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DARK HUNTER
- How To Shoot A Feature Film For £7.50
It's every producer's nightmare. Your first feature and it's 70 times over-budget. But as that's only a total spend of £500, Johnnie Oddball isn't that worried ...
It's March 2004, a couple of weeks after the Oscars, and Johnnie Oddball's feature Dark Hunter
is about to premiere at Soho's Curzon Cinema. Triumph, fame, disaster, producer Oddball's following Rudyard Kipling's sanguine advice and preparing to greet any of these great imposters casually. Directors Mark Jackson and Duncan Cowan relax. It's over. And two streets away from the Soho drinking-club where it all began.
Before the beginning
November 02. Johnnie Oddball's planning the first-ever zero-budget feature. It'll be on digital video (DV) costing £5 per hour for tape, wide-screen, cinema quality, using borrowed equipment. That's £7.50 for 90 minutes - so starting from zero, it's already over-budget. Actors will be runners, sound & boom operators; directors will be making tea.
Why? Oddball: 'To prove you can make a 90-minute feature with no funds.' How? 'The Ed Wood technique. Get the camera. Get out there. Shoot it. And run.' Exactly how? 'I wrote the script in a day, read it, distributed it (to the actors and crew), rewrote it over 2 days with shooting directions.' The script was later rewritten by Johnnie Oddball and co-directors Mark Jackson & Duncan Cowan - but that's jumping ahead.
Oddball: 'It's horror, because it's fun to do, and loads of people are interested. (In a way) the cast is more important than the crew. They can make the film with you (doing the technical tasks), which makes the actors the film-makers.' Team-bonding's at the essence: 'Actors making friends, going to pubs and films together, relate easier - which makes improvisation easier. It's a group effort, it's relaxed. Ego goes out of the window.'
He lists the ideal crew at 3 camera operators - 'One shooting, sorting out batteries and recharging them on location without mains power. One telling actors how to hold the camera and film. One bringing the camera' - including himself; first assistant director - 'Organising the set and telling people what to do'; second assistant director - 'visual - helping set up the shot'; sound operator - 'No boom mike - we'll use in-camera microphones'; and runners. And the producer - 'Gets the call sheets, gets everyone on set when and where they're to be, gets continuity sorted out - it's the military operations part'. Catering? 'We'll shoot near a pub'.
First production meeting
23 November 02 - Saturday night. We're in the basement of Soho's Arts Theatre Club in Frith Street for the first production meeting. Clockwise round the table there's Tracy Fleming, Chez Sorbello, Jez Foster, Amber Worrall, Johnnie Oddball, Dominic Cazenove, Claudia Fernandez, Melly Cook, Rachel Rose Reid, Mark Jackson, Duncan Cowan.
Johnnie Oddball sets out the story and shooting schedule. Most of the people here haven't met before. They introduce themselves round the table - it's like an AA meeting. The atmosphere is friendly, nervous, expectant, and enthusiastic.
Mark Jackson, Duncan Cowan and Rachel Rose Reid, know each other - they made Dance All Night. It was one of the winning films in the 2002 London 48-Hour Film Challenge - organised by Johnnie Oddball. No doubt primed from this experience, Rachel Rose Reid asks pertinent questions, eg what - as an actress in this zero-budget film - she'll end up paying for.
Shooting's going to start immediately - on 7 December 02. There'll be further meetings for actors and production crew in the coming week.
Call sheets and storyboard
4 December 02. Johnnie Oddball's in Gerry's Bar, Dean Street. It's a venerable Soho institution - an actors' drinking club in a darkened basement - and he's receiving visitors. Call sheets are given out. Duncan Cowan's done a 20-page storyboard with 4 frames per sheet and treatment. The meeting moves to the Curzon Cinema, Soho. Claudia Fernandez delivers a CD of first ideas on music, and Johnnie Oddball runs through the storyboard with her. He's using a ledger of 20-point sheets titled 'Things To Do Today', complete with prioritising squares. He's writing out lines of phone numbers from memory.
How does Oddball feel at this point, just before shooting? 'It's on the border. Everything could go wrong.'
Shoreham (not On Sea) - First day of shooting
7 December 02, Saturday. Shoreham. 'I'm standing on a beach. Am I in the wrong place?' The disadvantage of shooting somewhere that has the same name as somewhere else 50 miles away, each reached from Waterloo East becomes apparent. Finally those who went to Shoreham-On-Sea are re-united with the rest on location at the Shoreham that's near Pratts Bottom in Sussex, and shooting starts.
Nicolette Kay's done a show at the Edinburgh Fringe 02, she's a long-standing EdFringe participant. She's now preparing a one-woman show. It's midday, and there's a full grey sky with white horizon. It's cool and drizzling, perfect English country weather, with a fresh smell of wet grass, and frosty mush underfoot. The actresses troop across the grass being filmed. Emma Gray takes continuity notes. Rain stops play, and everyone packs the snug in the village pub - Ye Olde George Inne, established 1500 - where a local farmer's celebrating getting a license to shoot geese.
