The Journey Begins...

For the Love of Ella - www.fortheloveofella.com

The journey really had begun. I had come across a fantastic, young and enthusiastic director, James Farina and we had signed up the two main leads; Ewen Macintosh and Lucy Drive. Ewen who was born onto our screens as the unforgettable Big Keith in Gervais and Merchant’s ground-breaking comedy ‘The Office’. I already knew actress and writer Lucy Drive and her beauty and superb acting was an obvious choice for Ella. But it was not quite at the Lights, Camera, Action! stage. We had no money, locations, cameo or support cast, crew or any equipment. Although we did have total belief in the production and blinding faith that can often be just enough to succeed.

Quite early on James and I decided to co-produce the comedy TV pilot episode, The Scientist, which would be part of a six-part series called For the Love of Ella. Fellow producers can be like a marriage and we needed both understanding and trust. I trusted James and he understood me.
We all have our own motivations and mine was to prove my old headmaster wrong. When I left school at age 16, Mr Ashman’s written comments about my 5 years at Edgecliff Comprehensive School read, ‘Simon sets himself very low standards, which he fails to achieve.’ Although these remarks were somewhat expected, I feel his words were still scarred from my untimely explosion in the science lab. After all there were no fatalities, the school was closed for just two weeks and skilled surgeons had worked hard, and although now hairless, the science teacher eventually returned to full time employment.

Both James and I started trawling for a solid and professional cast and crew. James organised the crew and I tackled the cast. On the back of James’ brilliant respected dark comedy short, Leu Doc, he very quickly established his objective, enticing some great names from the silver and big screen. Armed with my script and a unique ability to crawl, beg and even resort to blackmail I managed to establish a cameo cast that were all household names. Soon we had on board Alex Reid, Danny Peacock, Melanie Sykes, Bobby Ball, Francoise Pascal, Darren Day, Billy Pearce and many more, plus the one I blackmailed.

The locations were next on the list and we managed to secure the prestigious Prince Albert night club and cocktail bar for the opening scenes. Now we were paying expenses only, including accommodation and food. The Prince Albert is located in the heart of Wolverhampton so I booked us all into the accommodating Travelodge with a 24 hour open bar. I also picked the date for filming when the football team, Wolverhampton Wanderes, were playing at home. I must admit both supporters were quite rowdy and more plates were broken than in a Greek restaurant.
After a rather drunken away supporter ordered a pizza at 12:30am and the barman asked him if he wanted it cut into 6 or 12 pieces, he thought for a few seconds and said, ‘Six pieces, I couldn’t eat twelve!’ We decided to all retire to bed.

We were trying to save money, to obviously cut down on production costs and we had the cream of talent who had mostly driven up from London. There were 10 cars in total and it meant paying £8 a car to park at the train station during the day’s filming and a further £6 to park at the Travelodge during the night – which equated to £140 a day just for parking! And we were filming for three days which came to a staggering £420.

As I was in charge of the logistics I came up with what I thought a fantastic money saving plan. A good friend of mine had an Auto Transport Carrier that could get 5 cars below and 5 cars above - the ones you see delivering new cars at various garages. He happened to be available during the three days filming and said he would help out for free. Now a few hundred yards from the Prince Albert was an expensive car park but lorries could park there for £30 for a 24 hour period – I felt very proud of myself for this type of initiative.

So on the morning of the first day’s filming everyone drove their cars separately onto the transporter – all ten! Everyone sat in their cars and we pulled off the Prince Albert, with myself in the cab and we set off towards the car park round the corner, still very proud of myself. There the lorry would be parked up for three days at a cost of only £90. We could walk to the Tavelodge so that was not a problem morning or night.

Unfortunately as we travelled down the short duel carriageway to the main car park the lorry driver passed a police speed trap travelling at 55mph in a 50mph zone. The police further on pulled us over. I expected the lorry driver to receive the usually £100 fine in the form of a speeding ticket. What I thought was totally harsh was that he charged all the other 10 drivers sitting in their cars in the back of the truck – also a £100 fine. Obviously as the production company we had to pay every individual fine which came to £1,000. I am still fighting the case and have relinquished my role as logistics expert. You live but you don’t always learn.

 I refused to pay the find - but I have a good escape plan...