Looking Back, Looking Forward

Gabby: James and I have had our differences along the way- but considering a lot of the situations, not half as many as others would have had. Throughout the process of making Peppermint I think we have both learnt so much about ourselves and each other.

I suppose I can't speak for James, but for me, even after everything we have gone through, the huge highs and enormous lows, there was nothing that has happened that has made me think anything other than, I want to keep going, work harder, and improve as a film maker. James is an awkward b*gger at times but there are not many other people in my life that I can think of, that I trust as much, and artistically, have as much faith in. I start to look forward to working on Boy Who Collected Sound with both him, Larry and Spence, three fantastically creative, talented individuals.

James: I guess what I take from it is slightly despairing. You look at the start of the project and never think that it will take two years of your time and energy. Even now, I'm entering it for festivals and trying to get it seen. It is very hard.

But it is simultaneously rewarding. I can't stand those who have a privileged life complaining about it. We made a film with our disposable cash! I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the experience. And ultimately that is what life is about isn't it??? "The experience"!

PREMIERE SCREENING - Worcester

Gabby: I am feeling nervous and I have only just opened my eyes. Its been so much work to get to this point that you want to just sit back and enjoy it, but there’s no hope of that. James and I have a conversation about how much easier it would be to just make a film, brag about it and then never have to show it.

My house is starting to fill up with people and there is no space to breathe or just be in a quiet space. James has a fantastic suggestion of taking the hurling stick down to the park and letting off a bit of steam. We then run into town to grab James something to wear.

I am full of nervous energy and feel like the only person who I want to speak to is James because he is the only person who really knows how I am feeling.

More people start descending on my home, and we are late down to the screening venue. Its 20 to 7 and there are three people here. Shit! This is my nightmare. I quickly turn around and walk out of the building before I throw up.

Suddenly people arrive and there are random groups of people who I know from work, school, the gym, plus family, family friends, friends of friends. It overwhelming to say the least. What will they think of it?

We show a slideshow of production stills before hand and then we are ready to start the screening. James and I walk out to the front and there must be about 100 people here looking at us. I hate talking in front of people and I make James do most of the talking.

I can’t sit and watch the beginning, I hate it, so I go outside for some fresh air and find Phyllis (who plays Nan) wondering around lost in the car park, I usher her in and then join James in the projection room.

We finally pluck up the courage to sit in the screening room at the front, and spend a torturous hour wondering what the people behind us are thinking about peppermint and more dauntingly about us. People laugh at some points, and gasp at others, I can’t be that bad then?!



The film finishes we make a quick apology to the audience and make a swift exit to collect donations to cover the screening. We get a really good response from everyone, and suddenly the high hits me and I remember why I went through all of the torture in the first place.
We have a fantastic night chatting to the crew, actors, friends and family. This screening was terrifying and that was just people who know and love us. I start to wonder what a slightly more objective audience will have to say about it.

James: Yeah I felt kind of pukey all day. I don't know about Gab but I don't really like these kind of events as they involve being social, and I'm quite misanthropic normally! It doesn't help that I'm bunking work, which always makes me feel dodgy. This of course is about a year after we made the decision to make the film, so by this stage we're pretty tired of the project and thinking about other things, but to everyone else it is new and shiny and you have to feel all excited again. Which in fairness, I think we were.

We Watch The Final Film

Gabby: We have put one of James songs on the end, which is an amazing song but very close to the bone for me. It feel weird listening to it but I am glad we have put it on there, it deserves to do well.


James: So, we watch it for the first time completely coloured and finished. I’m excited and proud of Gabs and myself. Spense does such fine work.

Colouring & Finishing The Film

James: My favourite person is Gareth Spensely. Gabby and myself hold this man so dear as the man who saved “Nightshift” for us. I’m actually surprised that he will work with us again. It is always such a great time working with this guy as you know that he shares the same level of commitment to your project as you do. He is a consummate professional, and is doing really well for himself as a result of his hard work.

Gabby: Yeah, for some reason Spense manages to always managed to sustain this immense optimism even in the darkest hours. To be fair he saves my arse and does an amazing job on the colour correction, you look back at the rushes and think – ‘What was Gabby thinking?’ The continuity of colour starts to make the individual scenes feel like a film.

James: I get a break to buy tapes from the other side of London. I feel like a runner again, and I have little moment whereby I realise that I’m on the same streets that I ran on three years ago.

Once again, Spense does wonders for our film, and Gab and I start to feel a strange sensation surrounding our film – pride. It has literally joined us this late. Up to this point I know I certainly hated the little bastard, as it represented £1880 of my cash and so much of my time. Now though, I might actually like it.

That night we joined some friends for a meal in Islington, and I felt strange. This is largely due to the fact that I hadn’t seen them in ages, and that I was tired, but something dawned on me: they were all in London working fantastically hard in their media jobs and were making headway, and there was Gab and I, in our other cities, chipping away in a different fashion, and it didn’t feel wrong. I truly believe that there are no rules that apply to making it in media; you just have to chuck everything at it and see what happens.

Sound Mix begins

James: Three years ago, when I was a student, I would have relished the opportunity to do the post-production mix on a feature, as it was my speciality! Having had three stressful days collecting sounds this was the last thing I wanted to be doing. However, time has moved on so magnificently technology wise, and what used to take up a dark room at University with a rack mount hard drive now sits neatly in my 12” Powerbook and I dabble on the mix over the next few days quite comfortably.

It isn’t too hard, although patches are a little loosely miked for my liking, but I remember the difficulty of the shoot and would forgive the lads.

Gabby: I have issues with the soundtrack. I don’t think it is real enough. I want more atmos, more noise to give it that real edge. James disagrees, it isn’t done. Another instance where his word goes.

James: We also see Kings School theatre and book it for February 4th. The film has a deadline.

Gabby: Yeah that was nerve racking – looking around that 300 seater, realising that this many people will be watching our film. The only way I can describe the feeling is it like the thought of hanging out your soul for everyone to see and criticise. Gut wrenching.

