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We had planned to do two filming days this week, but we only had enough stuff for one and a half. So we took the bold step of trying to complete everything in a day. We want to make the most of your money and although it’s a huge amount, it doesn’t stretch too far when it comes to the costs of filming, so we have to cut a few corners. The last scene was a night shoot which meant we thought we’d have to shoot that after 9.30 and wrap around midnight. But we had to do the first scene before 11.30am. Which meant an 8pm start. It was going to be a long day.
But I was going to be hanging out with some pals old and new and my work is essentially just playing. So no complaints here. In fact I was delighted we had a crew prepared to work long hours to get this stuff done.
I had hoped that we’d be filming in an area where it would be easy to drum up a few extras from local cafes or bars, but we were in Hackney Wick, in the shadow of the Olympic Dome and there wasn’t very much around. The first sketch involved me gathering the gang back together for the new series and discovering Dan Tetsell in reduced circumstances by a rank canal, doing a puppet show. There were supposed to be a couple of kids idly watching him, but in the end it was funnier that he was doing it to no one. Filming outside is beset with problems and we got to experience most of them. On the plus side all the venues were within a tight radius, but they were also under a flight path and the first one had a train line about a hundred metres away. And filming also had to be interrupted when a couple of very drunk Russian men were walking along the opposite bank, drinking from cans and shouting and then boarding a little motorboat (which I am guessing didn’t belong to them, or they would have swapped it for lager) and inexpertly trying to break into it to steal a bike. They failed. We should have just filmed that. It had more to say than anything we could come up with.
Things passed smoothly, though I had to go on a thirty minute walk to buy the crew some coffee. I bet Adam Sandler wouldn’t do that. In fact no one would do any of this stuff apart from me. I tried to repress the nagging fear that everything we were doing was terrible and this was a tragic way for a 49 year old man to behave - begging for money to make his low quality sketches. But I quickly repressed these feelings, accepting them for the truth they are and counting my blessings that there are a few thousand people out there happy to indulge me.
Our camera assistant, Matt, discovered an unexpected skill for making a plastic Punch doll appear to be sinking into the canal. Work hard at school or you will end up doing that for a job, like him.
On to a nearby German deli, which like the motorcycle clothing shop we’d filmed in was largely devoid of customers. Unsurprisingly given its isolated position. But the people who did come loved and appreciated and it was run by friendly and helpful people, who didn’t seem to be expecting us, but nonetheless welcomed us into their business. Dan bought some special European Haribo that you can’t usually get in the UK (it was much nicer than any UK Haribo), Emma arrived and it was a bit like the old days. Except we were sitting outside a German deli.
They had a spare room that we were going to use as a bar, where I find Emma with her celebrity friends. None of Emma’s celebrity friends had wanted to be in the sketch, but again our failure to book anyone had turned into an advantage, as it was much funnier to be able to imagine any celeb we wanted, waiting, off-screen for Emma to return with drinks.
We dined on German sausage, sauerkraut and weird German pasta, which the German deli kindly gave us for free. If you find yourself in Hackney, or even if you don’t and just want to buy strange and wonderful German produce, then please pop in to this shop.
It’s worth it for the Haribo.
We completed these first two scenes in double quick time and then headed off to a nearby cafe where I was going to be wanking off Paul Putner in a doorway, through a flowery curtain. It wasn’t for one of the sketches. It was just one of his demands to appear in a later sketch. He’s changed.
This location was on a very busy road with loads of lorries going down it. I had envisaged this scene being clandestine, but in a way it was funnier for being so open, with people passing by and men coming along trying to get into the cafe, all pausing to read a sign saying “Hermione Hand Jobs - £10” on the door. Again all the noise and interruptions slowed us down, but Paul was super funny as always.
Finally we headed back to the German deli car park to film the other sketch, which was maybe going to take us up to midnight. Luckily though the car park was surrounded by a high wall which meant we could actually film in daylight and then make it look like night in post production. So we wouldn’t be here until midnight. Unluckily it had started to persistently drizzle, I was pretty knackered and we didn’t seem to be having much joy in finding a dozen or so people to be a long toilet queue that was required for the sketch.
I did some tweets, hoping people would be falling over themselves to be a part of AIOTM and internet history. But Hackney Wick is quite isolated and it looked like we wouldn’t be able to do it.
Another last minute tweet was retweeted by the lovely Richard Osman and at 6pm a man called Neil arrived who seemed a bit surprised to be our only queue-ee. But then a group of young people showed up and we corralled some more from the pizza restaurant opposite. The woman who worked at the German deli was keen to be involved too. We had 12 people and a dog. It was exactly what we needed.
Thanks to the magic of AIOTM we got their shots in half an hour and then carried on with the tricky work of completing a mildly complex sketch in the rain, when everyone was tired and wanted to go home. I managed to make some good cuts that helped things fizz along (and improved the sketch) and the only major problem was that as I got wetter it meant there was no way that the scenes we were shooting now would fit in with the bits we’d done with the queue earlier.
But we don’t have the money to stop filming and I hope our audience will accept some mild continuity errors in the spirit that they are committed. Get over yourself. It’s not actually real you know. Why did my shirt suddenly get dry again? Because it’s pretend.
We will no doubt make some comic mileage out of this.
We were done by 8.15pm, having “worked" a 12 hour day. We were wet and one of our radio mics had packed up. But thanks to Andrew Rodger, Matt and Duncan for their fantastic and cut price work. I (alone in the showbiz world I think) am determined to reward the goodwill that I have received from people like these - I hope I can get them some more lucrative work in the future, but I will not forget their generosity). And to the dirty dozen who turned up to queue for an imaginary toilet. We got one and three quarter sketches done today. And have another one and three quarters in the can. So that’s nearly four sketches from three days of filming. I hope you will like them.
I had had a second wind and didn’t feel too bad by the time we’d finished. I drove Paul part of the way home. Lovely as always to chat to this magnificent specimen of humanity. Like me, he also gets lost of casting offers to play perverts. It’s nice we’re still friends despite being rivals in this competitive market.
And that’s more or less me done with work until our holiday is over in late August. I might try and write a couple more sketches before we go (and it’s hard to stop the brain working over time on holiday). But I feel like I’ve earned a break and am really looking forward to seeing how AIOTM will turn out.
