DELETED SCENES 2 - SUSAN

Thea MacLeod, Meredith Ostrom

This scene may still make the film, but the subplot it comes from was never fully shot. Here Australian masseuse Susan (Thea MacLeod) gives the very busy killer Callas (Meredith Ostrom) a massage. 

The Susan character was supposed to have another few scenes to flesh out the wider portrait of London, but we decided to cut all those extra strands before we shot them. So now its simply a scene about Callas, and her rather unique foot fetish. 

This is also a good time to praise Ms MacLeod, whose great work behind the camera as a casting agent enabled this film to be completed. We owe her an enormous debt. She's also a pretty useful actress. 

- MT

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DELETED SCENES 1 - NEIL & SUZE

We are assembling the film again for a complete rough cut.

While we do that I'm going to post a number of grabs from scenes that are not in the film currently. Some will perhaps make an extras DVD, some will just disappear. It's always wrenching when you cut the cord with a scene - even worse when its an entire subplot. 

This happens more than you think. Almost EVERY film has plots or characters that are eventually removed to keep the focus on the central characters. Only very (VERY) rarely is it because of poor work by the actors. 

Its heartbreaking for the writer, director and above all the actors, but hopefully you get a better film out of it. So think of these as a series of eulogies for great work. 

Neil Sheppeck & Suzanne Gardner

Above is a still from the bedroom scene from the Neil & Suze subplot. 

Suze has finally had enough of London, and the relationship is ending. They decide on one last goodbye tryst on a hot London afternoon. This scene is very beautiful and very well acted. We gave them only the barest of structures for the scene and let them improvise over 15-20 minutes. It was just extraordinary.  

If its so good, why isn't it in the film? Because explaining their story took too much attention away from the core plot of the film. When there is a DVD release of this film, this storyline will be on it. 

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Nitty Gritty time

If you're wondering where we've been, the edit suite repairs took a bit longer than we thought, and well, we spent the weekend blowing off steam.

As some of you know, I have a business to run, and that plus this film is stretching things a bit. Poor Jeremy is tying himself in knots trying to horseshoe some of the older scenes back in to the film, and I'm just desperate to get all the dialogue scenes sharpened so we have a decent rough cut by the end of this week. 

Both of us are strung out from rearranging the sequencing of the film. It never ceases to amaze me how flexible a story is, right up until the final piece of audio post. One scene for example was cut completely, then became a flashback, moved forward in the day but now in real-time, and its central theme completely changed twice, all since Friday. 

Its also been a time of concentrating on the pacing of the film. We watched Peter Berg's 'The Kingdom' the other day, as it uses a lot of the frenetic, multi-camera style NIL has. In fact, almost EXACTLY the same style as NIL has. While its a pretty good film, it never lets you breathe, so hopefully we've got the right blend of fast, handheld cross-the-line energy, with enough moments of reflection and stillness. And that those moments happen at the right time in the story. 

The picture above is from the Paul McGann shoot that will never make the picture. In this ending the gorgeous Callas (Meredith Ostrom) comes in to save Roy (Mark Rathbone). In the version we have now, Roy meets a rather different fate. 

- MT

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If you're wondering what's happening.....

Here's the edit suite. Yep, that's plastic.

The result of all the plumbing fixes over the last two weeks was huge holes in the ceiling which had to be fixed. So today they fixed it, which meant encasing the entire edit suite like something from 'Outbreak'. 

Back tomorrow.

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Good Morning with Helen & Bob

This still is from a short "TV Morning Show" we shot for a 'wow, how hot is it in London today?' sequence that plays in the background as Steve Lynch gets dressed on the fateful morning.

The almost ubiquitous Helen Liston plays yet another part.

Mostly we should be perturbed that we were so good at faking this. 

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Neil & Suze

Hugh Edwards, Neil Sheppeck, Mark Tierney, Suzanne Gardner, Jerome Scott watch playback of Neil & Suzanne's love scene.

Neil and Suzanne, two terrific actors, play a couple who are breaking up and decide on a final tryst on a hot London summer's afternoon. Their story and Steve Lynch's intersect when they are caught in a traffic jam of Steve's making. This story (and another involving two Spanish speaking immigrants to London) were attempts to illustrate the complexity and layers to the city and to frame the Steve Lynch story. When we were putting together the 2006 rough edit, it became obvious that the other threads were too distracting from the already complex main story. 

Therefore this entire storyline has been cut from the main film, but we'll include it as a stand alone short with the DVD as there is some terrific work there.

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Hard at work 8

Matthew John, Jerome Scott, Michael Greco outside in the 'sun'. 
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On the radio

Big shoutout to Michael Greco for promoting the movie on TalkSport this week. We got a ton of emails about it.

I've been working on a full piece about Michael's work on this film. It'll be ready soon. It's a long one! 

Above is from some greenscreen footage of Steve Lynch we shot just in case, that will probably appear in the trailer. 

- MT
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It's Hot in Herreee...

Makeup artist Philip Carson makes everyone just a little bit sweatier.

Mark Wilson learns his lines. 

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Multi-tasking

I'm out of town so you just get one picture today. 

James and Jeremy are still plugging away while plumbers literally rip open the roof above their heads. 

This is us shooting Steve Lynch (Michael Greco) making a phone call from his office, long lens on the DVCPro HD camera, and closeup on DV in 2005.

While watching the Ashes. 

Its all about priorities on set you know. 