12.45, a damp lane. Shooting resumes. A Sevenoaks Council dumper lorry runs through the shot. The 14 crew and cast are wet, but enthusiastic. Down the valley - glorious views. Make-up artists Tracy Fleming and Chez Sorbello are alert and seemingly happy, brushes poised. Chez Sorbello is Australian, petite, she's been a beauty therapist and nail technician for 7 years. It's her first film and she'd like to be 'key make-up artist in all the blockbuster films.' She's living in the UK 'for at least next year.'
Johnnie Oddball's shooting in the road and a nearby tunnel. Mark Jackson confides, 'I'm so used to running my own show, I'm keeping quiet'. Everyone's doing two jobs, crewing and acting. Amber Worrall frames herself prettily under a golf umbrella, with boom microphone and a little tap-dancing.
There's a paint-balling centre up the field lane where shooting is taking place. A man arrives to say that parking the large number of cars involved in the shoot is OK, if it's brief. Emma Gray looks pensively at her clipboard. Mark Jackson is stamping, but says it's just the cold.
Jez Foster has done fringe theatre for 5 years - Camden, Kentish Town, Downstairs At The Roundhouse, the Etc Theatre - he graduated from The Poor School. It's his 9th film as an actor. He's done 2 UK tours of Shakespeare. He's written a feature script, and sitcom. His next project's one he'll direct himself
Emma Gray's hiding out of shot in a car, peeping out to observe continuity. Duncan Cowan returns from shooting happy: 'Good take.' A man of brevity. Mark Jackson films him urinating. It's unscripted.
Melly Cook takes continuity shots of everyone. She's wearing a warm Doctor Zhivago white hat. A bit later she's putting on lip-salve. It's drizzling. Katie Spink's got her light-blue scarf wrapped round her face, and her hood up. Claudia Fernandez has red wellies, and her hood done up tightly - but with her long chestnut hair elegantly-arranged outside. Duncan Cowan: 'It's good stuff we're getting; we're a bit behind schedule.' Johnnie Oddball: 'OK. Rolling. Go.' He's got his red producer's hat on.
There's a cluster of 8 people filming and being filmed. Jez Foster's wearing a mugger's hat, and shooting stills of the crew. Johnnie Oddball's filming Nicolette Kay arriving in her car.
Claudia Fernandez is Mexican and writes music for commercials. Her background's in sound engineering. She plays guitars and keyboards. She's doing a music production course and looking for a band to play with.
Katie Spink is at college in Swansea. It's her final year of English, and she's sending her CV to production companies. She has a background in drama, with interest and experience in producing, writing, directing, choreography and set design; and ambitions in tv. Melly Cook and Emma Gray are looking very cold.
It's 2.20pm, and everyone's back at the pub for coffee. Amber Worrall has just finished shooting Alan Partridge back in May 02, and Family Affairs. Her Citroen tv commercial's released on UK tv this week. She's been modelling and doing commercials since she was 5, having made up her mind at 4 to be an actress. She stopped acting briefly to take A Levels, and left school a year ago. She wants to act full-time in film, and tv & theatre.
It's 2.40 by the village church clock, and 10 cast and crew are back outside. Johnnie Oddball enters theatrical mode and suggests a 'group hug'. No, he's joking. En route to the next location, Melly Cook drives fast, with racing gear-changes, fag in hand, Herbaliser blasting out of the car stereo. She admits that Johnnie Oddball's white United-Nations-style gas-eating 1950s Land-Rover is cool, despite 'killing the world'. It's her first film after escaping accountancy. She emailed Johnnie asking to be a runner, continuity person or driver and is delighted to be doing just that. Next step - a career in production management in film and tv.
Tracy Fleming's doing special effects and makeup. She did illustration at Manchester University and trained as a cinematographic make-up artist 'in an Australian studio with make-up artist Peter Frampton, who won an Oscar for Braveheart.' She's worked on 2 films this year (2002), Elvis Pelvis, and a British gangster film The Prodigal. She wants to follow a career in make-up in film and tv, possibly in theatre too.
She and Chez Sorbello understand and obey Oddball's concise emailed orders eg 'We need the blood tube for Frank's shirt pocket and one finger; Frank's made-up to look as though he's been hit hard in the face; I need my full death make-up.' Tracy is spending nights making hacked-off fingers. Her recipe: an alginate cast of a hand, plaster of Paris, cotton wool, latex, fake blood. Her nickname's now 'Fingers' Fleming (also 'There's A Beach Here' Fleming for being the girl who went to Shoreham-On-Sea by mistake). She finished the last one at 1.30 am, and the blood's beginning to run.
The crew are filming Giuliano Zampi. He's looking impossibly handsome and cool, leaning against the Land-Rover, smoking a cigarette. He's an actor with a background in architecture and animation, and son of legendary producer, director and writer Mario Zampi. He's done Channel 5's Jailbreak - locked up for 3 weeks ('Well paid') and 18 films.
Mark Rimmer spent six months in India and a year in Prague, where he married. He's in the 2nd year of the film production course at Bournemouth, with a background in architectural and electrical engineering and an art foundation course behind him. On graduation, he's planning to move to Norway to make music videos as a cinematographer.
