On Saturday the 13th of October a team of film-makers and would be movie makers met up in the Murco Diner at Sennybridge in the Brecon Beacons. Their objective was to shoot the action sequence from the Consumed Pre-Film.
The day didn’t start too well. I was producing and due to a closed road, some bad navigation and problems getting out in the morning I was the last to arrive. Not a great start, fortunately everyone was already meeting up (for the first time in many cases) and helping themselves to tea and coffee.
I arrived knowing that we had a problem to solve before hitting location. An early phone call had reminded me that I’d forgotten to tell the police that we were shooting. An essential job to do — especially when you consider that the shoot featured well armed paramilitary characters and that in reality the mountains around Brecon are the stomping ground of the British army. Fortunately we had the Dyfed Powys Police phone number and I made the call. The police were obliging - took the salient information from us and handed out an issue number should anyone report us in. We were good to go. We were not going to get shot.
So we had a great big convoy heading up the hills. After parking up we inspected the costumes and props we had, decided what to take and hiked. It wasn’t a particularly long walk or even a hard one but with a combination of cameras, makeup, tripods, steadicams (home made), food, and duffle bags full of guns we felt that reducing the number of trips back and fore was a good thing. In the end it turned out that more than one trip was needed.
The location at Cwmgwdi was beautiful. A hillside covered in Silver Birch trees all covered in russet and gold autumnal leaves and the ground slightly damp and spongey from earlier drizzle and mist. It was a magical place and what happened next felt fairly magical. Everyone knew what to do, set pieces were worked out , the sequence of shooting was worked out, makeup and effects were sorted out whilst the cast changed, relaxed got used to their guns and got themselves into character. I don’t think it could have been sooner. For myself and the lead cameraman it was our first time shooting action. Fortunately we had help from our friends - who knew exactly what they were doing.
Everyone chipped in as one. Sequences got shoot, and friendships were forged. Amazingly we were finished with time to spare. The finished film will be out in due course. A primary editing computer is being built for that job. In the meantime I’ll be posting photographs of the team in action to Flickr and then a video blog to Youtube.
You will have noticed that I haven’t mentioned any names here. That I feel something that should go on the film and blog. For this account I wanted to write something out of gratitude for help that accounted how feel good a successful shoot could feel.
If you’ve ever any doubt whether or not you could shoot film then remember this - whatever the finished film is like - you’ll never forget the time you had shooting it.
As an end - a big thank you to everyone out on that day - I’ll be recounted time and again in the blogs and film. In the meantime - thanks!
We have now finished filming the Consumed Pre-Film. Next comes Consumed itself!
Technorati Tags: Consumed, film, film making
