the ladies...and then one of them had to pull out due to illness four days before we were due to shoot. So, scrambled around, found a replacement...and then two days before the shoot discovered that an absolutely vital member of the cast was severely allergic to cats (of which there were two in the location we were using). By sheer luck the flat of one of guest performers was suitable and available, so after a couple of days of panic, it all seemed set.

And then on the day itself, less than two hours before lift-off, another vital member of the cast texted me to say she had aggravated her back injury (already responsible for one cancelled shoot) and quite literally couldn't move. In vain I pleaded that all she had to do was sit and speak in the scene - she was not risking further injury, which was fair enough. But what were we to do?

There was no way I would get that cast together again, so I did the only thing I could - I shot around the absence.

Literary Ladies and one interloping male; clockwise from left - Thomas, Christabel, Tessa, Sascha, Sharon, Philippa

It meant no really wide shots, which was a pain; the hole left by Caron/Sabrina was variously filled by Thomas Everchild, the ever-reliable Sophie, and even the director for the readthrough.

The talented Chris Andrew was on hand again, mostly to operate the boom, but he found time to play the role of 'Ninjacam' and take a few photos that nobody noticed him getting:

A shame there wasn't time for him to take individual portraits of the ladies - as it is, I turn up in far too many of the shots.

There is more - much more - to tell about the last three weeks, but that seems quite enough for now...

One thing I will add; the weather was like nothing I've ever seen. Relying as usual on natural light (if we had even tried a lighting set up we would have run out of time before we had even half the shots done), I watched the sun go in and come out about once every two minutes. I have several clips which have thumbnails looking completely different at the beginning and end of the clip on the timeline.

I may dedicate this film to the British Summer of 2012...as a sort of propitiation.

It may help for next time.

Oh, and that's another thing - a very scary thing. Despite it all, despite the never-ending hassles and the ongoing stress and the very clear memory of what this has cost me along the way in shredded nerves, I am already thinking about 'next time'...

Inherit the Wind

When asked what he looked for in a script, Spencer Tracy, star of the film referenced in the title, simply said: 'Days off.' I understand how he felt.

It has been a busy and tiring week. We still have no one for the part of Faith, but another readthrough, although slightly shambolic because everyone was coming at different times, did manage to secure us an Isabella. We filmed another couple of the interviewees, with an excellent performance from Kim Head, who prepared by herself and needed scarcely a note from me at all. There were hiccoughs, of course, the main one being the discovery by one actress that she needed to be somewhere an hour earlier than she'd thought, and a chance meeting resulting in another actress being late, which eventually meant that something for which I'd originally allowed a leisurely three hours had to be shot in 45 minutes. Quelle surprise. Such is filmmaking.

Talia gives Kim her cues and eyeline

And in between all this I had been trying to find a Faith, trying to schedule future shoots, thinking about tidying up the two films I want to submit to Glimmer 2012, worrying about whether to fully charge part-used batteries and risk shortening their life (I decided no), trying to keep track of what information I had sent to which cast members (and typing this has reminded me of something I'd forgotten), and trying avoid the thousand unnatural crocks that filmmaking is heir to.

But Friday (yesterday) was supposed to be the big one. We had scheduled the whole day to capture a number of transitional scenes (protagonist Hazel travelling back and forth from her interviewing and in the process revealing more of her character) and then the evening for the climactic scene of the film, a real watershed moment for Hazel involving the busker she passes at various points during the story.

The daytime scenes should have been simple. No dialogue, two or three shots each at the most, all day to do it. The weather forecast was actually promising inasmuch as it promised changeable conditions, useful when you're shooting scenes that are supposed to take place on different days.

What I hadn't noticed about the forecast was the prediction of wind.

None of us could remember such a windy day in central Brighton. In one or two cases it enhanced the effect of a scene, but in others...due to previously touched-on financial woes, a decent tripod was beyond my budget, so at some stages I was reduced to holding it as firmly as I could to prevent it shuddering in the wind. And the first outside sequence we filmed was a textbook example of how many things can hold up a simple shot.

People come by. That's fine, we were shooting at a University, that's expected. The placement of dropped books is not quite right; either too far forward, too far back. That's corrected. Heroine's feet not visible when she walks off. Sorted. Battery in one (sound recording) camera, being run down, runs out. Replaced. Heroine's tripod (carried because she is filming interviews) not visible when she drops books. Sorted. Dropped books skid into bottom of filming tripod, causing judder. Heroine's tripod visible but feet not. Feet visible but tripod not. Everything perfect, except books skid into filming tripod again. Battery in other camera, also being run down, dies. Replaced. Sound assistant unfortunately unfamiliar with eccentricities of sound recording camera. Further delays. Sunlight appears, disappears, reappears. And so on...

Talia and production assistant Sophie take a break

Why do we do it?

Because, I suppose, despite it all, it was still fun. You're making an entire alternative world come to life when you shoot a film, in a way that's not possible in any other medium, and what could be more exciting than that? It's the most comprehensive form of creation I know (and not being a musician or having written for theatre, the only collaborative one I've experienced).