Getting Wildtracks

James: This is a really difficult day, and probably where Gabby and I have the worst argument of the project. Over lunch my building frustration snaps. I complain that I shouldn’t be back in England finishing this film off, and that it should have been done ages ago by her. I’m particularly aggrieved at having to record the wild tracks, which I thought were recorded already. I think in retrospect this outburst at Gab was a bit harsh, but I felt it was necessary in order to accelerate the project towards completion whilst I was around. I was back in my ‘Gab is shit’ mode.

Gabby: Yeah this was a bad argument and we were having it whilst I was at work. I wasn’t happy. James was completely unable to see what my life had been like the past few months and just pounced on my inadequacies. I have my faults, a lot of them, but this time I genuinely couldn’t have done more, there were other things that were more important than a film.

We argue, I get upset, we make up and suddenly the air is clearer than it has been for a long time. We really needed to get that off both of our chests.

James; I want to point out that I’m being candid. The pressure upon the two of us when you consider the scale of the project is hideously large. It becomes increasingly obvious that finishing the edit won’t be the end of Peppermint, there’ll then be screenings and festivals and press kits and websites and all sorts of other shit. This pressure is enormous when you are sat there (with your other stressful job as well) and you think, ‘Christ, we’re gonna have to do all that too’.

James Comes Back To England

James: I leave Dublin without a problem and land back in England for the first time since I left and have to wait a couple of hours for train in Birmingham. I’m only back minutes and I immediately remember why I struggle in the UK. I am staying at Gabby’s for the next few days whilst we finish the final edit of the film and I am eager to get it done and get on to London where we are to do the post production colouring and credits. Whatever happens, it all ends in the next few days.

Gabby Calls James About Editing

James: I’m stuffing bears in my new teddy bear job when Gabby calls me with some problems that she is having with the editing. I get frustrated, because I feel that deep down an issue has been boiling on since the shoot, which is that I must be the lynchpin of the project. I question the dynamic of the partnership and whether or not it actually works. I’m really keen to see her complete the edit herself as I feel that it would somewhat redress the balance of me writing it, and the fact that our names share the space underneath the title. Perhaps this seems incredibly childish, but I bet there are no writers out there who would disagree. Anyone who has had to live with the mental weight of an imaginary story taking place in their head for years doesn’t take the achievement lightly.

Gabby: We have long had this problem that Peppermint is more James’ project than mine, after all he thought up the story and the motivations of the characters, so is much closer to it than me. However, often James failed to remember just how much of the pre-production legwork I did. It was also difficult for me because my suggestions were often overridden by James, and so right from the earliest point of production it became a lot easier to ask his opinion before I wasted my time embarking on something he didn’t like. Often this made it feel like I wasn’t taking any responsibility.

I am having a torrid time at home. I am at the becan call of my sister who is going through a traumatic break-up over in Birmingham and needs me to drive to see her or look after her son, the new job is over whelming, I loose a load of work that I do on the re-edit of Peppermint, I am desperately trying to train at the gym in preparation of an operation I am having on my knee in December, and on top of this I had taken on 1st Assisting Directing on a short. I thought this would mostly involve organisation on the day, however the shoot was far from perfect and I was actually spending every spare waking hour trying to find make-up artists, camera assistants, track. It’s a nightmare.

I break under the pressure of having to get the second cut of peppermint fully finished and James tells me to just forget about it for now.

James: I think the problem is simply that we aren’t in direct contact so I have no idea what is going on in her life, all I see is that the edit isn’t done. At this stage I decide that I will head back to England in the New Year and help finish the project off.

Gabby Comes To Dublin

James: Gab has been over in Dublin for about three days by this stage and we have only just plucked up courage to watch the film. I guess this puts the film in perspective doesn’t it? You’d expect us to be really eager beavers to watch our baby but we really are to close to it and loathe it still.


I actually enjoy the work that Gab has done on it. There are a few tweaks to be made, but on the whole it is good. It doesn’t feel too laboured, or unbalanced in my opinion. I think Gab felt then, and still does to some extent, that the front drags for a few minutes too much and the end is dealt with too quickly. I believe that it takes an audience a while to acclimatise to the rough style and therefore the minutes aren’t too precious at the front, as they will stay with you for a while just to see where you are going.

Gabby: I think that there is still loads for changes to be made and loads of cuts that are awkward. The sounds is still over the place and I can remember thinking that I would never like this film.


James: Gab has done all this with limited access to the equipment since I’d left so it is a good achievement. Whilst in Dublin she gets offered my old job, so it is all kind of timely.

Gabby: Yeah the limited access to equipment was a pain. I promised I would get on to the recut when I started the new job.

James: Our good friend and on-line editor Gareth Spensley called a couple of weeks later whilst I was in the car on the way to a party in Galway – he said the same thing. Ahhh, great minds and all that.

James Leaves England

James: Although I’d left Worcester and Gabby on the 31st August I had flown over to Dublin to sort a house and do all sorts of settling in. This was the date that Larry got all my stuff in the back of his Corsa and drove me overnight to Dublin. My final meal in the UK as a resident was a curry in Stoke On Trent.

Gabby: It was weird saying goodbye. Upsetting.

Second Draft Begins

James: You can picture it: my stepmum and I are taking boxes out of my flat around Gabby’s ears. She is re-cutting the movie and I’m taking the coasters out from under her tea. It is frantic. The following night we show it to Toby Mountain, one of our sound guys, and the media connections are all fucked and scenes are all over the place. At this point I’m just too tired to be bothered.

Gabby: I am totally unable to look at it objectively. I am so tired and uninterested in it that I fall asleep and wake up when the credits are rolling!

First Draft Finished!

James: I remember that the experience really wasn’t as overwhelming as I’d expected. It was 80+ minutes of our first feature film and all I could think of was my bed. There were no high fives or champagne corks. I think we had a cup of tea and a couple of jaffa cakes and complained about a scratch on the monitor.

Gabby: I can’t even remember this day it was so much of a non event!

All is Lost (Nearly)

James: We come so close to finishing the first edit, but stop short of a few fiddly bits in the early hours of the morning. Gab heads home and we leave it saving. I have a quick bath and then noticed it has all disappeared! I’m in shock. The auto-save files are there but the media is all lost. We have a backup but they don’t have very large handles on the clips and the names don’t all match. I stay up till 7am reattaching clips until it roughly plays the same way. This is a laborious task. To this day I don’t know what happened. I had called our editor Gareth Spensley and he had calmed me down and I went about fixing it. It was all a blur.

