Sunday 3 March 2013

A Day at the Races - Behind the Scenes.

Betting on donkeys... should have come on dog racing night!
In Episode 5 the lads from the band resort to petty gambling to solve their money problems and find themselves at a Horse racing track. Once again, script writing needed another set to be made. How was I going to build a Racecourse!? I dragged my feet for a long time with this idea, and I had a few trial goes with green screen and a garage window that could have looked like a betting office, but it just didn't look right. So, I resorted to what I always do when I'm stuck; I started fussing over detail instead.

Love this poster, it's all over the place were I live.

I was thinking about what pictures I could put on walls to make it look like a track and I remembered seeing the same poster in and around where I live for years and years. It advertises the Horse and the Dog racing in Gt Yarmouth Stadium and it's bright and colourful. I went out and took a picture of one, printed it out the size I wanted and instantly felt this was the best way to illustrate the set. Meanwhile, Martin had built a sound effect loop of people bustling around outside with a few 'horse whinnies' added for good luck. That sounded really good, so he suggested we shoot it outside to be in keeping with the audio. The only space I had outside at my house was along a fence to the side of my garden. We printed out a couple more quick horse race looking posters and I staple-gunned them to the fence. The effect was much better than either of us had hoped and the audio really helped to set the atmosphere.
Ruining the illusion.. no horses anywhere!
The only down side was that kneeling on concrete during a cold Sunday in February, was not a barrel of laughs. Although Martin nearly falling through a fence panel during one shot was a particular highlight!

The Fifth had been a really fun episode to film, as we had got hold of a new piece of equipment that was proving invaluable - a separate monitor screen! Martin's Father in Law, Roy, had given it to us from the cab of his truck. Once Martin had set it up, it solved almost all of our filming issues. The camera only has a playback screen mounted on the left hand side, so if you are on the other side it's impossible to see what the camera is picking up. This small TV screen can be set up on the floor by our scripts and we can both see exactly what we are recording… If only we had had it sooner!*

Great bit of kit, it even flips the image for ease of use! Genius...
*NB. We had had it sooner, it was laying in Martins roof for months. haha.

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