Day 7:

What an eventful night. We got the Security Guard to hook us up with power (through the window). And we started filming the "Sin City" scene. Then the light fell over and hit Jen in the head and we had to get Chris to hold it up all night, once he finished his one shot, mind you, lol. I told Gareth about the "vampire script" and my plans to give him a part. I'm trying to think of parts I could get the rest of the guys and gals to do but it's a tricky one with the ages of the characters in this one. There are a lot of cast from "Pondlife" I wanna use again if they want to work with me again and I'm sure between "Juliet..." and "vampire" that I can work them in. Every idiot in Glasgow found us on Wednesday night and tried to destroy the shoot, including a bunny-hopping wacko nutjob ina suit who said he was a billionaire, writer/publisher and that the key to life/acting was to be free and imagine yourself in your mother's womb and the feeling of being released. Wow what a fruit and nut. Anyway we finished the shoot and Jen drove home in the wig!

Day 8: We meet up at Bar Bola and the guy says he thought we were filming outside. OK, so far, so Pondlife, but we start filming anyway. Going Ok, then the sound packs in and the only up-side to that was Ross, Chris and David, doing their run-through in asian, scouse and wahtever the fuck David's accent was. We got sound fixed and started again but Chris had a call back for a Taggart interview (oh and Hannah couldn't work today as she starts on Taggart, on a paid job til December so that's great and best of luck to her, its good to see peeps getting work. Shows you it's not impossible). So Chris left for his call back and I had arranged with the guy in the pub to stop filming during lunch rush hour and restart in the afternoon but then one of the owners came in and said that wasn't possible, short and shrift he was but I spose he has a point, it's his business. So we go back on Saturday morning. Having forgotten the furry dice, we moved the trunk scene to saturday too and went off to the college to do the tearoom scene. We did the 2nd half of which in "That 70's Show" style. Bad idea. How hard is that! So I got my make-up on (yeah, yeah, bite me) and got ready for my scene. We managed to work Angela in as a dead body in the Killer tripod scene. (see you wanna see it now, don't you?). Then the extremely noisy (and smelly) toilets made our scene hard to do but we got through it, with my dignity null in void at this point. So we finished up and went home. Visited Gran as Kat had said she wasn't doing too good and I should go up just incase. She looks really bad. Awfy weak and frail and it's sad to see her that way, although the hospice seems a really nice place. So me and Jen went home and had dinner and then lay in bed and watched "Waiting...". I wanted to watch "The Monster Squad" for "vampire movie" research but Jen hadn't seen "Waiting...". She was falling asleep half way through though despite enjoying it so we decided to finish it later. Also got a text from Ross last night which I'll not disclose here but basically at some point he said I was a mate, which was cool, cos I really hoped that "Pondlife" would be the kind of film everyone would have fun on and make friendships and look back on and say that they enjoyed the experience and were sad to see it en and as I really like this bunch of peeps I wanna keep in touch whe filmings done. So to have one of em refer to me as a mate confirms that I have indeed perhaps succeeded in my taks to make this a friendly atmosphere film. Anyway peace out homerinos.

Shooting the "Sin City Scene" tonight. I'm excited, we've been trying to shoot his scene since the first day of shooting and hopefully it will finally happen. Over the last few days I haven't done much apart from work and try and organise the shoot. The Chapel is a bust for Saturday as the Father at St. pat's is on holiday and St. Augistine's say they would have to ask their commitee, which means I'll get a "No" in about six months time. So I'm going to sneak some establishing church shots when we do the weding scene and shoot the stand off in Buffalo Joe's and try n light it so that I can make the entire background black in the edit so that it cuts from the church in a stylised way..

On another note that's not about "PondLife", I decided what my next film will be if I can do "Juliet..." first (a play I'm working on that is a Scottish version of Romeo & Juliet, with songs and cursing). I want to make a vampire movie. I just noticed that any vampire movie that has came out recently is all about the action. "Underworld 1 & 2", "Blade: all of them", etc. What happened to the funny but genuinely scary assed vampire movies of the 80's, man. The Lost Boys, Fright Night, The Monster Squad...to name a few. I wanna make one of those. Set in Glasgow, low budget, make the vampire a little more realistic but still gorey enough. Take The Lost Boys and cross it with She's All That and The Karate Kid and you have my next flick. So far simply entitled "Vampire Movie" But I'm working on that. I want to set the most part of the story in High School. Same old 80's story, a family move to a new town. Single Mum, Hot sister and younger comic geek brother and dog. The sister becomes the focus of our group of vampires and the hottest guy in the school also digs her. But which has her best interests at heart. Her younger brother and his new tearaway friend are the vampire experts who as usual click on faster than anyone else that something strange is afoot at the Circle K. The tagline would be "In High School...everyone's different". I've already written a gory killer beginning. I watched Lost Boy last night to remind myself of the goodness of those films. Watching it now it's so 80's camp and some parts make no sense, like why when Michael goes to see Star to ask what's happening to him (turning into a vampire), she says she wishes she could help him understand and then they have sex! What's that all about? Still, great movie though.