Gabby: First I know about this is the day after when James tells me. I don’t think I appreciate just what an ordeal James has just gone through, after all the film doesn't lookany different. What a star though. I don't think I would have had the heart to do this!

Editing Hurts

James: In order to drop my sister of with my mother, I’ve travelled down to London on the last train on Friday night and travelled up on the first one Saturday morning. This mad dash is completely pointless as Gab doesn’t turn up at my flat until 1630, all teary eyed and hungover. I really want to throttle her at this stage, as after a week of great momentum, she undoes it all and fundamentally disrespects my time. I leave the country in two weeks, have a flat to move, a house to find, a job to leave, a course to start, a loan in euros to borrow, debts in sterling to repay and this film feels quite simply like a millstone round my neck. I think of what the money would’ve bought right now…

I leave Gab to edit away whilst I head out with my friend Tallulah.

Gabby: Tallulah has been watching snippits of the film and seems to be engrossed in what’s going to happen. It is refreshing to hear a new person’s point of view at this stage because we are both tired and bored of the whole thing.

Editing

James: I can’t remember if this is when we started in earnest or just whether I started to think it was of any significance. We basically broke the script down into ten sections of roughly the same length and then went about editing those segments. It made it feel a bit more bite-size.

Yeah it was so daunting to try and cut together an 80 minute project. Breaking it down made it more psychologically doable.

It is harsh to admit, but I’m really loathing Gab at this point. I feel she edits too slowly and is concerned with nickety little bits and I just want to chuck her off the computer and throw the fucking thing together. This is hideously unfair but this is editing and what it does to my head. I’ve always had this kind of reaction to Gabby. It is 50 – 50. Some days I consider her to be the most talented film-maker I could ever hope to work with, with great social perception and a determination to succeed. Other days I find her the wimpiest, insensitive gob shite I’ve ever met and wish I’d never shown her the script.

Anyhow, the editing wasn’t going well.

Gabby: It’s difficult. How do you if you have the right take until you have fiddle to get the right edit. James is right though. I was being too fiddly. Chuck it down and then revise. Lesson learnt. James is bad tempered at this point and I can’t do anything right. I have a sneaking suspicion that if the roles were reversed and James had this mammoth task of editing this beast he would have had the same problems as I did and I would be equally frustrated at him.

Editing Extravaganza

Monday 8th August – Friday 12th August

James: As a thank you present to the school pupils in the film Gabby and I invite them to the University to make their own projects. In the week-long busy atmosphere of filmmaking we become inspired to forge ahead with editing Peppermint. It almost takes this crazy workload to reignite the senses and enthusiasm. We are joined by my sister, which makes it particularly exciting for me, as she gets to see what excites me in life.

As an indication of my fickle nature, Gabby is incredible at this stage.

Gabby: Yeah myself and James run this week and edit at night. When we are productive we do manage to fit a lot in.

Website construction discussion

James: We meet a talented young guy who will be able to help us with the web development. This is crucial as it will eventually act as a portal to everything when we are finally done. We want people to contact us through it, download press kits etc.

Long story short: This guy, along with various others in the months that follow, messes us around hideously with all kinds of excuses. Two filmmakers who’ve written, financed and shot their own film aren’t too keen on excuses as to why stuff isn’t done. Larry Smith steps in the week of our eventual premiere to put up the site. Thank you Larry, I hope you enjoy your free skiing holiday.

Gabby: Larry is a god. We love you.

Digitising continues

James: Gabs comes in to do the digitising whilst I show prospective students around the University. Gab and I have an informal agreement that she is better at editing than myself and I did the writing, so she’ll head up the post-production process. I note in my diary that I am hideously irritable at the moment, so this is another reason for Gab to edit.

Digitising Begins

James: Gabs and I finally sit down to start editing Peppermint. It is almost a month after the shoot finished, but until now we haven’t had the heart to even face the project. I think we still loathe it and don’t want to touch it.

This frustration boils up over the simplest things. Gab and I disagree on the best way to digitise tapes. We get so little done. I think we are still tired of the whole project.

Gabby: It’s actually understandable. The biggest thing either of us had edited before was about 15 minutes and that was usually documentary. This was entirely different. We hadn’t had the heart to look through the tapes and compare the logging notes to what we thought of the takes, so we couldn’t decide whether to digitise the lot or trust the logging sheets. In retrospect we had such little footage (17 tapes shot in DVCAM so there was only 30-40 minute footage on them), we should have just brought the whole lot in.

Also I hadn’t worked out the best way to divide the media up in the bins. Do you break them all up when capturing or capture in chunks? Looking back I would capture the scenes in chunks and then create sub clips later on. Its less fiddly to line up the tape and is easier to reconnect media if it slips out of place. All this I know now looking back, we certainly didn’t know it then.

Returning Kit - London & Worcester

James: Gab and Toby head back to London and drop the kit back at the hire company and I realise that I have been charged twice on the camera filters, so I get on to them about returning the money to my card so I can have some cash.

Gabby: As I deposit the kit back in London I have a very strong feeling that I don’t want to go anywhere near the 17 tapes that collectively make up Peppermint. The though of this made me feel sick.

James: That night, with Jen still in tow, we head down to perform at Monroes for an acoustic night. Toby Mountain, Tim Dobson, Larry Smith and myself all play. It is a fun night, and many a drink was had.










Gabby: Many.

FILMING - DAY NINE - WORCESTER

James: Jen’s exterior scenes go down relatively easily. We are incredibly pleased with the public toilet sequence and get really excited that we have a film on our hands. I’m relieved that in the space of 7 days and two half days we have made this all happen.

Gabby: That day we were really on the home straight but utter exhaustion had kicked in the trawling from one location to another grabbing shots. This takes up the very last of our energy. We shoot the last bit in the street at night, which was just an additional scene that I suggested we film in case the end seems all too abrupt. We are down to James, Larry, Jen and myself. We call a wrap but it’s all a bit surreal. In this moment it all feels more like a trauma than an achievement.

