Monday morning rolled inevitably around and at 9am Joe and I trekked off
to the nearest DSS outpost like a couple of denim-clad mendicants, Joe's
shaven scalp and my Friar Tuck-like girth only adding to the monasticism of
our appearance.

We stood in the queue listening to the greatest hits of Roxette being
played on the pan-pipes (this was broadcast throughout the building via the
PA in an attempt to discourage homicidal behaviour from claimants,
presumably by provoking biliousness or catalepsy). Joe was treating the
whole situation with a characteristic I-really-don't-care gob of
phlegmatism, born no doubt of long experience, but this was my first time on
the dole and it wasn't all that I'd hoped for. There were no signs of the
other bohemian types and struggling artists I'd come to expect from watching
TV sitcoms, and rather too many obvious smackheads, joyriders and other
people who looked unwilling to engage in light, witty repartee.

Registration was a grim procedure, seemingly designed specifically to
puncture all my delusions regarding the situation and, worst of all, ensure
that I was actually forced to look for a job. Dispiriting or not, I agreed
to the requisite interview the following afternoon (they look at you oddly
if you say you're busy at these moments), collected a wodge of forms to
complete, and we set off back home. At least the film project was still, so
to speak, in the frame.

We arrived home late that morning and I rang Matt to see how things were
going and tell him I'd be round after the lunchtime Neighbours. But
it was Dave who answered the phone.

'We tried ringing,' Dave said with now-characteristic surliness. 'Are you
not doing this or something?'

'I told Matt, we had to go down the job shop,' I said, a bit narked by
this.

'Oh yeah,' Dave replied, clearly viewing us as contemptible
dilettantes.

'Look, I'll be round after lunch. Tell Matt I'll see him then,' I said,
and hung up.

I went round to Matt's as promised and found everyone hanging out there.
Matt's grand plan was to shoot the whole thing in the space of the next
fortnight, and as his script was only about an hour long, give or take, this
was by no means an impossible aspiration given a dedicated, professional,
and focussed crew.

Unfortunately for Matt the vast majority of the cast and crew of his film
were maniacs, morons, and wasters and this inevitably had an impact on the
shooting schedule. After a promising start (some stuff even got taped before
noon on the first few days) we settled into a rough routine:

11am - 1pm: Cast and crew wake up and wander round to Matt's house (not
necessarily in that order). Much small talk, snacking, and discussion of
gear (electronic and otherwise).

1 - 4pm: With the team fully assembled, everyone settles down to watch
themselves on previous day's tapes, read Matt's comic and Empire
collection, get bonged out and - very occasionally - glance at the
script.

4 - 6pm: Radical idea of actually making a film is suggested. Normally
this gets a positive response and lengthy discussion follows along the lines
of 'which bit first'.

6pm: Tea time. I've already mentioned Matt and Erica's generosity in this
department, though they quite reasonably drew the line somewhere and we drew
up our own going-down-the-offy rota.

8pm: Filming gets under way! Four hours an evening was a good average,
which translated into two or three minutes of viable tape.

Some time after midnight: Everyone staggers off home or collapses on Matt
and Erica's floor, in preparation for another full, productive day in the
British film industry.

As I mentioned, it was different the first few days. for example, as I
arrived that first day I found Matt watching a tape of a scene he'd recorded
that morning. He'd turned the colour down to zero on the TV in the
lounge-come-bedroom and the image on the screen was in pristine
monochrome.

'I thought we'd do the whole thing in black and white,' Matt said as I
sat down on the pile of cushions next to his. 'Looks class, and hides the
fact it's on videotape... well, a bit.'

'Looks good,' I said. We sat and watched a scene with Erica talking to
her reflection in that very room - Matt had skilfully placed himself so
neither camera or boom showed in the reflection.

'I thought Dave wasn't acting in this film any more,' I said after
checking to make sure he wasn't around.

'He's not,' Matt said. 'Why d'you ask?'

'Well, he's reflected in the mirror in this scene, that's all.'

'What? Oh, b******s.'

Sure enough, Dave was there - actually sitting behind the camera
position, but in a less well-hidden spot. Only his head appeared, and that
just when Erica moved her elbow. For some reason he was wearing a striped
woolly bobble-hat, giving him an oddly gnome-like aspect. He did not appear
impressed by Erica's performance.