When I finished work the 'shit' was already in the skip so Jen picked me up and we went and got her a video camera from Comet. Then went to visit Gran for a few hours and heard some funny stories, some I'd heard before, some I hadn't. She seems chirpier but still jaundiced. We headed home to a deli sandwich from McD's and a night in.

Sunday, I got up and Jen made a cooked breakfast, listened to the game which caused an argument and managed to contact Scott. He cant let me use his edit machine as he has too much client work just now but can get me the software needed if I can get a large hardrive and firewire card. Fair enough. We wondered wether to go out for something to eat and go "Silent Hill" (Jen's choice) or stay in, watch Simpsons and get a take-away. We decided on staying in as "Silent Hill" didn't look too good. So we went to the bank and headed home, called Pizza Hut and sat down to hours of hilarious Simpsons Season 7. Then we went to bed about half 11 as I was up early for the hellpit the next day.

So far all the posts have been about shoot days so I thought I'd enlighten you to the days inbetween, spent setting those up.

Thursday was pretty uneventful. Friday, while at work listening to all the idiots under the sun, I confirmed with the college that we could go back, thursday afternoon after the bar shoot to shoot the stuff we missed (due to my stupidity) on wednesday. I also called Buffalo Joes and confirmed them for Sunday the 30th and called St. Patricks to see about shooting there on the saturday but the Father wasn't in. I'm still trying to contact Scott with regards to the Edit/photoshoot/website. He's still a ghost. The GFT got back to me with prices. For the small cinema 142 capacity on a weekday or saturday morning its £75 an hour but the mornings no good. A week night (they dont do fridays or saturdays) is £450 +VAT for the 2 hours in an early evening slot and you have to book 3 months in advance (uh-oh).

I also emailed Gaynor regarding my scripts and Anne over at River City about a day for me to visit. Finished at 7pm and went to see "American Dreamz" (Dreams with a Z, lol) which was actually quite a funny little satire on America. Then headed home for some grub and fell asleep to "The Faculty" on TV.

Saturday:

I am working again this saturday because I had to swap shifts with Duel Fuel Dave so I can get next saturday off to shoot. I emailed Scott a rather large email asking what the fuzz is going on and after work I'm to help Mum, stick shit in the skip (not actual shit).
Then Jen wants to go to Comet and check out Video Cameras for our trip to America. Then I will probably go to the Hospital and see Gran before getting a few beers and DVDs and sitting in with Jen tonight (she graciously let me off with taking her out for her birthday as I have to keep all my cash for next weeks shoot.) Tomorrow we will have a lazy day with the TV and Ill try and catch the Old Firm score. Im putting a bet on 2-1, Maloney. (to Celtic of course).

Day 6:

Back to the college for our BIG day. Things started out well, the college was full of students which is annoying as I wanted to film this stuff last week the day after our first college shoot but the canteen lady (we are filming in the canteen) said that the 18th and 19th would be the best days as the canteen would be empty of students. So we chose the 18th (changed alter to the 19th) and lo and behold the canteen is full of students. Also as the bulb blew last time on one of the lights, G-Mac informed us that they couldn't get another bulb and we would only have 2 lights (which we didn't use). Also we only had 5 extras which didn't matter as the canteen was full anyway (PS. Thanks to Kathryn, Tony, Simone, Lisa and Michaela (not sure if thats the spelling) for turning up anyway).

So we started with scene we missed last week on the Library Stairs, while Angela nicely ran off to get us some tapes and chips n gravy and baked potato n tuna for props for the canteen scene (for the record the chips n gravy were stuck together and the tuna stank). We filmed the first part in the stairwell and then moved into the lobby outside the library and tried to get Jen to keep her final line quiet until the take (I'm not sure the Old Guy in the Library Office wanted to hear the line "Girls do like a nice guy, they also like a good hard fuck now and again though!" over and over again, or maybe he did!

We moved up to the canteen and started light with the 'getting served' and 'bumping into Lynsay part'. Then we moved onto the mammoth sit down scene. First starting easy with the 'Jani's a clone' speech and then the 'Baywatch Movie' scene and just as the canteen got really full and Rachel had about half an hour before she had to run off, for a tech rehearsal for a show she was in that night, we tried to tackle 'Benny's Song'. 'Nuff respect to Chris for standing on a table in front of a packed canteen and singing "I Get a Kick out of You" at the top of his voice (with a coke bottle for a mic). We also had to let Jen go for a similar show that night so we got creative. We filmed her close-ups for the next part of the scene then abandoned that scene and took Ross and Rachel to the stairwell for their scene. We shot them both and then Rachel and we let Rach go for her show and poor Ross had to act to a wall and lean in for a kiss with the marble effect. Then we discovered we were locked in the stairway and had to find our way out.