James: It feels strange to be packing up equipment and getting the house back in order. People go home for sleep; Jen moves out of the halls and comes to stay at mine for a few days. Gab stays over. We’ve spent all this time together but don’t want to let go. We manage to go out for a couple of drinks but everyone is too tired to really party.

Later that night, my bankcard fails at the cash-point. We made it through the movie.

FILMING - DAY EIGHT - WORCESTER

Gabby: We squeezed in the re-shoot first thing, then went on to shoot the throwing up scene in the toilet using a concoction of cold soups…poor Jen.

James: The major scene for the Sunday was in the classroom. The University drama head David Broster agreed to play Mr Bennett and I felt he did a great job. I absolutely hated school with a passion so it was fun to send it up with this archetypal teacher. The pupils really enjoyed the experience and so did the crew. Logistically, this was the most difficult day to plan, but it came off quite well.

Gabby: Yeah this scene was really fun to do. Tom was fantastic as he pretty much dealt with the kids, we put the boom on the camera so I was free to roam. This was when the crew and cast was at its biggest with a total of about 25.

James: Olivia and Zak get to go home. By this stage we have really smashed the arse of the script and remained on schedule so the morale is sky high. There is only one more day to go, and it is all exteriors with Jen, so we should be okay.

FILMING - DAY SEVEN - WORCESTER

James: After seven consecutive days of shooting the last thing you want to contend with are school children. But for the whole, the students were great. Olivia Corrie and Zak Lee enjoyed their short but concise parts. We had by this stage pretty much turned the ship around, and morale was high. I was really pissed that an element of complacency creeped in and the sound crew mixed down two stereo tracks live. It meant we had to re-shoot the scenes again, which, when you have 18 school children to entertain also, isn’t easy. But we managed.

Gabby: The weather was against us again that day. We were trying to shoot Mel and Sean’s scene down the alleyway but have to dive into a smokey little hole of a pub as the rain sets in. Eventually we get back to the alley and get the shot, but the wind is really strong and the audio is shocking. James did a really good job of fixing that in post.

James: It was hard to convince their drama teacher Melissa Dufty to take on the role of Mary.


Gabby: In fact it is not us who eventually persuades her it’s the kids themselves!

James: She reluctantly agrees and meets up with us at Gabby’s house to shoot the scene where Beth walks from Sean’s to Mel’s. Gab and I originally wanted to keep the entire walk in the film, but it took four minutes, and felt like padding. But we wanted to get a sense of the character portrait coming through… spending time where we have to guess what’s going on in her head. It fits quite neatly with the time in the public toilet earlier and the café.

Gabby: It was very hard to film doing it all in one shot. I semi-dislocated my knee again doing a rehearsal. When it came to do the final thing we do the walk and get up the stars to Mel’s room and to my surprise we open the door and I get a flash of Zak’s arse, I am not quite sure what I was expecting but it was a surprise.

James is really feeling the pressure after this shoot, I think maybe I was letting the weight of the decisions fall more on his shoulders than mine. We had quite a big argument about this and then we meet everyone down the pub where I struggled to pretend that everything is okay. This was probably the lowest point of the shoot for me.
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FILMING - DAY SIX - WORCESTER

James: The crew is just myself, Gabs and Larry for the old people’s home section. Carl Edmed and I had sought the location earlier in the week one day after filming. It was too small for much more crew to fit. Speaking for myself, I felt these scenes went down the easiest of everything we shot. Phyliss and Selina really caught the tone between Ann and Nan very well, and I thought they added a dark humour to an obviously tragic relationship.

Gabby: These scenes are all really consistent, so much so in fact that at one point in the edit I laid over Phyllis’ clean sound onto profile shot and the lip sync matches identically. Amazing! I make a school boy error and shoot over the wrong shoulder of Selina for the first scene, which means the two hander wouldn’t have cut together. Thankfully I realise and we do a quick re-shoot. James spends most of this shoot lay under the bed as there is no room for him to stand.

James: It ends up being a half-day, so we take Phyllis and Selina for lunch in Keystones. It felt great to be over the bulk of the filming, and we say goodbye to our Ann and Nan for the last time. The crew get a Friday night to relax, Gab and I try to work out whether we’ll have any school children tomorrow and wonder where we are going to get a character to play Sean’s mum Mary. How prepared we are?!

FILMING - DAY FIVE - WORCESTER

James: With the weather holding up we manage to get the scenes in town. I take to doing the sound again as it is quite tricky. I enjoy mixing and recording immediately, and wish I wasn’t the director. Tough shit James.

Gabby: This is a setup we are used to; me on camera, James on sound, (and Larry holding the umbrella and generally around for a thousand and one other uses) it’s comfortable. Unfortunately shooting around the general public is not so, and in the edit I could have personally throttled both the woman with the clip-cloppy stilettos who killed the sound continuity and the man with the really bad Christmas jumper who is lingering in back of most of our shots, magically behind both characters!


James: These scenes were later absolute hell to edit. We shifted the position from the original script. Originally Ann bumped into Beth whilst shopping for the sandwiches that she mentions to Nan. It works so much better where it ended up, I haven’t a clue what I was writing when I put it in the original place.

Ann’s scene at the family clinic was in the afternoon, which was played with Jane Lindsey Smith playing Doctor Marshall. I’ve lost the will to continue by the time she arrives on the set and I still believe I didn’t give her a fair time. She was offering me lots of variables, getting into the role with realistic fervour. I just wanted her to say the lines.

As it happened, she said some good things, but we couldn’t cut the scene easily between takes as responses would change. I felt I should have directed her more perhaps. It was my fault.

Gabby: Yes, James is in a particularly bad mood. I feel quite apologetic about this. I also felt like this scene is going to be boring in relation to the way in which I shot the other scenes so far, however in the edit this becomes one of my favourite scenes.

We try to take the big clock off the wall because it is ticking really loud, not realising that it is wired to a campus circuit so that all the clock read the same. Not only did we break the wire and shatter the back, we are rumbled by the member of staff who works in this office. No one says anything as she collects her stuff, but we all know she sees the shards of broken plastic on the floor. Thankfully we have a very talented Larry on the crew and he wires it back to the circuit and saves our arses.

