Round and round we go ...

One of my more interesting experiences over the last month or so was to participate(in a small way) in the making of a short film destined for Tropfest and other film festivals (Cannes anyone?). Produced and directed by the delightful S & J, it was a wordy little art piece starring (of course) my Beloved Mumford as "Stan" and filmed at the historic carousel down at Semaphore.

We arrived bright an early (well, I was bright and it was early) on location - the first there but soon joined by the wonderful crew and the carousel custodian. This wonderful old man knew everything there was to know about the carousel and needed only slight encouragement to expound on its history, features and maintenance to anyone who would listen.

Unfortunately, there was little time to sit back and listen to an interesting yarn. Determined to be helpful, I immediately got stuck into taping cardboard and yards of black material over the dormer windows to exclude the natural light while my Beloved and his leading lady were made up, costumed and coiffed. At the same time lights, camera and sound were being prepared by those who actually knew what they were doing, and S was running through the quite complicated blocking with her two stars. This was particularly challenging for my Beloved as while the leading lady really only had to sit on one horse, he had to move from one to the other on cue - all the while reciting some very stylised and quite tricky dialogue.


At last we were ready to shoot, choosing (of course) the final scene to start with. This is where the real work for us unskilled crew began! The carousel had to move, of course, but slowly. Much too slowly for the mechanism so all carousel moving had to be done by hand.

The Custodian, the Writer and I became the carousel pushing team (being otherwise redundant on set), charged with getting the thing going smoothly, keeping it going at a dignified pace and - most importantly - keeping out of camera shot! Not as easy as it sounds as moving the damned thing was basically the equivalent of push starting a medium sized car. And no grunting please ...

Actually, we discovered that pushing it in its intended direction was not too bad. The difficulty came in pushing it back - which had to be done for every take and, of course, every time an actor fluffed a line. Which, given the wordy nature of the script, happened with back breaking frequency.

STAN: But you haven't given me another chance! (actual line: But you haven't given me a chance)

"Carousel back!!!!" Heave ...

STAN: But you haven't given me a chance! (Incorrect pronunciation of "chance" with short rather than long 'a')

"Carousel back!!!!" Heave ...

STAN: But you haven't given me a chance! (Perfect delivery, marred only by plane going overhead or truck rumbling past)

"Carousel back!!!!" Heave ...

Fortunately all this pushing back and forth was interspersed with frequent breaks (as my Beloved says - the catch cry of film making is "Hurry up and wait!") and fabulous food supplied by the Writer. Bugger the diet! Expending this amount of energy surely entitles one to a chip or two ...

Naturaly the shoot went over time, so by the end of the day we were all looking a bit like this ...

The exhausted team were all treated to a bang up meal at the pub - congratulations all round and a fabulous day.

And I get my first film credit ...