PERNICKETY DAY 6

Day 6 at the Walnut Tree hotel in North Petherton started off promising, as we arrived an hour earlier than anticipated, but then it swiftly went a bit pear-shaped. After carrying up the kit, James and I went into Taunton to get some props from Sainsbury's, then onto the rugby club to pick up a mini-bus that was supposed to be used for taking the dolly and kit back to Bristol later in the day. James filled the tank from a Jerry can, and then got in and turned the key. The engine made disapproving noises. He tried again, again and then a short pause. It sounded like it was dying! And it was!

We then drove (in James car) to his friend's work place to see if we could borrow his van for the day. No problem, but not till after two o'clock... ok, so we go back to the hotel and get on with setting up as quickly as possible. As I wasn't paying to use the room, Claire (receptionist) said we had to finish up by two. For all the other days of the shoot we didn't have time limits, so the pressure felt unusual and unpleasant. But, we only had one scene to shoot, so surely, it wouldn't take long?!

It was great to have Matt around today, (see above, the man below the dangling knickers) a fresh face and another person to witness the eccentricities of Gordon Pernick... the room was better than I remembered, and the twin beds worked a treat to add further awkwardness to Gordon's naive disposition. Set dressing was fun - flinging underwear around the room and messing everything up... I think the boys got a kick out of the situation we were setting up and there was certainly enough laughter to prove the affirmative.

Here's Nick eating some ridged Hoola Hoops on the (closed) toilet, taking a short respite in between takes. The first part of this scene took no less than 15 takes, a record number for the shoot... I really believe it was the time constraint that was putting us on edge... and there was a lot for Gordon to interact with as well...

The last of the nasty figurines, Gertrude, loses her head in this scene, but she also lost her arm, due to Nick's over-enthusiastic handling of her... but instead of fretting, we turned it into another comedy moment. Maybe the young couple deliberately broke her and stuffed her broken arm up into her neck!!! Yes, that'll work...


Some hilarious video clips of the boys playing with pants and figurines... they'll probably kill me for this...