September 20th 2009

“Satan says to a film producer, ‘If you give me your eternal soul I’ll make sure you’re next film makes $200 million.’ The producer thinks about it and says ‘OK – what’s the catch?’ ”

I’m getting used to answering thousands of questions every day. Until today the first has been ‘Do you want coffee?’  No longer. The runners now know that I will have been on set since dawn. So the answer will be – YES!

We’re on the 4^th day of the proper shoot and being the guy where the ‘buck stops’ for so many questions is what I am here for. But – an embarrassing problem is emerging.  The crew keeps quoting scene numbers and I don’t automatically know what happens in 23, 69a, 42d…

I don’t know whether they expect me to know as a producer or just assume I know because I wrote it. But I don’t. I don’t like numbers that much. I’ve seen the script move around a bit of course and sometimes, to be honest, I have watched the actors rehearsing a scene and thought ‘Wow. I thought we’d cut that bit’.

Anyway. We are on the cliff above Barafundle Bay. The sun is shining beautifully as ever for the boys arrival at the bay. We aren’t allowed to close the beach, but it’s REALLY early on a Monday morning and the first coastal path walkers have been asked very politely to divert slightly or wait a short while so we can shoot the beach at its – remotest.

We have thrown caution to the wind and splashed out on a crane for the camera. It’s kind of a giant see-saw, to rise the camera smoothly above the boys and capture on film the virgin beach way beneath us.

The crane guy is here for one morning with his wife. I like him a lot. He has a neat goatee, tattoos and the look of a sporty Iron Maiden fan.  He has a small, but immaculate A-Team van (always a sign of a great crewman). I naively I ask where the crane is.

As if by magic, much in the way that Marry Poppins unloaded a floor lamp from her carpet bag, a whole crane quickly and efficiently comes from the small van and in no time at all is ready to use.

Could it be that at last, something is going smoothly? Thanks to Dan-the-crane-man and his professional attitude the faffing is quashed and we are ready to shoot the deserted beach…

Then – I am called to the camera. Matt, the 1^st AD, is rubbing his brow with exasperation again because, having masterminded the position of all his runners to block every path to the shore, we have now have just two members of the public who are refusing to move. I peer down at two small dots in the middle of the beach.

Apparently this has been going on for the whole set up of the crane and numerous members of the crew have tried to beg and plead and cajole to no avail. I am of course at the end of this line and the couple on the beach are now costing me thousands of pounds every minute.

I run down the steps that skirt cliff and across the soft sand. I sink to my knees, panting like a Labrador, beside a middle-aged couple in what look like matching jackets. The lady has some watercolour paints and a sketchpad at the ready, and the man has the facial expression of tax inspector with indigestion and haemorrhoids, who has just found out that his favourite Elaine Paige LP is scratched. Suffice to say I dislike him immediately.

Nevertheless I stick out my hand and smile cheesily and before I can speak he barks at me “Go away. You are harassing us!”

“That’s funny.” I say “You don’t look like you’re a rude person. When people smile at me and try to introduce themselves I have been brought up to be more polite.”

This is opening gambit is a gamble, but he begrudgingly shakes my hand. I tell him my name and that I’m in charge and he tells me his – let’s say it’s Harold Git for the sake of this.

He then complains for five minutes about the abuse he has received from my crew. The Git-hold up has now meant that about a hundred people are now happily watching us from various points. They are all delighted by the manners and sweet natures of my young Runners. That these Runners have all turned this off ONLY when dealing with Mr. And Mrs. Git is really unlikely (yet, I’m already seeing, understandable.) Mr. Git then explains that they have driven for an hour for Mrs. Git to paint her view and that’s exactly what they are going to do.

I ask if there is anyway way she could paint the view from elsewhere on the beach where they are not in shot.

NO. In fact he gives me a look that suggests I have just asked for something akin to asking Michael Angelo if he could use Artex on the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel instead.

I explain to Mr. Git that I need them to move for a short while, because we don’t have the budget to paint them out digitally, and so their stubborness will jeopardise a whole day’s filming.

NO.

I explain to Mr. Git that we are a small independent film and that losing this shot today will mean we can’t afford to reshoot; we won’t get the crane back; and will never catch up with the schedule.

NO.

I explain to Mr Git that we will donate some money to a charity of his choice if they would move twenty meters up the beach to sit beside a dune, which will hide them for five minutes!

NO.

For a moment I sit staring at Mr. Twat (Or was it Git?, I’m now changing to TWAT). He tells me to go away and stares at the sea. His tawdry wife’s MASTERPIECE is in its early stages, but I can already see that moving them will not be a great loss to the art world.

I can think of two options only.

One: I go up to the costume truck, put on Miles’ costume, tell Matt to roll camera, come back, drag Mr. Twat down to the sea and drown the bastard, possibly saving me time now and even money later on with divers and water tanks etc. This is preferable, but I imagine there is some film industry small print that precludes it.

Two:  I had thought of something that was sure to make him move. Something that only a producer would understand I was capable of doing. (Something that only a producer could be proud of.) I was about to earn my wings…

Look. I’m so sorry, but as anti-climactic as it is, I just can’t write here what it was that I actually said. But, as the sun beat down, with all the crew and members of the public now watching this little scene from so far away… I told the Twats something that made them agree to move for five minutes.

I ran back up the beach, up the endless stone steps off the cliff. The crane drifted the camera up above the boy’s heads to show the wonder and splendour and majesty of their final destination. It really is beautiful.

And I’m going to hell.