James: Phyliss McMahon arrives in Worcester and the mood lightens. Staying in halls are three generations of the Whelan family – Beth, Ann & Nan. I end up thinking that Phyliss is a Godsend. A true pro.

FILMING - DAY FOUR - WORCESTER

James: We started day four inside my beloved little flat for the bathroom shots. It is just Gab and I at this stage as we are giving the crew/removal men a break, and the simplicity feels like bliss. The crew were amazing, but there is a certain amount of time wasted with delegation.

Gabby: Also it become so draining to have a room full of people looking for you for direction. When there was just James and myself, it felt like that pressure was temporarily lifted.

James: Seeds of thought pop into my mind – could we do a feature with two crew?!

The weather obstacle is a film-maker’s nightmare. Our schedule starts to slip and we lose all the street sequences. We desperately tried to salvage something from the day, so we reshuffled Mike’s office scenes with Si for that night. Fortunately Tim Dobson could make it in, and we get through these scenes easily.


Gabby: When James says easily, it was actually incredibly hard for me to hold the camera still from laughing. Chris and Tim had great chemistry together and this made it really fun to film.

James: The effect is two-fold. Firstly, the crew morale improves once a new face emerges. Secondly, the ease of shooting the scenes frees up Chris Tajah to go home early. It sparks enthusiasm; we are getting through the project, and indeed pass the halfway mark in the script.

Gabby: My only criticism would be retrospectively, I wish we had a little more coverage of these scenes. We where quite cocky with a lot of our filming and with these scenes we were confident that we could put them in the scenes as one long shot. However there were element of certain scene that just weren’t quite right and not having those shot made life difficult to cut the scenes down. Saying this I do not regret the arrogant decisions we made, it was this confidence that meant that we took on such a large project with such little resources, maybe just a little more planning with our cockiness and we would have had the right mix.
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FILMING - DAY THREE - WORCESTER

Gabby: I found myself waking up with a feeling in my stomach like I was just about to climb a mountain. I found it hard to be energetic and enthusiastic about the project. My confidence had taken a bit of a battering and as a result I wasn’t particularly a nice person to be around. This is really taking all of my energy to get out of bed. I am tired, stressed feeling shitty. It was never a case of giving up, but a learning curve of how to deal with these intensely stressful situations.

James: This was Ann & Beth’s scenes in the flat at the end of the film. The morale of the crew improves marginally as we tackled the third day although it is another day of frustrating angles and inconsistency by both cast and crew.

Gabby: Yeah, I felt that we really pushed Selina as we tried to get the end argument down, again and again and again. The video output on my camera packs up so we can’t attach it up to the monitor for James to watch. From here on in it was a case of James having complete trust in what I am shooting.

James: I’m really doubting myself at this stage and hoping that I’m projecting an air of confidence! The major factor is that you have no time on this kind of a lo-budget schedule, and everything requires immediacy and urgency. However, the upshot is that it delivers a real sense of rawness to the film; it feels like a series of snatched moments that unfold over a day.

Damien Lloyd joined us to take the press kit shots at this point. I feel unfair to him as we haven’t given him enough time.

Gabby: No, we brought him in at last minute as someone else let us down, but he took some fantastic pictures including the main photo of Jen lying on the bed, that we have used for all the promotion of Peppermint.

James: On a lighter note, we got the flat empty in three hours. As Kamaljit Sharma said when we were filming Nightshift for Channel Four: “We are always chasing the time”. How true those words rang for me now!


Gabby: Yeah it was like a military operation. We had to be out before the next day where the renovators where coming in to strip and redecorate. God knows what they thought about our shoddy paint job! It was very strange to be filming quite intense arguing scenes in one moment and then to be packed up and moving out in the next.


James: Toby got the white van back and loved every minute of being White Van Man for the evening.



Gabby: I remember we had a few bits of furniture left sat on the driveway of the flat that people didn’t want back. We had a friends moment where we sat on a sofa (donated by Bob – thanks Bob) with a table, armchair and sat drinking beers. This was a real moral booster as it felt like something had finally gone to plan and on schedule.



We decide to go out for quick drink, I run to the cashpoint and dislocate my knee ( a reoccurring injury), so I stay in with just me and a bag of peas.

FILMING - DAY TWO - WORCESTER

James: The awkwardness from the first day threatens to destroy the whole of the film. None of Mike and Beth’s scenes are going down well in the flat, and I am incredibly frustrated. I think Gab would agree that she wasn’t getting the best camera performance on this occasion and it was sod’s law that when the acting would go well the camera would be rough, and vice versa.

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Gabby: This would be fair to say, however we re-shot the scenes between Ann and Mike in the morning and they worked out much better. I found it difficult to keep the camera so that it was reacting to the action rather than predicting it. It was near impossible to hit focus, good composition and read the action well for a flawless take, especially when some of the takes were 7 minutes long. In hindsight even though I wanted they style to be edgy with depth and shifts in focus, I should have shot these scenes with a larger aperture so that the depth of field wasn’t so shallow.

I can remember being frustrated because the sex scenes were not how I had imagined them. This is when I started to realise that because of our limited resources and time anything we made now was actually an adaptation of the script and what we had hoped for. It was difficult for me to get the opportunity to express to James if I had a concern about the way in which something was acted, I felt that if the cast heard comments from me it might confuse them as to who they should take direction from. I also thought that they might think us unprofessional, something that now having Peppermint under my belt, I wouldn’t care as much about.

We film the big scene where Beth and Chris talk about running away, we get a cracking take, but then someone realises the boom is propped against the wall throughout the take, we go again but it is not quite as good. We actually ended up using that first take and nobody so far has spotted it first time, which is to both Jen and Chris’ credit.

James: I’m really shitting bricks at this stage and wonder how we are going to pull this film out of the bag. The frustration eats into your appetite, your sleep, your every move. You can’t stop thinking more and more about how to fix the nightmare. The biggest pressure is that you’ve spent £2000, hired 30 people and put yourself out there. You have this massive want to just do them justice and repay their faith. I’m not using hyperbole when I say that it really gets to everything inside of you. Still – we battled on.

