Emma and Felicity killing time between takes
(Note, not a spoiler, they were quite clean before self applying blood)
Two weeks before shooting, one of the supporting cast told me he wouldn't be able to do the Thursday shoot. We weren't sure if we'd be shooting on Thursday, instead thinking of knocking out two takes in one day, and I had lined up a replacement actor, who then pulled out on Tuesday anyway. On Wednesday night, one of the other cast members called in her friend, who arrived at 830 Wednesday night. We threw him into costume, checked his bike height, showed him the days take and pretty much went with it from there. Early Thursday morning, I took him out to block out the scene.
Unrelated to the last minute casting, I have never been more nervous than when I rolled cameras that day. Maybe because the day before's take was good, but I knew it could be better, and it was our last shot.
Finally, I called action, and the next 80 minutes went very well. There were a few unexpected surprises along the way, which I can't really go into here, but all in all, seemed like a solid take.
I sure hoped so, anyway, as my body wouldn't have taken another take any time soon. Not for the endurance of an 80 minute take, but the actual injuries sustained from the 3 takes that week. It wasn't until Irene showed up to point out which blood on my leg was fake and which was real, did I realize I was possibly a little more damaged than I thought.
After fetching our bikes and recording a little ADR, we made it home an hour after wrapping. I was impressed that with 8 bike riders over 4 days, there hadn't been a single stack. That was of course, until as I rode up to the front of the house, two cast members got out of a car carrying loads of champagne, that I decided to bunny hop the bike with excitement which, funnily enough, ended in the one and only stack of the whole week, two meters from the point where a bike wouldn't be ridden thereafter. Thankfully, no bacon for me (bacon being the bike term for abrasions caused by stacking it on a bike).
Fake blood, real blood, a bit of bacon, and a leech
We cracked the champers, washed the blood away, and headed down for the screening. It was quite different than the day before, the reactions of everyone. Interesting to see how it all plays out on camera. Again, it was straight from the camera, so the audio wasn't the best, and having watched and listened to it properly since, it makes a world of difference.
After the screening, there was a lot of talk that they preferred the previous days take, but I have a few ideas on why that might be. One, when we watched the previous take, it was all fresh and new to most of them. It was a 90% finished film, which they were watching for the first time. Some of the slower moments in the film were all too familiar to them all. And on Wednesday, they had been watching a whole film, while I had already seen it (when filming) so was breaking it down into different moments.
There were things the camera was doing on Wednesday that I wasn't happy with, mostly the fogging, there were performance moments that seemed forced or out of place, but mostly the ending wasn't spot on.
When Irene, myself and a filmmaker friend had another viewing later that night when everyone had left, I knew Thursday's take was the take. When the shit hits the fan in the film, I was swept up in it, my heart pounding along with what was along screen. I've seen that moment in my head for months, watched it on screen and in person at least a dozen times, yet I still got swept away in the moment while watching it.
It was just like I had said to the cast on Wednesday morning. 'I know this movie is going to succeed because while shooting, I even get sucked into the moment, lost in the panic and fear, and struggle to remind myself that I'm acting and shooting a film. And if I can forget that I'm not only making a movie but watching one, I'm pretty sure there's a few million other people out there that are also going to get swept away, scared and panicked.'
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