So back to the canteen and quickly finish the scene, then go back to the stairwell for the scene with Johnny's dead bodies 'Killer tripods' movie. Nope, Chris had to make work which is fair enough so we switched and went to the tearoom for that 4 page scene first. We got the first part done and then dipshit here, forgot to charge the second battery the night before (bcos he was too busy learning his lines for his one scene). So we had to abandon shoot for the day at 2.30pm.

Good news there is that we get to the pub earlier. After taking the equipment back (thanks guys). Gareth, David and myself got the subway to Kelvinbridge and had a few pints in The Halt before heading round to Gareth's flat with a few cans and a bit of guy chat, listened to the Team America soundtrack and then Catriona joined us and we had another drink before heading round to Glasgow Uni Theatre to watch the show.

It turned in to a sort of mini-pondlife night out as Jen and Rachel were in the shows and we bumped into Shona (who plays Toni) and one of the guys in the one of the other shows and (unsuccessfully) auditioned for the role of Benny. Jen's show was up first, a 20-minute excerpt from the Trainspotting play. She was very good, if I'm not being biased. the second was a powerful excerpt from "Wormwood", a play about the effects of Chernobyl. (featuring unsuccessful Benny guy). The third was Rachel's, it was called "Mute", I think and it showed a guy going between the two women in his life matched to music, the first time pop tunes and the second instrumentals. It was quite funny. The fourth was a play about convicts in australia putting on a play back when the english first used it as a convict colony. That was probably my favourite. So then we skipped the last show, left David to watch it and got the subway home (picking up a chips, cheese and donner meat on the way) and crashed out.

Day 3:

Our first weekend shoot. Ross couldn't make it due to work so we had to find scenes without him in them, very hard to do. So we did the one and only scene he isn't in. The Toilet scene with the guys locked up in the toilet of Toni's Bar, which was actually the toilet in my office. It was boiling in there and there was at least 7 of us at any given moment. A couple of choice moments. Gareth flushing the toilet as he left the stall he had been perched on with the door open all day. Chris's rendition of "I Feel Pretty" and reaching for the toilet paper afterwards and the scramble that was Catriona and Chris's make out scene. We also shot the characters favourite film quote index scenes. I forget them all, Gareth did one from Withnail & I, Pirates of the Caribbean and something else Johnny-ish. Tony did Shrek, and Forrest Gump and some other girly ones. Jennifer was good at her Jerry Maguire (not the quote you'd think though), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Scream and something else I can't remember. Marc(I mean David, even sang for us. He did Jaws (twice), the spanish ladies song and my fav, "der-der-der-der". As well as Dirty Harry and A Fistful of Dollars.

Day 4: Our bar had fell through and last minute I managed to wangle Buffalo Joes, which was my original choice, a good location, huge bar, a large balcony above it for Jennifer (McCabe), to dance on. So we shot all the scenes in Big Fat Toni Nae Balls' bar. We had Jennifer hanging around all day in leather chaps and a bikini for her dance scene (which I managed not to record) and getting offered jobs by the Managers.

Day 5: The college. We started well with some funny scenes in the classroom then the sound kit messed up again and it was panic stations until it started working again and one of the redheads went, I think the bulb blew and for the first time we had no spare. We moved to the Library where the guy in charge was a tit. We had to stay quiet (hard to do with a page of dialogue). Then we did the "Michael Myers" shot which was giving the film a sinister feel now. Then back upstairs (having let Jen and Catriona go without realising we had a whole other scene to do with them in it.) We started the western scenes (watching Ross dance around 'riding the bull' and shouting yeeha was hilarious).Most of the time was taken up trying to get fishing wire attached to a plastic bag so we could pull it across like tumbleweed. Now we await Day 6 and we look for a night to do the "Sin City Scene" as we have tried and failed 3 times so far?

Day 2: Didn't go much better in regards to HMV's hospitality. The Team Manager from the day before was fine he said we could come in early the next day to setup but when we got there the Store Manager was being a complete cock and asked us if we were in early did that mean we would be leaving early? Ever felt so unwelcome! He also informed us that the music would NOT be turned down for us today as we were informed in the email that we recieved from Head Office that the music couldn't be turned down. I told him that wasn't true. That in the email it said in-store radio couldn't be turned OFF but could be turned DOWN. He said that was not what the email said so I took said email out of my folder and showed him the exact wording and he simply stuttered that it would be kept at 'A' level. What a knobcheese. So we got our shots and moved along to the river to finish the torture scene and we couldn't stop laughing at Chris with the ice-cream all over his face looking like a demented "idiot". We had to stop laughing though as it started to rain, so we packed up and went to the pub where I decided to buy everyone lunch, that was a smart idea!

