I had my actor hat on today as we continue forward trying to finish filming The Curse of The Jester. If I have it right then I only have one more bit to do now but today I was shooting a sequence with Sara-Louise in front of a green screen so who knows what is going to be happening behind us. 

Incidentally, you can watch Sara-Louise performing on The Random Sessions here and just for shits and giggles I made a badly edited mash up of her cover of 'House of the Rising Sun' with John Otway's famous call-and-response rendition which you can see here. 

The Curse of the Jester was originally a series but now is being made into a film by editing old footage with newly filmed scenes. We were up until recently filming in sequential order which is unusual but at least we know where we are. However today we went out of sequence and we still need to fill in the gaps left in the story when we filmed in Matlock last summer. 

This has been a great project to work on especially given how Glenn has been making this film on a non-existent budget (I don't usually work for free these days but I am supporting this project out of admiration for his vision and hard work behind the camera and in the edit). Not only is he filming it he is also doing all of the editing as he goes so that he will have a film in much quicker time than if he had to edit from scratch. The vast majority of the dialogue is improvised too so this is just the type of film making I am into, quick and easy. By cocking a snook at such formality as asking permission to film in a specific area things get done a lot quicker.

****

Enjoyed this blog?

Please make a donation using the PayPal button at the top of the page. It all goes towards creating comedy sketches, documentaries, films, podcasts and more, and in return for your generosity everything created will be released online totally free of charge.

You can help to remove the word 'underfollowed' from my bio by following me (and recommending that others do the same) on Twitter and Facebook 

Still from the film (c) Glen Leach

I had to go through diaries again (good job I log every move by way of diaries, receipts, notebooks and never throwing everything away) to work out when I had filmed my part as a less than sympathetic psychiatrist in the second instalment of The Curse of the Jester. As it turns out it was November last year although it probably felt longer ago because the time scale between filming something and that something being made public can seem like years. 

The episode although written by Glen (who also directed and played Jeff, the character who finds the doll) was largely improvised and we have left it rather a long time before even thinking about the next step. We all seem to have trouble synchronising availability but this evening I was able to meet with Glen to set the wheels in motion for the next chapter of the story. One of Glen's plans is to edit the episodes together into a film, but I suggested re-shooting the whole thing as a movie instead, an idea that will tidy up any continuity issues and cover up the fact that some actors might not be available from one episode to the next. 

Although acting is only a small part of the feathers in my cap, it was a lot of fun to be a part of this. What is admirable is the looseness with which we managed to get this episode together. As I have written before, the scene with the two doctors on a cigarette break was pretty much all improvised with Scott Taylor running rings around me and it was difficult to know when to come in. This wasn't made any easier by the police occasionally driving past to see what we were up to (I know from experience that obtaining permission to film is like pulling teeth so whenever possible it is best to simply not bother. 

The purpose of this evening was about finding out where the story goes next and although we came up with some good set pieces, it was difficult to get to them without contradicting what had happened before. We have pretty much got the gist of what we need to do but now we need to sort availability and get all the same cast together if possible. As long as we remember not to ask permission we'll be fine.

===

You can help me to remove the word 'underfollowed' from my Twitter bio by following me @SteveOliver76

Ditto on Facebook

Subscribe to my YouTube channel