Killing Chris (well, almost)

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 01:08:42 > Production

I have cut together the scenes where William and Ryan meet in Ryan's car in a secluded farming road.  We shot this on the second day of filming and it was AJ's first day with the crew.  The weather was great and Chris and AJ were like long lost friends coming back to work (or play) together.  There was a great mood on the Gloucestershire location and while we were setting the cameras and prepping the shot Chris and AJ were sitting in the little Citroen Saxo (our character Ryan's car) half-dancing along to Red Hot Chilli Peppers tracks.  A pretty scary site (but we've got the whole thing on film, so one day it'll be out there in the public domain) as the Saxo is almost bouncing off the pavement. 

Things moved on after we got that scene and we then shot our final scene of the day which involved William explaining what it feels like to stab someone for the first time and the strange thoughts that go through your mind. 

This involved a little bit of action where William punches Ryan as hard as he can in the stomach, throws him to the ground and then pulls a blade on him.  Thank god for Chris that AJ knows how to pull up on a punch.  It looks great on film.  The moment should really catch the audience by surprise and this is one of those times where I want to see people jump off their seats. 

For when William pulls the knife on Ryan we went with our usual reality approach.  This meant a real knife being pulled out of AJ's sock and thrust towards Chris's face.  I was a little bit nervous on the day and, in hindsight, probably should have shot this last just in case AJ slipped by a centimeter or two.  If this was an insert shot on Chris's last day at least we could go to his funeral knowing we had all of his scenes in the can.  Posthumous awards are all the rage . . . maybe we missed a trick for you Chris.

Anyway, we shot it, the knife came out, Chris is still with us and the scene is genuinely frightening.  So a good result all round.  Dave cut a version of this scene to be promoed in front of a couple hundred people last year and when it stopped they were all sitting in silence with jaws close to the ground.  Bearing in mind they saw the scene completely out of context - simply as an excerpt from the film - I thought this shocked reaction was good.  A few people came up to Dave and I afterwards and said that they really enjoyed the scene and wanted to see more.

I've recut it - we always knew we would as we had to fit it in with the flow of the film as a whole - but the essence is the same and hopefully the reaction will be as well. 

As a last note on these scenes I've been able to be very bold with the editing because of the great shots we achieved on the day which is down to Dave and Adam Boyle's camera operation.  Really great stuff here, in particular a fifteen second hand held tracking shot over a hedge starting on William and ending on Ryan as the two walk very quickly down a road one after the other.  This came from Adam and it was one of those shots you do after you've shot everything else because the chance of it working is slim.  Well it did.  Nice one Adam.

- Si