FILMING - DAY ONE - WORCESTER

Sunday 29th May
Filming - Day One – Worcester


James: It is great to get up and running after months of this only existing on paper.

Gabby: Myself, I am so not ready to shoot this film. I had become so consumed with the pre-production, getting the location, fitting it out etc, that I haven’t even really picked up a camera in months. James, Larry and I stayed over in the flat the night before and wake up on the morning of the shoot with this ominous feeling in our stomachs. Much to my annoyance Larry (our soundman) wakes up 15 minutes before we are scheduled to start shooting. The stress begins.

James: We start pretty much in chronological order, so everything that you see at the start of the film was shot mostly on the first day. This means that Selina and Chris’s first scene was a sex scene! I was happy that we would sense awkwardness necessary for the scene. They both wore pyjamas, which I personally think isn’t the slightest bit sexual, so it adds to the problem between their relationship.

Gabby:I believe this was the first sex scene Selina and Chris had acted but it didn’t seem to phase them. It actually struck me how strange it was that they were laughing and chatting happily right up until James called action where they then launched into the scene. It was the first sex scene I had ever shot and it made me glad that I was a camera operator who had a prop to focus on, rather than Toby the poor sound assistant who didn’t quite know where to look.


James:The day goes relatively smoothly until the sequence when Mike is getting ready for work and Ann asks about trying for a baby. We tried and tried that shot for so long, and it just didn’t work.

Gabby: I think it was something about the angles, Ann was meant to be sat down, and Mike perched on the side of the sofa, it became impossible to get an interesting shot with the two of them. As we struggled to work around it, I think this affected the actor’s spark and we then were faced with two aspects of the scene that was not working.

James: We tried injecting a bit of comedy whereby he was wrestling with electrical leads that were all tangled up, but it didn’t come off. In retrospect we were immediately exposing our lack of directorial preparation, as we should have had that all planned. It felt as if we’d damaged morale on day one, and I was annoyed at the time.

Gabby: I think if I am honest this also affected my confidence, which is something I always struggle with on set.

James: Meeting with the actors in the evening it became obvious that they were a bit uncertain about the experience. Gabs and I decided to re-shoot that scene the next morning.

Day one and we fell behind. Ha ha.

Gabby:I didn’t sleep well that night.

MOVING IN - Worcester

James: Armed with a white van and a troop of helpers, we went about dressing the set. It was a crazy experience, just banging on friends' doors and relieving them of their furniture. Once again, I ducked out of the mayhem to meet our actors and get them housed.

Gabby: Yeah the group of helpers were friends from work, friends from the gym, James' students from University, basically anyone who breathed an interest and wasn't strong enough to say no. It was a slow start waiting for the first load to be picked up. As we started filling the flat my worst thoughts were realised, we are going to need more and more stuff just to make it look lived in. We did so many trips picking up lamps, photo frames, mugs, pictures. Watching the end product is actually very surreal for those close to us because you keep on getting constant glimpses of things that are familiar to them.

The easiest room for me in the end, was the very thing that had given me such a bad headache the day before - Beth's bedroom. A few weeks earlier I had asked my boss Steve at DEFRA what sort of nicknacks his 14 year old daughter had in her. He kindly brought me photos the next day. The day after he offered a spare bed, bedside table, lamp...in the end he brought a people carrier full of stuff, including his daughter (also named Beth), who completely constructed the whole room without me even stepping foot in it! It looked great, and we managed to get around the wooden chest problem, just, by covering it with a curtain and making it a sideboard. The single bed only literally squeezed in, and if the cover wasn't in the way you could actually close the door, but that's literally how tight it was!

I brought in my sister to cook Indian for the masses, then I send a group of friends out with money and a shopping list of things to dress the set, and finally after a lot of effort we started to have something that looked like a home.

James: By chance I saw Selina, Chris & Jen and they drove past my house. They were all quite jovial and excited from the looks of things. Larry and I took them shopping to get some food and then we showed them their rooms in student halls. I think it was all quite surreal.


When I took them up to the set they were quite impressed that we had managed to make this home out of nothing. It was certainly an achievement. I think the natural reaction would have been to just film in an already established house, but that flat was their flat. Every piece of furniture that was in their had been put there, saying something about their character. Yoga books beside Ann's bed, childish posters on Beth's wall... all of it was intentional and built around their character.

That night, Gab and I stayed at the location. It felt like the moment of truth. There was nothing we could do at this late stage to stop, it either works tomorrow or it falls on it's ass.

Gabby:It was all very nerve racking and very stressful.

COLLECTING KIT - London

James: Tom Lane and I had driven down to Slough the night before as we had to collect kit really early. He was a star. It's a sad state of affairs that if you want to hire any kit in the UK at an affordable price you have to go to London. Everything stems out of there.

The biggest drama is when I realise I don't have any proof of identity. I was so stressed with all that was going on I had left it in Worcester. I had to get Phil Morris out of his bath in the morning to get him over to my flat just to fax a Council Tax bill and a Water Rate statement. It's moments like this that you really need friends!

Added to this excitement is that none of the camera filters have been placed in the order, so I had an irate Gabby on the phone barking at me to sort some out. I had that classic moment where I gave them my credit card and just prayed the money would go through, and fortunately it did!


Gabby: Meanwhile back in Worcester after work I go back to the flat and am secretly praying for a miracle - that the chest had dissappeared over night. Shit! It was still there. Plan B, I started praying that Will, the friend whose family kindly lent us the flat, would say that we could take an axe to it. That phone call never came. So I did what every other orgainsed, pro-active person would have done. I ignored the chest and carried on cleaning the flat from top to toe.

James pops by about 11.00pm, its late, we are both exhausted and we haven't even started yet.

PAINTING THE SET - Worcester

James: The search for the 'family home location had gone on for ages. We hadn't seen anywhere that was 100% perfect. We either had to compromise on shooting style or story. We settled for a derelict flat that was above a friend's house. It was literally gutted. Perfect for Trainspotting but not for Peppermint.

We could get access to it for about 6 days in total before the decorators came in proper. Until then, it was ours and we could do what we wanted with it, so Gab got in and started painting it.

