Video Diary #6: First Location Shoot

On the 23rd September 2007, we found ourselves in Bristol Boxing Gym filming a few of the scenes from the movie. Not only was it our first ever location shoot, but it was Darren's first ever time directing. Talk about in at the deep end! Fortunately we had lots of support from our friends!

Set Dressing

So, we have all the equipment, we've knocked up some props and we've done our casting. Now we just need to find somewhere to record our movie. A lot of the action takes place within the confines of an office. Nice as it would be to film on location in a real office, the costs involved are phenomenal. So we have to make our own!

I'd like to introduce you to... Jon's bedroom. It has all the standard features of a bedroom - a bed, a chest of drawers, curtains, even a treadmill.

Jon very generously allowed us to decimate this room and turn it into our set. He will be spending the coming weeks sleeping rough in his spare room!

The first job is to strip the room of all of it's traditional bedroom acoutrements. Now the purple walls (a girl assures me that it's lilac - I don't know how to tell - it just looks purple to me) aren't really appropriate to an office setting, so that has to go!

We actually managed to con one of our cast members, Susan, into helping out - in fact she probably worked harder than anyone getting the nasty cheap B&Q paint on the walls. It took 3 coats and a whole day!

Eventually, the paint was on and our next job was to furnish the room.
Details such as replacing the light fitting with a flourescent strip light will help maintain the illusion that we're not just filming in someone's bedroom!

A few budget desks and cupboards and a salvaged filing cabinet later, we had a room that was really starting to look like an office.

Finally, it was time to dress the set like a proper office - a pinboard covered in notices - monitors and keyboards on desks, stationery, files, reference books and other bits and bobs finished it off nicely. I think you'll agree that the finished product looks pretty good! Note details such as the health and safety poster behind the lamp and the canteen menu on the pinboard. We're all quite proud of ourselves!

It's all in the preparation

Years ago I remember some manager type banging on to me about the "7 Ps" which stood for "Perfect preparation prevents p1ss poor performance" and despite the fact I always felt that was only 6 P's, the message stuck. So with this in mind we've been set building, prop creating and make up testing prior to some pretty full on filming activity that is due to take place over the next week or so.

Firstly, and I'm not going to tell you why just yet, we needed to convert a rather nice looking office chair into something a bit more... well... used... so with the application of coffee, violence, fire, violence, wood and violence we 'aged' this fine looking chair and made into something a bit more... um... crappie



Next up, due to the boxing scene which we covered below, there is a need to play about with some make up and so that we dont look like complete morons in front of all the hired help on the day - we thought we'd have a bit of play at making Dazza look like he'd done several rounds with Ivan Drago.



Its worth noting that this was the output of a massive 2 minutes work - we were more interested in 'proof of concept' than anything else - also I was pretty happy that I was able to reassure Dazza that the burning sensation in his eyes the next day was quite normal.

Jon

Star Avengers!

One of the characters in the movie is a sci-fi nerd. In one scene, a toy spaceship is tossed around and the pros and cons of a tv series are discussed. Our original plan was to seek permission from the owners of one or more well known sci-fi franchises to display some of their toys around Dave's workspace. Unfortunately, the permission was not forthcoming, either because the owners were unwilling to allow us to use their images, wanted a larger fee than we were prepared to pay (i.e. more than free), wanted to know waaaaay too much about the script (with the implication that if their product was portrayed in what they conisdered to be a negative light, they would decline or request changes) or simply ignored our request. I guess that's their perogative!

In order to get around the problem, we had to create our own pseudo sci-fi franchise. So we needed a toy spaceship and a few pictures to put around the place. Here's how we did it:

First up, take a ropey hands free kit that never really worked properly from the car. It already looks a bit like a spaceship, see. Then take some bits and pieces from a model kit. (You can click on these pictures for a bigger version).

Next, (supervised by a responsible adult) take some super glue and stick the bits and pieces from the model kit onto the ropey hands free kit, being careful not to stick your fingers together in the process (ahem).

The resulting abomination looks pretty awful, doesn't it? Yup. But how can you make this appalling travesty of random bits of tat look cool and spaceshippy, I hear you ask.

Well - that's where the silver spray paint comes in! Now, it looks awesomely cool, huh?

Next up, take some generic action figures that no-one's ever going to recognise (one of which looks suspiciously like a key member of the cast) and give them the deluxe silver spraypaint treatment as well.

For the final touch, photograph them all, give them a spacey background, knock up a cheesy name for the TV series, order a mug an a mousemat with the reuslting picture on and hey-presto, you have an instant fake 80s TV classic (which probably looks better then anything they knocked out in the 80's anyway).

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the STAR AVENGERS™!

Star Avengers™ are © 2007 RMW Films. Any reproduction of their distinctive likenesses is prohibited unless you have appropriate executive permission from RMW Films to do so (which can be applied for in writing along with a 32 page application, a £500 fee and a writing credit). Your first couple of e-mails will be ignored. :)

Time for an update!

Well its been a busy few weeks since August and our last post. Jon has been training with Paul Henry to get the movements right for the boxing scene and we even have a couple of photos from one of the training sessions taken on location at the gym used in the film!

In this first shot, Jon is receiving some instructional guidance from Paul.


The advice is then being put into use over in the ring!


Lots of other things have been going on - mostly involving spending money! We appear to be some 25% over budget now but hopefully most of the expenses have been met. Darren has been off on shopping sprees getting incidental props sorted out for set dressing etc and we are expecting our permits for filming in and around Bristol to come through any day now!