'Stupid ****,' Matt said. 'We'll have to do this bit again.' He grabbed
his checklist and a pencil and started trying to un-cross-out that
particular scene. At that point Ralph, Graeme and Chris arrived, which for
me at least was a welcome distraction. With them was a ginger-haired fellow
with a crew-cut and a goatee beard. Ralph introduced him as Sasha, another
member of Graeme's band. He knew a lot about this kind of film-making and
could lay his hands on a small playback monitor. Matt's eyes almost
literally lit up and he instantly set about securing Sasha's services.

This was good news for Matt and the film, but bad news for me. Matt
announced within a day or so that was going to credit Sasha as Assistant
Director. By then it was already apparent that the newcomer was Matt's
favoured assistant on the technical side of things, while Ralph's BA
Baracus-like ability to build camera dollies and other pieces of
cinematographic arcana out of old rubbish ensured he still got lots to do.
I, on the other hand, felt a bit redundant.

I had a brief stint as clapperboard operator but a protracted row over
how loud the thing actually was supposed to be clapped brought this to a
sorry end. My other role as a crafter of additional dialogue also turned out
to be a non-runner: our actors didn't actually read the dialogue as written,
they just got a sense of the general thrust of the scene and improvised
around it, resulting in wildly differing takes. In the end I just hung
around behind the camera, occasionally throwing in ideas and keeping them
updated on the scores from Wimbledon.

In short, Dave and I were in the same boat - some might say that was
poetic justice. Dave started showing up less and less frequently as the week
went on and dropped out entirely without a fortnight, more than ably
replaced by - well, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Someone else who jumped ship early was Leann, though not before
completing her small number of scenes as Erica and Caitlin's housemate. The
lease on her own digs had expired the week before and she'd actually moved
in with Matt and Erica so she could still participate. This quickly led to a
personality clash.

I arrived one day to find Matt glowering in the kitchen. I said hello and
asked what was up.

'Leann,' he said, looking away sourly.

'She's your girlfriend,' Erica said to me, looking very pleased with
herself for no reason I could discern. Her statement was news, though not
unwelcome.

'No she isn't, love,' Matt said. (It turned out that Leann's real
boyfriend shared the same first name and, well, it was all a big
misunderstanding - though a very weird one given that he'd moved in along
with Leann and was actually knocking about the house while we were filming.)

'What's Leann done?' I said.

Matt opened the fridge and thrust a can of Spaghetti Hoops in tomato
sauce belligerently in my direction. Printed boldly on the side was the
legend: LEANN'S.

'And...?' I said, thinking that perhaps I was missing something.

'Well, we're letting her live in our house, eat our food, be in this
film, but she clearly doesn't think that's enough to give us the right to
eat her spaghetti hoops should we so desire,' Matt complained.

'Well, maybe she brought them with her from her last house... she
probably did it without thinking,' I said.

'Yeah, well. I reckon she's an ingrate.'

So Leann was lucky to hang onto her part and probably only did so because
Matt was stuck for a replacement. Spaghetti hoops aside, as I'd already
discovered, Leann had the unshakable opinion that the more she was on screen
the better the film would be. Matt showed me the tapes of the scenes they'd
already done and she seemed to be wandering ostentatiously around in the
background rather a lot, even in scenes where she didn't actually appear in
the script. (We reshot most of this once she'd cleared off back to
Warwickshire.) It was a toss-up, though, as to whether this was better or
worse than her performance in the scenes where she actually had to deliver
lines. None of us were exactly models of restraint on the acting front, but
Leann's technique was exhausting to watch: I hadn't seen so much gurning,
eye-rolling, looming towards the audience and extravagant flailing of the
limbs since the last time the Haitian puppet theatre had been in town. But
Matt was saddled with her and at least she had a fairly small part.

As things settled down Matt turned his attention to one of our big
scenes - the party that opened the film. We needed lots of people for this,
and - preferably - the right vibe in the house. Graeme mentioned that his
band and Chris' were both appearing at a local club, the Adelphi, that
Thursday night. Matt hit upon a cunning plan of the entire troupe going
along to the gig and then enticing as many people back to the house
afterwards as we could manage. Everyone would be on a post-gig high, and
with sufficient numbers the big scene should be a cinch. And while that
didn't turn out to be strictly true, it turned out to be one of the more
memorable nights of the production...

Next Episode: Gustav Holst takes a battering he'll never recover from,
and Chris finds an unusual place to put soap powder.

Adventures in Cinema Collection

Awix

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