Day 5

Today has been a day of contrasts. First thing on the agenda this morning was Michael's breakdown scene, which we shot in Clarence Park. Apart from Fed Ex vans appearing in the background when we, in all honesty, least needed them, we also had to contend with learner drivers - of both the two wheeled and four wheeled variety - doing three point turns and emergency stops. Joe and Josephine public were not too bad - a few old biddies walking their lap dogs (that looked more like toupees than anything) - but the main problem was the weather. It rained, not to make too fine a point of it. In the 15 or so takes we did (another Bogo Tarr tracking shot), we only had 2 or 3 without rain on the lens.

This was followed by shooting a lengthy single take (6 minutes) of Sally in church. The script specifies that she leaves £500 in the collection plate, but the cash machine would only let me take £300 out, so I gave Sally that, plus the £20 already in my wallet. Yes, you actually see production cash in the film! The scene went well, although we lost the focus momentarily about halfway through, which means we may have to cut away to something. (I think in the script we have another Lucas/Ogilvy scene that bisects the church scene.) My mother, who has been doing the catering, put in a cameo as flower-arranging lady in background (a role she plays in real life).

The logical place to go after church is of course a pub, and the afternoon saw us in the Cooper's Arms in Highbridge (one of my spiritual locals). I'd originally booked the upstairs room, but John, the landlord, kindly let us use the actual back of the pub, which is a lot better. The trouble was, the scene, having been changed quite a lot, now no longer worked as originally envisioned. That, combined with the fact that we ran over time, causing a bit of friction with the locals, meant that the scene was quite stressful to shoot. The scene also marked the debut on the shoot of Ray Callaghan, as the drunken Greek chorus, Priestly. When not shooting, he was drinking and chatting up women a quarter his age.

Perhaps the day has best been summed up by the man who was walking his dog this morning in Clarence Park. He took one look at us in the pouring rain, smiled, and said, 'You must be mad.'
I think I would agree with him.