When we finished the rain was stopped and considering the sun the day before had led to us having a crowd when we filmed in St. Enoch's Square, not to mention every bus in the Glasgow area (and an old double-decker from London, apparently on its way to Peckham!), coming by and some random roadworks, I thought a wet day would be better. Well instead we got roller boys, jakies and 5 fire engines roaring into shot as the fire alarm and a nearby bank went off. My suggestions to forget the burning smell and send everyone back inside til we got our scene done went down a treat. Also we had Postman 'frikkin' Pat reverse into shot and just stare.

Anyway we had to abandon scene and go back to HMV and do an exterior shot before the rain came on and even managed to get in a Beatles-homage with the guys crossing the road in single file. I was gonna chase down the little shit that walked into shot behind the guys walking stupidly then I realised it was Tony who hadnt realised he wasn't meant to be in this shot.

We finished the St. Enoch stuff after that and Day 2 was done and dusted.

I'm not sure anyone will read this but I just, well it's for me as much as anyone else. I wanted to document making my first feature. It's a strange experience, it's not exactly how you imagine it to be because, well I'm doing everything myself.

I wrote the script back in 2000 when I was at college and decided to make it last year when I was asked to make something for my friend's (Martin) Film Festival (Deep Fried Film Festival). So I advetised for actors and crew on Mandy.com and the local Metro newspaper and got my girlfriend to put an email round her University. We contacted the Uni (Glasgow University) about holding auditions there after Kontakt Studios said we couldnt use their office at weekends. I contacted locations, some easy and some not. For instance, HMV said yes right away. The Glasgow Met College took awhile to reply. The bar we needed was originally Strathclyde Student Union and then they got all shitty about it and Scott (Cairns) was getting us The Big Joint but that fell through and at last minute we got Buffalo Joes.

So we held auditions and there was "Crazy Bob", this psycho guy shows up and says he can't get out of character, he's auditioning for "Johnny" and he has a hood up covering his face and I can smell drink on him and fuck he was just a nutter! He said he had this speech he wrote and we let him go and he just goes on a rant about the other characters, calling them "pubeless fucks!" and "spoonheid junkies!" and then he casually turns to camera and says, "Was that a bit over the top?". He threatened to throw a TV out the window if he didn't get the part. It was crazy but we got most of the cast there. Gareth (Hunter) who plays Johnny and David (Brailsford) who plays "Marc", had never really done anything before and male-wise they were the best there. Girl-wise we had too many good actors and not enough parts, we had Rachel (Gunn) who was excellent in her audition for both "Lynsay" and "Fiona/The Dame". But Jennifer (Byrne) was also great for the "Fiona/Dame" part and as she had helped write some of the dialogue, (the filthiest stuff I might add), which gave her an edge. So we had our Johnn, Marc, Lynsay and Fiona. We also had our "Ruth" in Catriona (McCaig) who just had the look and had never really done anything either. But we didnt have a Simon and more importantly didn't have a "Benny" or "David" and they have the biggest parts.

We ended up getting Tony (McGeever) in for Simon when I raked through the CV's I had been sent and he auditioned on the first day of rehearsals. We got Ross (Maxwell), who played "David". the same day when I had saw him in "Chips", a short film that an actress called Michelle Edwards had pointed me too for her audition. Benny we didn't get til the night before the final audition and he never got to rehearse, so he shows up on the first day and nails it, this is Chris (Somerville) who emailed me after a second advert I put out for actors when I was shitting myself about finding a Benny.

We all had a drink the weekend before shooting and what was meant to be a drink or two became this mammoth all day session, talking movies and scripts and shit and it was cool. Everyone seemed to get along right away and that could only be good.

We started shooting, first day was in HMV, we had 2 hours and I think we were almost thrown out after 1. The first scene with Tony, Ross and Rachel (Wisson) who had to fill in for my Step-Brother, Michael, in a small part I wrote for him. It's the scene all about Will Smith and Simon's rant. Then we moved on to the scene with David, Chris and Tony.The speech about Fantasia and Tony's lines include screaming out "faggot" and "fuck" and the customers were complaining about us, it was hilarious. I had to apologise the Team Leader and we sorta left in a hurry. Then we spent all afternoon in St. Enoch Square shooting the Bench scene with David and Lynsay which follows on to the Thundercats Movie speech and the love machine dance. We then went down the the river and shot the wedding flashback scenes and just before going on to the torture scene the sound kit fucks up and the battery on the phantom power unit packs in and we had to call it a day.