Monday, May 19, 2008

The Stone Unturned

I was viciously attacked by a tick a couple of Saturdays ago when I was doing the “Mr Big Shot Director” thing again. Against all common sense,I was lying down in the grass trying to get a good dramatic (too melodramatic!) angle on a couple of the actors. That the grass was above a cave entrance and I have a fear of heights too, meant that I wasn't really doing myself any favours that weekend.

The Stone Unturned is an Intrepid script by Brian Matthews, that despite the gratuitous and unnecessary use of the word 'intergalactic', managed to combine a good old adventure story with the return of an old character from TNG. Naturally, you'd have to pay a negative amount of attention not to notice that it was in fact a certain Picard, played by Giles Aston. Coverage of the event appeared in the Dundee Courier as well as the slightly more widely viewed BBC website.

My task over the weekend was to direct the scenes with Giles in them, as we had a limited amount of time while he was in Dundee. This led to the most intensively scheduled shooting of anything we've done so far. I'll describe the three days in separate posts when I have the chance, but the important thing to note here is that we got the shots we needed and I managed not to lose it to any significant degree.

Shooting the scenes took us to many exotic locales; the magnificent hills outside Dunkeld, the ancient city of Arbroath and Nick's Kitchen. Or perhaps that should be Lucie's Kitchen, depending on which one of them actually prepares the most meals.

“Mr Big Shot Director” is what my girlfriend called me just before we started. I'm almost certain there was no sarcasm involved.

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