Last week, shortly after securing actor David Schaal to play Bonzo, we locked the shoot dates. This is both very exciting and a little scary, as it means the fictional film I have played out in my head is now going to become something very real. It also means that all the team now has a goal to aim at so can schedule their time and deadlines so we know what we can achieve.
For this particular film, we also have some quite tricky locations. A school, a supermarket and a pub to name three and have searched far and wide throughout London to get them. The good news is that thanks to the efforts of all the team, we had sourced a number of options which I went to recce this weekend. The bad news is that they were in every different area of London, so I spent one of the hottest October days on record sat on tubes, trains and buses navigating my way to the four corners of the city! location to film in and unfortunately is also one of the most key as other departments cannot move forward until they know where we will be shooting. Production Design can’t add props, camera and lighting can’t make a kit list, you can’t block or storyboard accurately, the 1st AD can’t schedule...the list is endless...
The first stop was an option on Bonzo’s house in Hounslow (West London), which took me about 45 minutes. The location was found by our unit manager Markus through the Film London website. The location is quite small but had a charm about it and I also liked the colours, texture and angles we could shoot from. Luckily the locations owner is a stills photographer, so has an awareness of what a film crew being in your house will entail and has given us pretty much the run of the house J
After finishing my nice cup of tea, I headed to Barnehurst (South-East London) which was about an hour and a half away once I had gone through Waterloo and London Bridge to look at Mrs. Jenkins house. As we have scheduled the school (which is run by my mother in law)scene on the first day of filming and we also need children for the Mrs. Jenkins scene we have tried to schedule them together, hence why we needed a house in this area. The location owner is on the school PTA board and both her and her husband have been very supportive in helping us out to make the film. As people who haven’t had a film crew in their house before, I explained everything in detail so they would be clear in what will be going on and how long for.
Then it was off to Russell Square to check out a possible supermarket option, before heading to Crouch End (North London) to look at another, which was another two hours of public transport. The supermarket has been the trickiest of our locations so far and we have tried every big name brand in order to get somewhere, but most either wanted obscene amounts of cash or were worried we would affect the sales in their store and in a film of this nature, it always helps if the location is on board with what you are doing. We ended up asking Londis and Budgens stores, who whilst branded, are self-owned so it is down to the individual if they wish us to film. Budgens in particular have been very helpful across the board and the managers in their Crouch End and Belsize Park stores particularly keen to help. From this we have secured a store to film in, which means I just have to find somewhere close to film the ‘stunt’ part of the scene outside the store.
After I had finished in Crouch End it was approaching 6pm and having spent 5 or so hours on and off public transport, felt I had earnt a nice cold pint of cider so headed to meet my wife in London Bridge. And whilst I did have to wait in a queue 20 minutes to get it, it was good to toast a successful day and that we have 11 days now to secure everything we need for the shoot J
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