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At lunch time today having made RECORD time from Bristol, WonderJen and Ben our grip arrived along with Maddy the collie. We did a bit of catching up and a couple of recces - including to Zoe's flat where we turned up 35 minutes early! Man I knew my tactic of convincing myself my appointments are 30 minutes before they are actually scheduled to counteract my chronic lateness would backfire one day! Sorry Zoe.
Next up Jen (our art department) arrived - after being kept waiting in Manchester for two hours by the eBay seller of our wedding dress! She has brought loads of fab props and costumes and I'm really looking forward to the costume fittings tomorrow - (actually technically later today). Finally it was trip to Newcastle Airport where Lucas McNelly was flying into from Seattle as part of his A year Without Rent project - it's REALLY cool you should check it out - oh and donate to him via PayPal to keep him on the road! Tomorrow the rest of the crew arrive and we get to do two more recces and have costume fittings and a production meeting. We're supposed to have a read-through too, but i don't see that happening. Still waiting for tow more Amazon deliveries - hope the come tomorrow (well today) or we're a tad fucked. Special thanks must go to Dawn Dawnie - who is very generously housing my o Sound people are like hen's teeth up here and as we have a mini-boom happening in production at the moment, any sound crew worth their salt is booked up way in advance. So when my AD (WonderJen) from Bristol suggested a sound recordist local to her I say "hell yes". All was great with this arrangement - Dave our recordist had got his buddy Nick to boom operate and they were coming up from Bristol together on Friday. Then last night I got the text that any producer dreads...  Now to put this in perspective up until yesterday things had gone fairly smoothly with no major crises to report. So that was kind of a blind side to say the least. Started panicking this morning - WonderJen started panicking last night!
So finally this morning I get the news - Dave has bust his little finger. And when I say bust I mean smashed to buggery! He's in a full arm cast and therefore incapacitated. Crap! Time to start ringing around. Lots of panics and tweets and calls and texts and emails later I'm sorted - sort of. Two sound recordists are splitting the detail as neither is available for the full shoot due to prior engagements. Aaahh SUHWEET - sort-ed. Now I can relax. Not so fast sunshine... Now the boom operator is unavailable!!! This role has proved even harder to fill - but finally at 10 pm tonight I have a boom op. Well two boom ops filling one role because - you've guessed it neither is available for the entire shoot! So numbers have doubled - but never mind. Please welcome: Jerry, Xander, Paul and John - it's like the Beatles without Ringo and George. Grrr! Still loads to do and nobody is returning our calls. Mike is still waiting to hear back about wedding outfits and I'm trying to sort out a monitor. Unfortunately the guy who knows about the monitors at the company we want to buy form "is off sick today" and nobody else can answer my questions! I though the private sector was supposed to be beyond these sorts of problems! Guess not.
Oh and the cock shaped tree - nobody is sure of the best way to create that... Gotta love love budget filmmaking. Well the first day of principle photography is almost upon us. James and Pob spent a lot of the day refining dialogue to reid the script of Americanisms (James is a YankeeDoodleMofo) and to fill it with Geordie lingo.
Meanwhile, I had s quick Skype meeting with Jennifer (AD) and Jen (Production Designer) spoke to two of my location contacts and continued with cast contracts... Contracts are so tedious but are also a necessity. Monday will bring the PANIC especially as I don't envisage solving the twin problems of transport and catering before then. AAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH! In other news hopefully the cast is finally locked. Phew! What a day it's been today... such is the rollercoaster of microbudget filmmaking. It really started last night when of my actors said "Saturday, that's the only problem day" - RED FLAG ALERT...
I kept my cool and decided to wait and see what he came back with - you see Saturday is Day 1 on principle photography and the AD and I had spent considerable time front loading the schedule to ease the pressure of a fubar at the end of the week. At teatime tonight I spoke to him and he couldn't get out of his previous commitment. Anyway once the alarm bells had been set off last night, I had been planning for the worst and had a tremendous idea as to who could play the role. So I hung up from the call, briefed James on the situation and suggested my suggestion for a replacement. James agreed instantly but didn't think he'd be available. I made the call, he said he'd check his schedule and get back to me... Anyway I got a phonecall 90 minutes ago to say he was in! WOOT - a great little victory! Stay tuned to this page to check progress on the film. We start shooting on July 30th, 2011 - so it will start getting busy here soon!
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