I hate sound men (and they are, nearly always, men). You just want to get on with it and shoot something - but no, they insist on that ridiculous, overrated, elusive thing called 'quality'. After the fourth or fifth aborted take you want to say 'Who cares if no one can hear? At this rate there won't anything for them to see, either!' But of course, they're always right, and we were hoping to shoot a scene with some absolutely crucial dialogue. And as you can imagine, if the wind was not our friend for most of the day, it was our deadly foe for the final part of the shoot. We had a tiny earlier scene featuring the busker, Jo Maultby, which we needed to get out of the way first - and even that proved impossible. The wind gusted and crept around all means of protection we devised, and eventually we had to simply postpone for another day.



Talia and sound assistant Leon await Jo's return

Truthfully, it was hard to feel it as too much of a defeat, as the dialogue scene was so important and we clearly had less than ideal conditions. But there was another small thing that happened that made me wonder about what I was doing.

My greatest fear had been that, it being a Friday night, we would be subjected to harrassment by passing young men (face it - wherever you are and whatever you're doing, packs of young men are THE ENEMY), but in fact the only person who approached us was a woman whom I can only describe as not quite in possession of a full deck. She stood a little way away and watched us, and made a remark, but because of the wind it was difficult to communicate without leaving the camera, and the pressure of time was mounting. She moved around and stood to one side, but kept speaking intermittently, and I had no confidence she would respond to a request to be quiet, so although I barely looked at her, trying to concentrate on working out where I wanted the focus of the scene and where Talia should stop, etc, I was no doubt emanating 'fuck off' vibes in waves. After a bit she moved away, saying she only wanted to watch but she didn't feel welcome. I tried to tell her then that she could stay if she was able to keep quiet, but of course it was too late.

It's said one of the true tests of character is how you treat people who can be of no possible use to you. I feel that in a small way I failed that test yesterday - and I wonder if that isn't one of the hidden costs of filmmaking...that we become so focussed on what we have to get done that we forget that none of it is real. That woman was real, and if the film caused me to treat her with less than total respect, then I had better make damn sure the finished result is worth it.

If anything can be worth that.

Words and Music

Louise, Talia and Miranda

So, we had our readthrough. Do I really need to tell anyone that it didn't go according to plan - that I had two cancellations, one of them only ten minutes before the time we were due to start? And that the same actress (through no fault of her own) had to cancel again the very next day when I tried to organise a follow up? That, in addition, the local hardware shop was unable despite numerous attempts to offer me any solution to my sound equipment problems? That the alternative equipment I borrowed to see whether I might purchase it played up in the same inexplicable fashion?

Didn't think so.

But I come to bury seizures, not to raise them. On the whole, overall, taking everything into consideration, comparatively speaking, looking at the whole picture, things have gone quite well the last three days.

Talia paces out the 'action' - the word should not be taken to mean anything particularly physical is going to occur...

With in fact only three of my principal cast, and one willing stand-in, I had no initial hope that we could work through the whole script, but with a little encouragement from the performers, that's what we did.

Every screenwriter/director probably knows how this feels, the first time around; you're lucky if you hear 35% of the lines in the way you think they should be said. Of course you know it's only the first time, you know it's just to hear the whole thing through, but with one of the performers reading the script completely cold and using this occasion to decide whether she wants to take part, you slowly crumple inside...

However, performers are obviously used to seeing beyond the fumbles of a first reading, since Miranda was happy to sign up once we'd finished. I was also reassured to see that the others were obviously aware of their missteps along the way (which is NOT to imply that my reading of the lines is the only viable one!). Having felt that the script clunked and clanked instead of skipping nimbly along, it was more than a relief to hear Miranda declare that it seemed good, and natural, and not forced.

Due to the unavailability of Amy - playing one of the three principals - for the first half of June, it turned out the easiest thing to shoot first was almost the very end of the film. The climactic scene, in fact; the turning point. So for two consecutive (but not whole) days, I've worked with Talia on the dialogue. Delivery here will be absolutely crucial, especially as her co-star in the scene, the busker played by the extraordinarily talented Jo Maultby doesn't speak a word in reply.

Jo Maultby provides musical counterpoint to Talia's speech

There seemed endless little niggles about the inflection of certain lines, but Talia was patient with my inability to explain precisely what I meant, and we made a lot of progress. For a brief period it seemed the curse of clashing schedules was rearing its head again as we found it impossible to settle on a day for the actual shoot, but eventually we found a day worth trying. Both Jo and Talia are very flexible, so if we fail, all is not lost.

The joy to be derived from having more footage in the can, however, would be a most welcome sensation...

As would a complete cast. I still await a reply from one actress regarding a crucial role, and there have been ominous silences from two others I've recently contacted.

And I still have to line up about twenty female interviewees.

Oh, did I mention that everyone in the film is a woman?