January 2018.
All systems go! We decide to go all in, we're making a film! Oh no, hang on...
With just days until filming starts, one of our lead actors is called back to another film, the weather is due to be torrential and everything grinds to a halt.
All aspects of filmmaking, whether it be corporate videos, commercials, documentary (especially) and film are all so fragile. You can have every aspect of the schedule in place, the crew are hired, the equipment is charged, but then Mother Nature has another plan or your cast are ill or the client has a few amends to the storyboard. You have no choice but to freeze. It's moments like this when you find out what you're really made of.
We have encountered this many times before and those you work with in the industry also know the risks involved with any plan - essentially until the record button is pushed, anything can change! However, when we were halted in our tracks on "Sylvia", we suddenly lost heart. Maybe this was not meant to be, maybe we couldn't do this after all, what were we thinking!?
One of our main actors, Benjamin Hartley, who had also quickly become a bit of mentor figure and was a valuable source of advise and encouragement was very selfishly called back on to the set of Rogue One, where he played Cadet Harb Binli (Red Seven). With no timescale of how long this might take, Richard and I were suddenly in limbo. I remember a conversation we had on our front porch, do we just go back to ticking over or do we steam ahead and get the ball rolling again just between us. It was decided there and then, that we would crack on and re-schedule before we lost all of the invested cast and crew - and just hope Ben's filming stint wouldn't last too long. You know Ron (Howard), we are trying to make a film here!
With other work commitments and juggling the cast and crew dates, we settled on 4 days in April to film. There was to be no going back this time, road closures where booked, equipment, cast and everything in between.
All systems go! Again.
With everything in place for a second time, we started on pre-production quickly! I had schedules coming out of my ears, luckily I am one of those sad human beings who finds great comfort in the boxes of a spreadsheet. Both the house and office turned in to productions set/office with scripts, schedules, images, props and costume hanging everywhere. We would have a full house and had begged and borrowed the houses of others to put up our lovely cast and crew. The girls and I moved into my parents and their tiny princess beds would be taken over by fully grown, talented, professional camera crew!
On 2nd April 2018, the night before the first day of shooting, everyone turned up at our home for an epic dinner (worlds best lasagne, cooked by Rich!). It was the first time we were to meet most of the cast and some of the crew members - needless to say, it was one big family from the get go!