Gabby: How the hell were we going to fill it and make it look believable? I was really aware of how much work this would take and started enlisting randon people to donate pieces of furniture that they had going spare. I wrote lists, lost them all, so wrote new ones. James got fed up with me constantly writing lists of furniture.

James:I have such guilt about this! I was desperately completing a corporate video project whilst Gab had gathered a group of her work-mates to paint our set. I walked in at the end and they'd done it all. They were great.


Gabby: Yeah, I blagged some friends, Steve, Luke, Phil and Lisa from work to come and have a pizza & painting party, they all seemed up for it. It then turned up and showed them round the flat, and they all looked at me like 'no way in hell will we ever get this done...but we might as well just start painting just to amuse her'. We started moving the furniture out of the rooms and then found that the room we had ear-marked for Beth's room had a rather large antique chest at the bottom that had literally been boxed in, when they put up the fake wall. It was physically immpossible to move it and it took up nearly a third of a very small room! I didn't even think would we could get a bed in there and there was no other room that would be feasable to use as Beth's bedroom. My nervous breakdown started exactly at this point, meanwhile James was editing a video about f***ing boilers!!! I decided to ignore it and carry on, thinking some how we would get round it.

The kitchen was a mess. the walls were bright orange and covered in adhesive where the wood panneling had been ripped off. Myself and Steve managed to cover it by mounting wallpaper lining with spray adhesive on the walls. We then painted it added a border, and hey prestow, you couldn't tell, (well on camera at least).

We got it finished - it is amazing how fast you can paint some walls when you are not bothered about all the finishing touches. James arrived and gave his seal of approval. I felt some what frustrated at the lack of his presence, even though it wasn't particulary his fault.

SCHEDULING - Worcester

James: Gabs and I started scheduling the shooting order. We wanted to keep it as linear as possible, but obviously we couldn't shoot all the film in order. It was a logistical nightmare, but strangely enough, we did it quite well. We stuck pretty much to our filming schedule despite having never done one before. It was our bible though, and a crucial pice of preparation. Who knows where we'd have been without it.

Gabby: We knew that we had 3 days starting from Sunday (that's including pack up time) to film in the flat, so that scheduling fell easily into place. We also knew that we had the school children available to use the weekend after. This meant that we needed Olivia and Zak (Mel & Sean) around for these days. This left us a nice gap in between to shoot the office & Nan scenes. the rest happily fitted around all this.

We checked and double checked that we hadn't left any scenes out of the schedule, and like James said, that schedule then became our primary point of reference.


James: I remember the actors thought we were very organised. I realised that perception is crucial. If we act organised, we are organised, even amongst chaos.

MORE LOCATION HUNTING - Worcester

James: We were turned away on the doorstep of a local old peoples' home as the boss wasn't in. Gabs and I argued under the strain of it all. When I finally got to see it a few days later the placed hummed, both sonically and nasally. We were 'homeless'!

We went and watched 'Star Wars - Return Of The Sith', and remembered why we were bothering in the first place. I still laugh at the scene where Anakin wakes up as Vader and goes 'NNOOOOOOO!'. Star Wars is quoted by Toy Story is quoted by Star Wars. Very funny.

LOCATION HUNTING - Worcester

James: I had a meeting with the Registrar at work to discuss locations. I was working in a university at the time so it was ideal for locations. There were obviously classrooms, office spaces & toilets for various scenes. Another bonus was that actors could stay in halls with en suite bathrooms and stuff. Although it wasn't cheap, it was all quite neatly arranged.

Gabby: We were still at this point short of the main location, which was a house/flat for the main characters. The general trend went as followed; I would express my worry about finding this location, that I thought it was crucial to the whole way in which would would shoot these scenes. James would agree. We talked about it some more. We both did no much about it.

James: It would be fair to say that our producing was taking up more time here than the directing, and Gab would later argue that we didn't spend enough time on preparing the style and look of the piece.

Gabby: Yeah, I argued that then and still do now, however it naturally became a priority to focus on the tasks that would physically get the film made, after all there was no point in talking about the style of a film, if there was nothing or no where to shoot.

READ THROUGH - London

Gabby: This was an interesting process as not only was it the first time that the actors had all met, but from this point on, there was really no going back.

James: I dashed in late to our one and only read through! It was around a big table at the Directors Guild in Charing Cross Road. We had our four main characters; Mike (Chris Tajah), Nan (Phyliss McMahon), Ann (Selina Giles) and Beth (Jennifer Oliver).

It was a bit daunting to be honest. I had never heard it all read out before. I remember thinking we had a lot of work to do when we left.

Gabby: I remember feeling like a bit of a fraud conducting this read through with these four very competent actors, after all we didn't really know what the hell we were doing or what to expect, and these people had made this commitment to give up their time for our project. I definatley felt the pressure was now on.

FIRST CREW MEETING - Worcester

James: We gathered the small crew in the video studio in the Digital Arts Centre. I laugh now because my diary says "I'm not sure if this is a dream team, but it is a team". I'm incredibly fickle. These guys were lifesavers when the shoot began. Most were based in Worcester except Larry Smith, who is an old friend of mine. I felt happier having him there because I knew that if everything went wrong we could get by on Larry, myself and Gab.

Gabby: Hurrah! The team meeting I had been wanting for so long. I was always aware that Peppermint wouldn't be possible without the crew, so to have them all in the same room, and committed was a real step forward. As I handed out the scripts however, I got the distinct impression that no one quiet believed we would actually pull this off.

SCRIPT REVISION

James: I can't remember what draft I was on at this stage. The script was pretty solid already but we were tweaking it some observations that we'd taken into consideration during casting.

I was struggling to take the script beyond the 90 pages, which in hindsight was a bad sign. I was limited by the parameters of the story taking place within one day, so I couldn't see where to go with it. Gab was encouraging me to write a few scenes at the end where we'd see Beth on the streets. I agreed to write them so that they could be added to the shooting schedule, but I really wanted it to end with Beth leaving the house. I have a great respect for Ibsen's 'A Doll's House', where Nora just leaves at the end. I think it is a very powerful statement. It inspired me to have the characters just to walk out after their actions and not be seen again with a reactionary shot.

