Being part of Team B:AM! (who filmed Booty Call [2009] dir. Adam Tyler), I was slightly skeptical about working with friends, as everything becomes a lot more personal. I was worried about ideas clashing and people taking offense to suggestions being thrown out. If someone isn't doing their job properly or not putting in as much work, it's much harder to make decisions about confronting those issues. When there is already an established relationship; it is difficult to remain professional sometimes. Generally speaking I prefer to keep my work and my social life separate, but I have really enjoy working with Team B:AM! despite the technical issues.
We began work in February, it took us nearly two weeks to pick a script. All the submitted scripts were really interesting. We were advised not to pick a script written by anybody in the group as it would be difficult to look at it a fresh.
I personally really liked Josh Gimblett's script "The Legend of Gary Parsons", my views on it were that it's very ambitious and has great originality. Also, each time I've read it through it's made me laugh out loud. So I think that's very positive. The storyline is similar to Zelda or even Mario is the sense that the protagonists girlfriend is abducted by an evil gaming character and he has to go into the television to save her. But because I was working with Josh this script wasn't an option.
I also enjoyed Elspeth Wilds script "Two Sides of Every Wall", a romcom about a couple who meet but circumstances pull them apart, however they soon find out they live next door to each other. This one would have been very easy to film I reckon, and we could have done something very stylish with some of the scenes.
Luke Philips script "Treatment" would have been very interesting to make, but a lot more ambitious. Treatment tells the story of a man suffering from schizophrenia and how it affects his daily life. The end of the story shows that his girlfriend is just as important in his treatment as the medication he should be taking. This script worked on many levels, but while we tried re-writing it we felt as though we spent too much time changing it, that it was almost unrecognisable. This was a shame really because I felt as though we shouldn't have been trying to change it too much. I think this happened because nobody really felt comfortable on the script choice.
As everyone had different ideas, eventually we managed to agree and decided on The Industry written by Liz Scott. Rewriting the script took almost another two weeks. The re-write was a group decision but personally I didn't feel as though much re-writing was needed. However the script was changed quite dramatically. Characters were executed and new scenes written, but I feel as though the changes that Adam, Josh and Annabel made, added depth and humour to the story. Our script was then re-named Dans L'Esprit: The Vision. (translated as In The Sprit)
I personally really liked Josh Gimblett's script "The Legend of Gary Parsons", my views on it were that it's very ambitious and has great originality. Also, each time I've read it through it's made me laugh out loud. So I think that's very positive. The storyline is similar to Zelda or even Mario is the sense that the protagonists girlfriend is abducted by an evil gaming character and he has to go into the television to save her. But because I was working with Josh this script wasn't an option.
I also enjoyed Elspeth Wilds script "Two Sides of Every Wall", a romcom about a couple who meet but circumstances pull them apart, however they soon find out they live next door to each other. This one would have been very easy to film I reckon, and we could have done something very stylish with some of the scenes.
Luke Philips script "Treatment" would have been very interesting to make, but a lot more ambitious. Treatment tells the story of a man suffering from schizophrenia and how it affects his daily life. The end of the story shows that his girlfriend is just as important in his treatment as the medication he should be taking. This script worked on many levels, but while we tried re-writing it we felt as though we spent too much time changing it, that it was almost unrecognisable. This was a shame really because I felt as though we shouldn't have been trying to change it too much. I think this happened because nobody really felt comfortable on the script choice.
As everyone had different ideas, eventually we managed to agree and decided on The Industry written by Liz Scott. Rewriting the script took almost another two weeks. The re-write was a group decision but personally I didn't feel as though much re-writing was needed. However the script was changed quite dramatically. Characters were executed and new scenes written, but I feel as though the changes that Adam, Josh and Annabel made, added depth and humour to the story. Our script was then re-named Dans L'Esprit: The Vision. (translated as In The Sprit)
The combination of Scott's script and our own resulted in the birth of a moc-k-umentary style film, reminiscent of the well known This is Spinal Tap bred with some of the special behind the scenes moments from I Heart Hackabees more commonly known as I Hate Huckabees due to the fact that Lily Tomlin loses it with director David O. Russell. See below...
This Is Spinal Tap (1984) [Dir. Rob Reiner]
I Heart Huckabees. (2004) [Dir. David O. Russell]
Originally Adam Tyler was meant to be directing but as he wasn't making himself available, I took over the role with Adam as 'Assistant Director' and Stage Manager. Rosie Harris did a great job as producer finding our amazing location, and Josh Gimblett & Annabel Rudd made a fantastic crew as cameraman and sound(wo)man.
But as the filming weekend drew closer things began to get more stressful with the regular disappearances of Adam. We organised various trips to the location to work out where we wanted to shoot each scene, and to arrange with the owners what hours over the weekend we could film. In the week leading up to filming we held meetings with the cast on location to run through the script, which were successful but let down by the fact our props weren't ready.
If I could have changed anything about our pre-production it would have been the pace. I would have liked for everything to have been carried out a lot faster and been more organised. I feel as though we all could have been more prepared for our filming weekend, making sure costumes were professionally organised in time, and that our set was ready plus props. But understandably this is very difficult when everybody has such a heavy work load on top of this module. Our actors were brilliant though having already learnt their lines by the time we arrived for rehearsal on location.
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