- MT

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Steven Berkoff Video Excerpt

This is an excerpt from one of the biggest scenes in the film. Lawrence Masters (Steven Berkoff) is hosting his monthly big stakes poker game when Steve Lynch (Michael Greco) arrives to ask him a huge favour. 

The dialogue here is an ad lib of Steven's we turned into a mini-scene to introduce the Masters character. It perfectly captures the character's (and Steven's!) manic energy. 

We apologise for the grey-ing out at the beginning. That's a YouTube thing.

Hard at work 7

Prepping the Peter Denby office scene shot at Mark Stewart Productions in Ladbroke Grove.
We'd like to thank everyone there, particularly Mark, Paddy, Shawn and Hannah for the many, MANY favours they did us over the years.

Andre de Souza in a reflective mood

Producer Hugh Edwards

Set Photographer/3rd camera Andy Cockerill

Note that Andy is wearing his reknown white t-shirt on set in the photo above. If you ever want to drive a cameraperson or DOP crazy, wear a bright reflective surface near the set, while moving around.

At one point, we actually thought Jonas Mortensen was going to kill him. It is worth noting that later shots have Andy in a black t-shirt with only some light bruising.

Hard at work 6

Bjorn Hellem adjusts a lens

Helen & Hayley

Andre de Souza

Gabrielle Jourdan

Michael Greco, Vanessa bath scene

Michael Greco & Chris Harker rehearse 'Lion's Den'

Jonas Mortensen and C Stand

Mark Tierney & Jeremy Henman,  on the Vanessa set

Progress....

Man on Venice Boardwalk, 2008

Ok it's started to get really hot here. 

Today we made terrific strides in polishing a couple of crucial scenes after a very difficult week of struggling to get the right communication going in the edit. The sense of relief at this evening's playback was palpable. 

Will post more video as we can. Remember: each segment will be pretty raw, especially in audio. But I think it gives you an idea of where we are stylistically. 

All our conversations now are about scene pacing, structure and the chances of Liverpool, Chelsea and Man United in either the Prem or Champions League. 

Is it an accident that none of us are Arsenal fans? 

I think not.

- MT

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Video 1

Ungraded rough cut of a scene featuring Colin Salmon and Mark Rathbone.

Enjoy. 

So, how was it for you?

Stephanie Beachem & Lou Doillon

Well, its 80 minutes long, and it has a beginning, middle and end. That's 80 very fast minutes. You could easily cut a 2 hour epic out of it. 

To be honest, the first 60 minutes really moves and is involving. After that, its, um, a bit complicated. 

But we survived it, although I think my outbursts of laughter perturbed poor editor James.

So now, the REAL work begins.

But if the question is, is there a film there, the answer is a very definite yes.

- MT

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CHRIS HARKER 'Kristoff'

"Looking for some leather me old son?"

Chris Harker was the very first actor that auditioned for NAKED IN LONDON, in Feb 2004. He was unbelievably nervous and literally broke out in flop sweats. However, he has such a great face and presence there was no way we weren't going to find him a role in the film (in fact he also played the immortal Frank very well in a production of BLUE VELVET Jerome Scott and I produced for the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004, but that's another story). 

Eventually he became Kristoff, bodyguard and aide-de-camp to Lawrence Masters, played by Steven Berkoff. 

Visually, they're a well matched pair. 

- MT

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Hard at work 5

EP Jerome Scott, hard at work

Primary sound, Angus Sutherland, Islington

Writer Jeremy Henman one hand clapping, Southbank

Meredith Ostrom, 'Callas' about to kill the director (seriously)

The above was shot in the Southbank loft of original LFS member and all round great guy Daryl Folkard. He was also a producer on the excellent British sex comedy The Man Who would Be Queen, which had its own tortuous journey to screen.

Ah, the joys of indie film. 

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Escaped to the beach

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Fun and games

We're still rushing to get the assembly finished. First viewing is 3pm Monday. 

Today the plumbers came and drilled through the concrete floor to fix a leak.

And we got a ticket for parking the wrong way. 

Yep, its like that right now.

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Hard at work 4

Angus & Helen 

Makeup artiste Hayley, 2005

Shooting long lens in Chiswick 2005

Jonas Mortensen & Bjorn Hellem
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Jonathan & Home House

Michael Greco as 'Steve Lynch' enters Jonathan Porchester's home

We've finished doing the rough of the climactic Jonathan scene. This scene comes at the end of the film, and within it the terrible secret of the story is revealed. Its an acting tour de force from Michael Greco and Jake Maskall, and was shot in a day at Home House in Portman Square London. 

Home House is another of London's private clubs, a lovely restaurant and bar set in a very large 18thC townhouse just behind Selfridges. It was here, late one night, after far too many expensive scotches that this project was born, so it was fitting that the film should have its bloody denouement within its walls. 

It was another iffy day weather wise, so our 'sun' is a line of 10k lights scaffolded outside in the high wind. We also suffered a bizarre fault with one of the HD cameras that gave us footage with no blue component. That gives that camera's images a brutally hard, flame red appearance. We debated shooting it again (it wasn't the only scene affected and we were insured) but given the feel of the scene and where it falls in what will be a colour-saturated film, the hard red cast to everything kind of works. 

Above is one of my favourite stills from the film. With the interaction between Steve and the centurions of the painting, it looks almost composed. 

'Here he is, at last', they say. 

- MT

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