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Admonition Part 3 After that the team moved into the wooded area behind the main park entrance. With people busy on the set up (the flashback scene with the woman on the ground) nobody was paying much attention to their surroundings, so to this day nobody quite knows where he came from, but at one point somebody looked up to see a guy of maybe 15 or 16 standing a few feet away. He looked at the team for a moment, and then walked across to the far side of the small clearing they were using and disappeared into the trees never to be seen again. Things were getting weird. Of course during that scene Andy and Neil kept laughing at each other and it took three takes to actually get it, all the time with Ann Marie lying on the ground. The team then moved further down into the park to shoot the Dark Man POV shot of the couple. It went fine apart from the fact that Stephen was walking along a narrow ledge about thrity feet from the ground, with no support and no clue where he was going and thus nearly falling arse over tit with camera and all down the embankment. He managed to hang on though, and it makes for one hell of a strange shot. Next came the piece de resistence of the entire shoot - the shooting of the meeting between Dark Man and White Man, the most important scene in the film. The team used an archway located in a fairly isolated part of the park to shoot the scene for two reasons, one it looked great, and two, they were in a public park shooting illegally and one of the actors had to stand there with only his boxer shorts on. And it was really cold too. So, take 1. Neil approaches the archway. Somebody had come up with the bright idea that rather than have Terry standing there in just his boxers for 5 minutes, he shpuld actully wear his trousers and just drop them at the last minute, as the camera reveals him. Now this was all very well and good until Neil, deep in character, approches this guy in a dodgy grey wig who suddenly drops his trousers. Cue a superb outtake of Neil trying to hold in his laughter for about 1/2 a second and then failing miserably. Take 2. This time Terry lowered his trousers before action. So, midway through the scene what should happen but for Debbie, who was watching for people coming, to shout 'there's somebody coming'. In the next instance (Terry just managing to get his trousers back on) the set was invaded not just by people but by kids and dogs as well, one of which took a considerable liking to Terry's leg. Joy. Take 3. Finally the shot was done. Next came the over the shoulder dialogue shots which, despite Neil laughing, Terry forgetting his lines and missing his cue and the battery on the camera dying mid shot, the team somehow managed to complete. They then moved on to the final set-up, the entrance of Dark Man into the park, a set up which, apart from Andy straying into shot again and apart from being interupted by an American tourist waning to know what was going on, was completed realtively quickly. Or so they thought. On the bus on the way home Stephen suddenly realised that they hadn't shot White Man's POV of the earrings. Hence, a quick trip to Stephen's house, a brief role as camera person for Stephen's mother and the film was finally finished (note in this shot that it is actually Stephen holding the earrings, this being the second White Man scene with different lighting). Or was it? A new end: Over the next few days, Stephen and Ailish met to view the rushes in their entirity, and quickly realised that there was a huge problem; the ending wasn't very good. It was anticlimatic, it was dull, it was pretty crap as endings go. At this stage the ending was the last bus stop scene, the graveyard scene with Grey Man didn't even exist in the screenplay. As such, Stephen and Ailish hastily began to brainstorm and after a few days they hit on the idea of the graveyard scene to complement the opening scene (which they had only shot in the graveyard due to a half hearted suggestion by Neil). Stephen wrote the scene and gave it to Karol, who liked it, and on April 12, Stephen and Karol treked off to the graveyard to shoot and found the entire place fenced off. Of course being the consumate professionals that they are, they broke in, shot the scene and scarpered. Admonition was a wrap. Postproduction: With Debbie taking care of organising the editing, Stephen and Ailish scheduled the premier in St. Pats for April 29 and began the massive advertising campaign. However, after only a few days it became apparent to everybody that there was a delay in editing, but not a bad one, and so the premier was moved back to May 13, the last day of term before the summer exams. Again however, editing was delayed, and the premier had to be indefintely postponed until the following college year. This was a real shame as there was a definite buzz around the college in anticipation of the film, mainly due to all the shooting that had gone on on the grounds, and a very large audience was expected. When the film did finally receive its premier a year later this buzz was well and truly dead, and it showed on the night. In the meantime, during the summer months, Stephen made a roughcut of the film on VHS and Andy wrote the music, all the while Debbie continued to try to organise the editing facilities in Ballyfermot, where she was studying film. As time wore on, and as Stephen and Andy began to work together more and more on the music, it became apparent to Stephen that Andy should actually assist in the editing of the visuals, something which both Debbie and Ailish were excited about. Time went by. September stretched into October, October into November, November into December. Then finally, just before the Christams holidays, Debbie called Stephen to say that the editing had been organised for first thing in the New Year. So on January 28, Andy, Debbie and Stephen made their way to Bellyfermot to begin the long awaited job. It didn't go well. The machines didn't work properly at first, and then it took two hours to burn the time code into the rushes, by which time the teams three hour time slot had expired and they had to leave. However, another editing session was scheduled for the following week. It never happened. A breakdown in communications had led to Ballyfermot thinking that the CherryPie people no longer needed the editing facilities, and all of the editing slots were cancelled and given to other people, making retrieving them impossible. As Stephen frantically tried to clean up the mess, Debbie abruptly broke off contact with him and nobody seemed to know what was going on (at this point the cancellation of the slots was unknown to Stephen). This incident would spell the end of Debbie's involvement with both Admonition and CherryPie Productions (not to mention the end of her friendship with Stephen). Days turned into weeks and still no word. In the meantime, Stephen began to edit the Cartel video in the AV lab in Pats, and unbeknownst to him, Admonition had a lifeline. go on to Admonition page 4 back to admonition page 2 back to products links page back to home |
