Monday 17th November 1997
by Henry Burrows
New Cast, New Location, and pasta shapes...
Location: Farnborough, Hampshire
Bodies present:
Ian Lindsay,
Rebecca Croxson,
Sue Element,
Mike Varty,
David Randell,
Henry Burrows
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Jimmy opens a tin of spaghetti shapes
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We decided to take things easy tonight, as this was the
first scene for everyone involved and it was bound to take
longer than normal. We started by setting up the kitchen
for filming. Empty beer cans were placed in strategic
locations and piles of washing-up created to give the room
that authentic "student" feel. We spent some time placing
magnetic letters onto the fridge door and arranging them
into surreal words and phrases for those keen-eyed viewers.
These letters will be a key element of the opening scenes,
being used for the opening credits!
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Mike the mike man
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Then Ian psyched himself up,
and became Jimmy for the
filming of scene one. This involved him preparing his evening
meal of unusual pasta shapes - tins of Barbie spaghetti,
Power Rangers spaghetti, Tom & Jerry spaghetti and Power
Rangers spaghetti. We had tried to find the good old "Space
Invaders" spaghetti shapes, but it seems they're not on sale
around here anymore. Anyway, the Barbie tin in particular
was very surreal.
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Becky as Helen
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This scene went well, not that there was anything particularly
tricky about it, and it was soon time to call in
Becky for the first dialogue
of the movie. At this point, we had an interesting idea from
Mike, who suggested that we use
one of his high quality microphones for the sound recording.
We tried it and it offered much improved clarity, so the role
of Boom Operator was born.
After a few rehearsals of the scene, Ian and Becky acted as
if they'd been Jimmy and Helen
all their lives. We shot a number of varying angles to give
us maximum editing possibilities and then it was finished.
Scene one - complete!
To finish the evening, we shot a couple of angles on
Sue checking the windows and
back-door for a scene later in the film when
Foil Man is on the loose
outside and trying to get in.