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Hi everybody, I wanted to take a moment to thank everybody involved in the shoot a week ago at the NSC.
There are a lot of people to be grateful to! If I forget anyone here feel free to poke me with a stick. Apart from the special mention for Gareth anf Geordie at the start, please understand there is no running order of thanks here, so those at the top of the list are not favoured more than those at the bottom. Just sayin'!
First off though, I want to thank Gareth. Apart from helping with tech preparation before the shoot, G endured very little sleep over the weekend and yet managed to drive all the way from Kent to the NSC via the camera hire depot, via an improvised stop to pick up a trailer due to the large camera/gear load, and then all the way back to Kent. This, in addition to working as sound recordist on the shoot even when he got really ill.
After the shoot Gareth was with me while I did the edit from Sunday afternoon, through the night and on to midday Monday when we had to upload the video. During that time he was tasked with correcting the sound levels on his Mac as well as doing a pre-edit of Sean and Jo’s narration. In short, he was absolutely brilliant and there’s no way I could have cut the film without him there. Did I mention he cooked pizza, too? So a huge Brian Cox type grin and universe sized thanks to you Gareth.
Geordie saved our bacon, too. I had anticipated a 9.30pm wrap but after various difficulties during the day we actually left the NSC at 1.15am. This was only possible due to Geordie taking Harry and Tom home, along with all of Harry’s lighting gear. Since there wasn’t room to take Harry and Tom in Gareth’s car with us, without Geordie we would all have been stuck. The detour was well out of Geordie's way and he eventually got home at 6.30am! All this on top of him assisting Harry during the shoot and being a player in Mission Control.
Thanks again mate, I truly appreciate everything you did.
Thanks to everyone for the nice words about Mum and Dad, they were absolute stars and enabled me to worry less about not insignificant things like catering and dashing out for props, etc. And Mum sewed a couple of patches on the suit as well. Big thanks to them, they were amazing. They had a great time and commented how nice my friends are. Which is true. You are all great.
Harry – once again on hand to light our sets and actors. We didn’t have time to light everything, more’s the pity and you can see the difference lighting makes in shots where there is none.
You did a great job my friend (as always) and worked your arse off (as usual) and (again, as usual) kept a positive mental attitude, had good ideas and were always fun to be around. Which is why I like hanging around with you so much. (Excepting those public toilets at Liverpool Street train station, that, not so much.)
Thank you mate, I always enjoy working with you. Harry sent me a cool postcard after the shoot, a cool renticular picture of Mars no less. Very thoughtful.
Rosie Jones was amazing. She loved film when she saw it and said how much she’d enjoyed the shoot and working with everybody. That reflects on us all so its really nice to hear.
That space suit is bloody hot and she endured it for nearly two hours. And she didn’t complain once. Even when I offered to break she’d rather keep going which helped the schedule enormously. After the shoot she drove all the way home because she had another shoot in Holland the next day. She got home at 3.20am!
She is a natural actress and a consummate professional. Which is one of the reasons she’s the hottest cover girl in the country right now, having appeared on the cover of FHM, Loaded and just about everywhere else. And she was recently in a Bryan Ferry video. She’s extremely smart and incredibly beautiful and all at the tender age of 20 years old. And what a lovely personality. Good natured people are not easy to find but when you do find them they’re a pleasure to work with. I don’t know what else to say about Rosie apart from she’s just simply awesome!
And out of everybody’s league!
Richie Bohach was extremely generous with his time, money and skill and designed and fabricated the very cool helmet in addition to the front and back packs that helped make Rosie look so authentic as an astronaut. I've long been an admirer of the work that he, Steve and Danita did on their Alien space suit project, so it was an honour to have him as part of team Legacy. The helmet looked amazing and had no shortage of admirers. Thanks once again Richie!
Seán and Jo turned up and recorded their dialogue as audio and then later filmed a few bits to camera. They turned up around 2pm I think but I didn’t actually get around to shooting them until midnight. They hung around for all that time and were nothing but cool in the process. These are two people who you can tell absolutely adore acting. It was a pleasure to see them work and they nailed it perfectly. I only wish I could’ve spent more time with them in this capacity. Cheers guys, you were top drawer!
