ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE...

It is (Most of the time)... I figured I would try and keep these post titles named after movies, which fits in quite nicely with what I wanted to talk about this week. You see this week I got to work with one of the best Bands that we've had through our doors at Mycho, Wigan based Sinnergod. But also featuring on their track 'It's A Wonderful Life' was Ex-Iron Maiden singer Blaze Bayley, which any of you who know me will know that this was a huge deal for me being that Maiden are one my biggest inspirations when it comes to my own Metal outfit Subject 7.

But thats enough name dropping from me ;) This blog is mainly about sourcing locations and getting the right one. It's fine if you are shooting your own projects, but when you've been hired to do a job, and there's a chance you could be removed from your set at anytime, the pressure is well and truly on.

Cut to : 
The woods in Longridge last Wednesday, I had been to scout the place about a week before and everything seemed OK. A filmmaker friend of mine had tipped me off about the location and where to find it and so we headed up there to take a look. Of course as I knew it would be, it was perfect for what the band had asked for, so we knew it had to be here.

It was at this point that we hit a problem, I had ben told that there was a 'caretaker' of sorts that patrolled the area, so we decided we would need permission to use the woods, even though it was public land. So we tried in vein to find the man who could give us permission. We failed. So without a better plan, My other half, thanks to a husband of a friend, managed to get us written permission from the police in the hopes that we would be able to use that to convince the 'warden' that we should be allowed there should he appear during the shoot.

So the morning of the shoot arrives and of course the forecast was thunder and lightning, still we braved the woods. Which btw was nowhere near where we had to park, and so it was down to us to carry everything and a generator up to the inaccessible woods. 

Oh yeah, that right, a Generator. Generators as a rule are not very light and to add the fun we had to then get it up a hill that was difficult to climb to begin with. You see, the reason I realized that we would need permission was because of 2 things. Generators make a lot of noise, which I knew would draw attention and of course the other thing that was louder than a generator were 'drums'. If it hadn't been for these two things, I would have just let the cops know that we had replica guns and shot then just kept my head low whilst we were shooting, as the last thing you want on a professional shoot is the police turning up ready to shoot you. But of course keeping a low profile is hard when you have an entire band playing in an open area situated next to a public foot path.

Luckily with a bit of praying to the gods and a lot of help from my team and loved ones and the band who sourced all the costume elements and even some very talented make-up artists and with the added elements of having one of my heavy metal heroes appearing on set whilst we were behind, We came out the other side with some of the best stuff we have ever produced.

And no one got shot... not in real life anyway... or did they? ;)

MJ