4.02 pm. It's a wrap. Mark Jackson's shooting on MiniDV with a Sony DSR 300: 'it's like a news camera.' He's returning from filming in the graveyard. The sign over the entrance reads 'Blessed are the Dead which die in the Lord'. Everyone goes back to the pub.
Juliet Forester came to acting through modelling - she was the first Cosmopolitan Girl in 1973 and retains her stunning beauty. She's done commercials and films, travelling world-wide, and took a 15-year break to raise a family with her husband. She returned to acting 'with a new passion' in 1995.
Rachel Rose Reid did 5678 at EdFringe 02 (and The Principle of Motion at EdFringe 03). She mention's she's played Velvet in the Man In The Moon's production of Ben Elton's Popcorn, is part of the Soho Theatre's core group of writers. She writes drama as Sylvia Brac, does performance poetry, is a cabaret singer, and has worked with Jo Craig (Anything But That, supported Barb Jungr (at Pirate Jenny's Cabaret Club, Stoke Newington), worked with Peter Scott-Presland (Boris Vian's Chanson), and acted in several films.
Johnnie Oddball's thoughts at the end of Day One? 'A walk in the park. It's good. It's easy. It's down to planning and stucture. It's not as difficult as I thought getting it in sequence. "Just do it" doesn't work. You have to be quite strict with what you've got.'
Re-shoots
Late December 02. Johnnie Oddball: 'We've shot Dark Hunter in 6 days. There's 2 days re-shooting to do.' The first is scheduled for Thursday 9 January 03. It's a significant day because, as the Evening Standard reports 'Roads in chaos, rail disruption ... It has been 12 years since this much (snow) fell. It may be 12 years or longer before we see its like again.'
The wrap party is scheduled for 31 January 03 at the Arts Theatre Club.
Editing
13 April 03 - Sunday. Duncan Cowan is mid-edit, under close observation from Mark Jackson. Duncan's using an Avid suite. The film's been shot in wide-screen 16:9 format on MiniDV. There's about 26 hours of footage. Cameras included a Sony TRV 900 (approx £1,500), Sony VX 2000 (approx £3,000 secondhand), and Canon XL1 (approx £3,000 secondhand). Duncan Cowan describes his edit strategy as starting with 'something good, to cheer us up; then tackling the harder stuff.'
Duncan Cowan: 'There's 3 aspects to this film. (1) The big film which is the "BBC Film"; (2) The film "we are making" ie Dark Hunter; (3) The interview sections. (1) is the meta-film - the umbrella the others come underneath.' He notes that there are bits that don't neatly fit in those compartments. His objective? 'A film about a bad film that isn't a bad film.'
The film includes interviews. Duncan Cowan: 'What the interviews do technically is to give the film pace and irony - by the right juxtaposition. So it's best to leave cutting them till last.' So Cowan's strategy is to 'make the film from beginning to end without the interview footage, just with actionl; watch it; then cut the interview story in.'
Test Screening
23 August 03 - Saturday night / Sunday Morning. It's 1am, C-Venues, Edinburgh Fringe. C-Venues director Hartley Kemp has green-lighted a test screening in one of his theatres. One of the theatrical companies kindly lends and operates its DV projector. A screen's created out of silk. Dark Hunter - The Secret Screening commences.
Johnny Oddball's been driving all day - it's the middle of the National 48-Hour Film Challenge he's organising. He and cameraman Paul Sullivan (as opposed to PR legend Paul Sullivan, who's also in Edinburgh for the Fringe) are propping their eyes open with matchsticks.
In the front row, Oddball stays awake; Dark Hunter actor Damian Kell, who's just come off stage from appearing in the sell-out run of NewsRevue stays awake; Fringe Report stays awake. Cameraman Paul Sullivan gradually lapses into a coma, spralling across Oddball, Kell and Fringe Report. Re-laid across a row of seats further back, he remains oblivious at the end, and is last seen spark-out despite a pretty Scottish usherette trying to sweep him out ('Sir, you must leave, it's over') with the empty bottles.
The preliminary cut of Dark Hunter is judged to have failed the critical 'Sullivan Awake' test.
Final Cut
Autumn 2003. Duncan Cowan and Mark Jackson shoot further scenes, and re-edit. Now it's Dark Hunter - The Final Cut.
World Premiere
Saturday 6 March 04. Countdown to the world premiere of Dark Hunter at the Curzon Cinema, Soho. For Johnnie Oddball, Mark Jackson and Duncan Cowan, and all their talented cast and crew, it's the moment of truth. Oddball's original poster strap-line read 'From the creators of "Nothing So Far", and "Nothing Ever Again After This"'. There were moments in the 14-month journey from start to finish when this highly-creative trio could barely speak to each other. But they end the project speaking to each other (an industry first) and really quite friendly (a miracle).
Is Dark Hunter any good? Only the premiere screening will tell. But the film was made in the first place to see if it was possible, using the cinema quality of DV, to make a feature for essentially no budget, In that, it's already succeeded.
Last word to Johnnie Oddball: 'If people love the film, great. If they think it's crap, they've no longer any excuse not to do it themselves.'
END
John Park
Dark Hunter - credits and review
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008
www.fringereport.com
