1. Organization
The Ashtray was a script that had come to us through a previous actor
in one of our films, Ross Mcewan; His brother James came to us
with
this script and asked if it would be something we could film/would like
to film. This was new for us as previously we had only filmed scripts
written by ourselves, but if we were eventually gonna take on work by
other writers there was no reason why now would not be the time to do
so. We had no problems with the content or structure of the
script, and it seemed like it could be something we could pull off on
our "no budget" system, and well, to be honest our previous 10 short
films gave us the confidence that we could successfully pull off the
shooting and the editing of the piece.
James Mcewan had the idea where he was going to organize all the
actors,
time and places to shoot and all we had to do was turn up and shoot and
then later edit. This was new for us too and kind of took some
of the normal load, of well, shit that has to get done off our backs
and put it on someone else's other than Mr. Russell and myself.
So it was agreed, we would turn up at the location, after going over
one of the possible shooting ideas with Mr Mcewan and then we'd let
the actors run through the stuff quickly then go shoot it. This
all went very well. We were fortunate to get some very qualified
and
some very talented actors for the piece (for the price of travelling
expenses).
There were a couple of script changes and actor changes along the way
but on the whole well, this is to be expected I guess and it all went
fine (that's our story and were sticking to it!)..
2. Schedule
So Mr Mcewan organized the schedule of the shoot and the
location. We
turned up, met the actors and had sort of worked out by first
shooting day how were gonna shoot it. This was going to be a
problem; The camera through the narrative was supposed to only
have one angle, one point of view. And trying to get this right on four
occasions spread over four weeks was not going to be easy. But we
took some Mini-DV stills of the way the tripod was set up and where on
the floor in Harry's bar in Edinburgh we had positioned it and we
thought that would do it. Of course we were way fucking wrong
and in the change from one vignette to the next the camera shifted a
little here and there. Hopefully with some snappy editing we
could
cover that up, well we kind of covered it up. Ok, for most of it,
its only
really noticeable in one shot, where our P.O.V. was a little, well,
squint.
3. Hired hands
So this was us: Hired hands, turning up, and getting paid in
coffee
like everybody else. That the actors made more on this piece
during
production than Mr Russell and I did, which is fine, 'coz without their
talents it wouldn't have been made and wouldn't have been what we
deem to be one of our best pieces if it had not been for the brilliant
performances by these actors in front of the camera. So well I
guess when we get remunerated through festivals or broadcast or private
sales of the movie or something, that will be fine. Well that's
kinda the deal with all our stuff so far anyway!
4. New talent
The new talent worked out great and plans were made for getting them
together again for some more work in the future. Some footage was
shot
in mid 2004 but as of yet was incomplete. But hopefully we will
get a
chance to finish it off or move on to something else with the talent
that turned up to help us out on a project early in those summer
mornings.
5. Music.
The Music for The Ashtray was composed and performed by Magicdrive, an
Independent Edinburgh band, which we believe, because of their unique
style, were unable to be easily pigeonholed & marketed by the UK
music industry. We made contact with these guys through Wee David
Robertson, who first worked with us on
Untitled
Project Part 2 as an actor. We had been waiting for a chance
to use some of his/Magicdrive's music ever since then, The Ashtray
finally gave us the chance to do so. We used two tracks from the
Magicdrive debut album "What's The Beef?". The first track
(Very French...?) from
the album, gave a great sense of urgency to the opening of our film and
tied in great with the zoom through Edinburgh that our soul travels as
he is looking for a new host. We also used track 3
"Pimento" from the
album to assist our transitions from one scene to the next, with our
sped up footage and character changes, this worked very effectively,
especially in our break into the last scene and the piece finished us
off over our titles nicely. David Robertson would continue to
work his magic for us with his music, he created the effecitve
soundtrack for
Pickles, and another track
from the Magicdrive album will eventually be used on our short film
Billy, Biff & Scooter, which goes into
production late 2005. David also worked with us as an actor on
the as of yet unfinished
Auld Reikie and
Batteries Included, as well as
working on composing the scores for these two shorts, which we hope to
finish some time in the near future!
6. Budget.
The Budget was, well, next to nothing as usual. We got paid in
coffee; which mind you I paid for, the actors got paid for
travelling
expenses, Martainn and I didn't, as usual, and we will all make some
money off of it when the Pistachio Films DVD "
Check out
Our Shorts!"
comes out in the very near future, with this film on the disc, as
well as five of our other shorts.
So budget, well a very rough estimate (as I am writing this well after
the production is finished) would be around £70/80. Which
aside for purchases on our first 2 movies that included and capture
card, camera and some firearms, is well, probably our most expensive
yet! But with future sales very near, will also be the first time
that we have been paid!