Splendid: The Official Trailer

Splendid: Pilot - Production Diary Part 7.

DAY SEVEN:

Weapons Shop, more Sound FX and Police Raid.

Continuing in Elstree studios, we had lots of material to get through. The schedule looked crazy with two full sketches and two studio-based scenes for the sketch we shot on Day three: Sound FX. First up was Weapons Shop by Piers Beckley. This sketch had caused me all sorts of anxiety. I could never quite grasp it like everyone else had in the writers meetings, but it stayed in the pilot schedule regardless, challenging me to work with it. On Day Six I entered the studio with a good nights sleep behind me and felt fresh and full of energy. I started to talk about Weapon Shop with the actor Stephen Evans and it suddenly clicked.
By the time we started rolling I knew we had something special and completely different from the rest.
It called me to approach the sketch in a completely different way from all the rest, with me being interactive with the character standing in front of the camera.
Some of the crew looked at me quizzically as I started shouting at "Norman", the main character, and a few even looked worried.
It was enormous fun, with each take becoming more and more crazy and funnier and funnier. I've never done anything quite like it before, and I'm incredibly excited about it.


After the adrenaline rush of Weapon Shop
we moved on to two scenes that will go at thefront of the Sound FX sketch.




They are both set in the seventies, and after a lot of
fun with costumes and a very loose run thru,
the actors improvised the sketches.


The final sketch of the day caused me a little bit of stress, because out of the all the sketches we were filming this one was my own. It's called Police Raid and I quickly found that whilst I was happy with how we were bringing it to life, I must confess that directing other people's sketches is much more stimulating and rewarding. For some reason it's more liberating as a director to have someone else's work that you can build upon with visual ideas and performance ideas with the actor, but with your own, you feel restricted in some way. Hard to explain, but it did convince me that should the series be commissioned I would not write any more sketches.

After saying all that, I was very happy with the results. The sketch breaks down into three scenes,and the actual 'police raid' itself was hugely fun. We had authentic riot gear and it was high paced, frenetic stuff. Again, very different from everything else we had shot.





It was a brilliant day. probably my favorite, as there was so much invention and improvisation. Within the structure of the scripts we had a lot of scope for ideas and inspiration, so I felt like I had been able to cut loose a little and really have fun.

The next day was our last day of the shooting block, incredible as that seemed. It felt odd. Time had passed so quickly, and yet we had achieved so much.

Our locations for Day 8 were exteriors, and all the forecasts predicted rain all day...

Splendid: Pilot - Production Diary Part 5.

DAY FIVE:

PILOTS

We travelled to Stanstead airport to begin work on one of my favorite sketches, Jason Arnopp's PILOTS.
I already knew that the cockpit set we were going to use needed a LOT of work, but I must admit to taking a large gulp when we arrived on Friday morning. As you can see above, the set was barely 50% complete and needed a lot of hard work to get it put together.
The set itself had been built, for a now defunct television series set aboard an airline, and all the components of the cockpit had been dissembled and stacked away in an aircraft hangar.
Jamie, the art director, had slaved over the cockpit the previous day and had figured out what went where, and where all the piece had been placed. it was our job, to physically put the cockpit together and make the electrics convincing too! it was quite a task.

Originally, we were to shoot another sketch that day, set in a nearby fuselage set, but I had already taken the sad decision to drop it the evening before, as Jamie had estimated we would probably spend the morning putting the cockpit together and I decided it would better to put all our energies into realizing the PILOTS sketch and not rush it.

The other knock-on effect of the extra work required on the cockpit was for our set to be filmed on Day Six, Badger Facts. Jamie and I split the team into two. Half of us worked on the cockpit, and the rest worked on the Badger facts set.

From 9am-1pm a group of us worked with hammers, screwdrivers,
pots of paint and electrics, to fix the cockpit together inside the hangar.
Even the actors picked up screwdrivers and chipped in with the work that needed doing. It was like an enormous mechano set!

Meanwhile, the other half of our team worked outside the hangar on the lawn, painting & paper-macheting our Badger Facts set dressing.
It was very surreal to see giant mushrooms being painted in the middle of Stanstead airport.


As lunchtime approached, and the cockpit started to take shape, we turned the monitor on and looked at the cockpit.
After all the hard work that everyone had put in the results were very very satisfying. It looked brilliant!

We filmed PILOTS all afternoon, and the actors really enjoyed playing the parts of Captain and First Officer inside a completely authentic Boeing 737 cockpit. In the end, we had to drag them out of there!

On reflection, it was a shame we had to drop a sketch. but it was always designed as a bonus, so it will live for another day. In all the days that we shot the Splendid pilot, this was the most satisfying day, because of the amount of hard work that everyone put in, and the incredible results we achieved.

Thank you to Jamie Bishop, art director, extraordinaire.

Splendid: Pilot. The full story.

Hello.
Here I am in the photo to the left, on a mission, with actors Stephen Evans and Richard David Glover.

When you've done a load of shoots over the years, you get used to the highs and lows and general craziness.
One thing you don't normally get, is the feeling that you've you've got exactly what you've set out to achieve. Until now.
Eight days of filming, and sixteen sketches later, and I can honestly say we have got something pretty damn special in the bag.
The entire cast and crew worked incredibly hard to pull off some of the craziest and most difficult stuff that the ambitious scripts called for.
From rainforests to airline cockpits. Chickens, wizards, badgers, police riots and dogs wearing wigs. Just a sample of the silliness we brought to life.

I'm not the sort to crow about things, it's not my bag really, I prefer the work to speak for itself. But it would be utterly remiss of me to not report on the incredible work that my team did over the filming period, and beyond.

I'm going to write up a production diary with lots of behind-the-scenes snaps over the coming weeks, but for now, here are a few to start us off (courtesy of lovely runner Philip Higgs).


Here is Jamie Bishop. Our absolute hero of an art director.
His work creating sets and props was simply amazing. The man never slept!
Here he is painting a badger.






Here I am with Johnny "Caution" Harrison.
This man is a legend. He worked tirelessly to keep the shoot going, and held onto the purse-strings like a bulldog.
Behind him is the reason he looks so nervous. A large pane of glass...




Here I am giving people the idea I can actually read.
Sitting beside me is a true artist. Richard Swingle, DOP.
Rich works quietly and brilliantly. Switching between garish children's TV set to medieval cave to suburban nightmare, without breaking a sweat.







Here's Jamie again, to the right, with Dill, a man who holds everything together. An absolute star.
On the end is Siobhan our wonderful make-up artist, who is very possibly the most lovely and talented make-up artist I have ever worked with. And that little face in the middle is the extraordinary Suzie Irlam. Often on a shoot you can point your finger at people and say that none of it would be possible without them. She is one of those people. Suzie never stops making things happen. She is an incredible person and nearly half my age, so i hate her. But If she doesn't become a major producer one day, I'll be very surprised indeed.