Right before we get into it, let me start upfront by saying I appreciate that everyone needs to make a living.  I'm not some silver spooned rich kid living in Kensington dahling - I have a mortgage and kids that need feeding just like everyone else.  Sometimes though people take the piss - this happens on both sides of the relationship. 

Unscrupulous filmmakers lining their pockets while expecting everyone to work for nothing (and yes I know people worked for nothing on this - but we didn't take any money either, paid where we could and have designed an equity share for all cast and crew); then there's the other side - which in this case involves - you've guessed it, music.  

While editing David, James and I have suggested various bits of music as temp score - this is temporary music that we use to pace the edit and to convey mood while we wait for picture lock and then do the music for real.  Now as people who've made dozens of films between us, we are not so naive to think that we are actually going to be able to afford the Bob Dylan song we are using at the minute or the Stone Roses - but there was one song that I really hoped we'd manage to swing. It's by a fairly obscure contemporary artist on a small independent label and though I knew we'd be asked to pay for it - I really hoped it would be within our means.  So yesterday, I contacted the label - explained the film, mentioned the budget figure and basically tried to appeal to their better nature - which clearly didn't work... they came back with a price THREE TIMES TOTAL BUDGET OF THE FILM!  Now whatever budget you are on from £500 to £500,000,000 - at what point does paying three times the entire cost of the film for one song make financial sense???

I may be stupid but really??? 3 times the budget, on one song? Errr no thanks. Either they really don't want us to use the song (maybe they HATE this film) or they are just a bunch of charlatans... it's mad, it really is.  But as ever there's a silver lining - the no last night sparked a great idea in my head and James agreed that it's a much better direction to take the soundtrack- and so we live to fight another day.

Yesterday we shot the credits sequence for the film, and once again by all accounts a laugh was had by everyone on the shoot.  We started out in Deep Nightclub in Whitley Bay, and really massive thanks must go to Johnny and all the people there for giving us the run of the place... Also thanks to Sarah Tennick, our second unit make up and art department queen for putting us in touch with the people at Deep.  Our crew for this shoot was teensy weensy and somehow this enabled us to crack through a ton of stuff quite quickly.  Tina Frank was back helping out the art and production departments, Aris handled sound-recording and Richy Reay DoP'd and op'ed which seemed to work well.  Clooney (Nic Pringle) rounded off the team and was his usual versatile self.  James and I made up the rest - so you can see when I say teensy weensy I'm not exaggerating in any way!

There's probably two things you can tell from the pictures - I am a totally crap photographer and the scenes yesterday were all about a hen do.  As someone who has only every been on one hen do I had to do a far amount of asking around to help with this scene - as it happens my mate Stephanie who plays Elizabeth in the film is in her own words "the Hen Do Queen" so most of this research involved trawling through her many hen do albums on Facebook - LOL!

After Deep we had one more shot to get - of the hens outside, mid pub crawl. We decided in a rather impromptu fashion to shoot this on the Newcastle Quayside. We'd just completed the first take when two security guards asked us to move on... Who knew that the section near Malmaison and La Tasca was private property? Ho hum. We got the shot and you can't tell where it is - so that's all that matters. It's only the third time in 10 years of shooting that we've been asked to bugger off - and it's always been by private security guards!  What is it with these over-zealous uniform wearers that makes them want to shunt filmmakers on? Nevermind - like I said - we got the shot!

With the wrap on that sequence it means we have only one little bit of the film left to shoot - the opening of the movie - a flashback sequence.  This is proving a bit of a mare to cast - I mean where the hell can I find two kids who look like Pob and Staggy as kids??? ===>

So if you know anyone who knows anyone who may have access to two kids who look like these two reprobates then please do drop us an e-mail info AT fnafilms DOT co DOT uk 

In the meantime - keep coming back here for updates and if you like what you see please spread the word!  We will soon be at picture lock and then comes the fun of the grade and sound mix; once these are completed we will be doing a few screenings to test the water and see if this film has any appeal beyond the North east of England.

Thanks once again to everyone who helped yesterday, especially the girls who showed up to be the hens (Jo Dutton, Sophie Blacklock and Naomi Mayfield), Therase Neve (Charlotte), Stephanie Gray (Elizabeth) and the wonderful Will Stevenson who played "the entertainment". 


Finally a special thanks to Jamie at Picture Canning North and Ashley at Pinball Films.

All of the elements of the animated sequence seem to be coming together really nicely and our animation genius, Ashleigh, has uploaded another couple of tests.  If you thought the last one (7 seconds see 24.12.11) was short then you'll be gutted to know these two clips are 2 and 3 seconds long!  But bear in mind this is stop-frame animation - one frame (individual picture) at a time and there are 25 frames in every second!  Anyway James and I are really happy - check the clips out below. Ashleigh says this, 

"The first test piece is a quick close up scene of where the judge first comes across the rabbit- they stare and blink at each other before the judge breaks into his chase of the rabbit. The test just shows a still image in the background of the ink but the final version will have the ink drop footage flowing behind it throughout."

You can subscribe to Ashleigh's Youtube Channel here - and check out her blog here - another true talent in the making who is giving her precious time to help James and I make this film. Thanks!!!