Gabby: As we worked through the script and plugged slight holes in the characters and plot, we started to base Mike's job on a temp job that I had done a few months before. I got the sack after 3 hours for not working miracles and making people pick up the phone when I called them...it was very cathartic to put this soul destroying experience into the script!

I had an idea to, like James says, shoot an extended end to the film. I was worried that if we didn't hit the tone and pacing correctly we would cross the line from providing a powerful but anticlimatic ending, to just a frustrating let down for the audience. Although I totally understood James' vision, I felt that for the sake of one more shot, we could avoid a potential disaster that we would kick ourselves for later.

GENERAL ELECTION

James: Labour won the General Election for a third time and I got excited about moving to Ireland.

Gabby: Utterly disappointed, but not surprised

CASTING - DAY 3 - London

James: I'm dead on my feet at this stage. I really struggle with casting and it was made unbearable with the sickness. Apologies to anybody who thought I wasn't very pleasant at the sessions!

Gab and I soon noticed our predicament at the end of the final session. We had to create a believeable family! It was the start of a nightmare really as we had so many combinations to consider. We certainly didn't decide it on the day, the decision making rolled on for days afterwards.

I stayed in Slough to recover from my illness whilst Gab went back up to Birmingham to work. We'd neatly fitted in casting on a Bank Holiday weekend!

CASTING - DAY 2 - London

James: The Sunday was the quieter of the the two sessions held at the Strongroom Studios in Shoreditch. The most poignant moment of the day was meeting Marius De Vries outside the studio and asking if he could let us in to use the toilet. Gab & I have such style.

Gabby: To be fair, it was me who treatened to pee on Marius' shoes if he didn't open the door quicker, and James who pointed out to me afterwards just who he was. I wondered why James had looked so horrified at the time!

James: I remember seeing Selina Giles and she hadn't prepared a monologue. She chose instead to give a characterisation of Ann. Although I thought it was cheeky, she was good and she became a strong contender for getting the role.

Gabby: Yeah Selina was the last in for the day. James was being held together by tissues and Lemsips, we were both a bit bedraggle after talking about Peppermint for 2 days solid, but Selina seemed like a breath of fresh air. I knew James was keen for her for the role as Ann, but I had my worries that she looked to young for the part. Either way we both knew it was far more complex than this as it would also be a matter of pairing up a believable mother and daughters.

CASTING - DAY 1 - Birmingham

James: I remember being hideously unwell and tanked up on ibruprofen for our first casting session. We'd hired some really dank studio space in the Digbeth area of Birmingham, and the alarm kept going off every time someone opened the front door.

Gabby: No James was not at his best. And this ‘ casting room’ was is large, old and shabby...slightly embarrassing.

We see a lot of good actors for the extra parts. First in was Jane Lyndsey-Smith, midwife turned actor. We were convinced from that moment she would be our doctor.

James: We were also particularly keen on Zak Lee, who demonstrated great talent. I remember thinking that it was a shame there wasn't a larger part for him to play in the script.

Gabby: We then run hideously late chatting to our last actor, she drives us to the station and just catch our train down to London for day 2 of casting.

No main parts even potentially filled. Even though it had been a productive day, I remember being slightly worried.

SHORT LISTING FOR CASTING

Gabby: Armed with over 350 CVS we quickly sifted out those who weren't appropriate. We were left with a fairly big 'maybe' pile and a very modest 'yes' pile. We wanted to try and audition a mix of people who would fit together as a family unit, so we laid them all on the floor in the television studio in Digital Arts Centre, in lines of each character. We picked actors who interested us, who we felt had a particular interest in the project, who had done interesting projects in the past and who felt would gel well with our other selections.

We than started to ring around. It actually took the rest of the week to finish getting in touch with everybody and arranging casting slots. Far longer than we thought, but then neither of us had ever really been involved in the pre-production of a drama before as our experience stemed from the technical production.

POSTING FOR CASTING

Gabby: We wrote a brief synopsis of the film, and character breakdown, and I then posted ads in PCR, on Shootingpeople, Castnet, and Talent Circle.

It was nerve racking but really quiet exciting. James and myself had cast together on a number of times before. We were confident in our ability to make the right choices, but then our past projects had always been shorts. I am not sure that we quiet understood then just how hard this process was going to be.

James: We kept the descriptions pretty vague, as we didn't want to limit the search at this stage. I'd argue that whilst we got later got lots of replies, the variety still wasn't that exceptional. There are lots of actors with similar experience of The Bill & Family Affairs and tonnes of student films. You get stuck as to what makes a difference. I'd hate to admit it, but some got in because of their photo alone.

James goes to Morocco

James: Yeah, so just as soon as we start, I head to Morocco. You can read more about that project at www.moroccanscrapbook.blogspot.com. Needless to say, this puts a bit of a stop on things temporarily...

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

James: Gab and I had batted the idea about Peppermint around for a while, but this was when we specifically decided to go for it. We have so many of the components there and ready to use; the camera, money, locations etc.

The idea for the film came years before. It was originally called 'Portrait Of A Kind', and the stories revolved around the people captured in one photograph. One was Beth, who was originally called Rachel, sat in a cafe window. This is the scene we see after she discovers she is pregnant. I suppose this was about 2001 when I began writing.

Slowly it morphed into Peppermint. The title comes from my fascination with how people hide bad breath with minty freshness, as if the bad has gone away. The taste has gone, but breath is in your lungs and insides! It is a surface thing.

The script was written over four years in between other work. I believe the script has plenty of shadows over it, where all the rewrites have left their marks. This created quite a depth which I think appealed to Gab.

The decision to make the film was borne out of our frustration with boredom. Gab and I had been put to the test a year earlier when we produced & directed 'Nightshift' for Channel Four. We loved being our own bosses!

Gabby: I had read an earlier draft of the script a year or so before, but when we revisited it this time, it seemed much more complete as a story. There was so many bits in the script that I fell in love with and could picture immediately, however at this point there was still a lot of work to be done on it.

James had been applying for funding to make the film, and when he had come so close so many times but no one had quite seen the potentially in the story, I said to James we should just make this. The first thing we actually did after this was set a date for production which gave us a date to aim for.