Adventures in Filmland 2

I'm in my apartment in the student village on campus at the University of Ulster. It's a sunflower yellow bunker, with an en suite shower and toilet. There's a desk, some towels and a fat, brown Bible, because this is still Northern Ireland. The bed is narrow and the duvet is weighted somewhere between gossamer and luxury toilet tissue. The mattress crackles like vinyl and may well be water proof. The radiator is on even though it is two in the afternoon. It's purpose-built, on site, for the student campus, so it is unlike any student accommodation I've ever experienced. 

When I was a student, thirty years ago, the digs were cannibalised boxrooms in rotting, Victorian housing stock. You got a bed, a wardrobe and a communal area that smelled of boiling pulses, which you had to share with feral engineering students, who worked out the student union bar was subsidised and were, in turn, subsidising it. I lived three years in a fug of inescapable beer farts. Though you had to keep the bedroom window open to avoid the carbon monoxide poisoning anyway. 

So, this is obviously better. It's quiet here and I like it. I brought an alarm clock from home, and it's ticking softly on the desk next to the bed. And while this place has the ambiance of the functional made jolly, like a kindergarten or a rehab centre, I find it private and restful. I wonder how much Covid has impacted on my ability to be around people. I'm finding continued conversation exhausting. I'm sure I used to be voluble (loud) and amusing (over-bearing) in company, but that was a year and a half ago, and I was in a pub. Susan and I lead a quiet life - she often works nights, so I spend the days creeping around in silence. I fear my banter game has taken a kicking. I hide out in my little yellow box. I think, at this point, I'd deal very well with institutionalisation. Somewhere there is a Gulag with my name on it.

The first day is...interesting. Bruce Robinson, at the outset of filming "Withnail and I", gathered cast and crew together to explain to them that, while he was the director of the film, he had no idea what he was doing, as he'd never directed anything before. With Bruce, a charming and handsome man, and younger then than I am now,  it worked - the crew backed him to the hilt. I chose to do the same but, crucially, by example. An hour into filming I think it was clear to everyone I'd never directed anything before. Ever. It was galvanising for them. 

In reality directing is two things: saying "action" and saying "cut". By lunchtime on the first day I had mastered the former. The latter proved more complicated. Everything I know about films I learned from watching films, and in films, at a scene's huge emotional climax, the director says "cut" immediately and starts conferring with one of his many minions, so they can move on to the next bit. In real life you leave a really, really long gap at the end of the scene, so the editor has a bit more cloth to cut. It was a lesson I nearly learned, but even on day three my premature ejaculations of "Cut!" were spaffing all over perfectly good takes.  If there's a next time, I'll know better. 

At lunch I am unable to open a sachet of mayonnaise because of a broken thumb that never fixed properly. I give up and hope no one notices. The director can show no weakness - you have to stay strong for the crew. 

On the first day we get everything we needed to get, plus miles of extra coverage. With a skeleton crew - and our skeleton had bone density issues - and with everybody chipping ideas in, you can get a lot done. It doesn't hurt that we had a single actor in a single, multifaceted location, but our sheer speed and adaptability was impressive. I think our agility and our peculiar professional backgrounds gave us an interesting perspective on what could be done. And I think my own ignorance of what was achievable was a tremendous boon. I asked for ridiculous things and Simon, the camera man, after a moment's thought, always found ways to do them.

I make Nicky, the actor, say ludicrous words in silly costumes, and she turns them into something human and beautiful. She's genuinely funny and an incredible improviser - I ruin several takes sniggering audibly at her comic stylings. 

At the end of the day I'm exhausted. This is like actual work: moving around, thinking, answering questions, running up and down stairs, attempting to talk. I lie down in my narrow bunk at night, and watch a documentary about Adam Ant. At some point the Travis song, "Sing", comes on. Ear worm for the next three bloody days. 

Bloody hell.