Tom was a revelation. Two days before the shoot we lost our leading man. Fortunately, Harry came to the rescue and suggested Tom. He had a great intensity about him and nailed a great US accent. So pleased he stepped in and did such a fantastic job.
All the guys and gals in Mission Control. Again, everyone here was a complete pro. We went through those scenes pretty quick in fact. You were all spot on and we did almost everything in a single take. You need bodies in those scenes and thanks to you it looks pretty authentic. Once more, thank you to everyone for hanging around so late so that we could achieve this.
Darren was perfect as the US astronaut and didn’t he do well with his accent? Well done mate, it was asking a lot but you rose to the challenge. Great to have a drink with you after the shoot, too. And Darren took some nice pix on his iPhone. And his BSG flight suit has finally been immortalised on film which means D can no feel OK about flogging it! Looked good, bud.
Andy Gardener – natch! Great to see you again mate and I hope it’s not too long before we next share a bottle.
Rita, Darren's girlfriend stood in for Rosie for the final shot of the night at the hotel. I needed to shoot Tom’s hand on Rosie’s leg and Rita stood in so that Rosie could make the long drive home. Well done Rita, I owe you a few drinks! You rock!
Richard, Anne and Lee, again, thank you my friends. Your acting was top notch and it was great to see you having fun with the parts. Which is one of the reasons the Alien Encounter always goes down so well because you just own the roles you play. More than that, it was good to just see you again and I hope we run into each other again soon at one of the Cons. Bravo, gentlemen! And lady!
While we were all sitting in the sand on the Mars set, knocking back cocktails, Gemma was in London where she had to pick up out line of dialogue, prop list and film title that we had to make out film with. Without Gemma going down to the Apollo cinema to do this we would have all been stuffed. So thanks Gemma, you are a super girl and we all missed you on the shoot!
DATA – Steve – top man as usual. Always a positive mental attitude, always a smile and a laugh; always a top man to be around. I am always pleased to see Steve and he brings a warmth to wherever he is like no-one else I know. And you worked your ass off brother! Thanks for helping Rosie on the Mars set with that space helmet and props. It was great to have you there. Look forward to to seeing you again soon when we can trade whiskies and Southern Comforts once more!
Some of you know JC from my Alien Fan doc. He’s the big Scot lad who works as art director at Zoo magazine (you know, the one with all the naked chicks, lucky fella). Since he already knows Rosie and had worked with her at Loaded I asked him to come down and look after her on set with costume, etc. He relished working on this film and was a big help all round and again, another cool and cheery person to have around. Great to see him as always and he’s a mega genre fan like the rest of us and I know he’s really interested in costuming up as a Colonial Marine. Here’s hoping he joins us sometime! He’s a great guy.
Russell, my brother who most of you know, is living in Vancouver right now and he did the newspaper covers that run alongside the end credits. Even though he was on a work deadline he put all that to one side to be part of our film Great work, bro and thanks so much for contributing. Great to have you talents on board!
Malika, I have always said, has probably the coolest job of anyone I know. Who wouldn’t want Malika’s job? Thing is though, there are probably very few of us that could actually do it. Without Malika you could erase from history all of the Alien Encounters, all the Sci-Fi Weekends and basically a whole lot of wonderful memories. For a lot of people here, some of our fondest memories. None of that or our shoot would have ever happened if it wasn’t for Malika. So, if only to embarrass her further, I send a big wet kiss to thank her for making our film possible. Cheers missus, you are bloody marvellous!
I would like to ask everybody if they could send me a CD with any pictures they took on the day, or if they could post them on a site where I can download them. Then I will make a souvenir book of the shoot with shots of the film. You’ll all be credited and be able to download it and print it off or order an edition form the Apple store if you fancy.
In closing, I can honestly say this has been the biggest group effort that I’ve ever been involved in film wise. I’ve been on much bigger and professional productions, sure but on this shoot we all pulled together and if you took anyone out of the loop it would have simply fallen apart. So you can all be proud of yourselves – of ourselves – and know that we all did our best despite being tired and hard worked. Which is all you can ever hope for from anybody. That alone made it worthwhile, and you all have my heartfelt gratitude and respect.
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Geordi has left Harris Station en route for his home base.
Well done folks, very, very impressive, especially for the short amount of time taken.