Mark Stay's Blog, page 26

Ten Years On: Robot Overlords and My Shameless Cameo

Long time readers of this blog will know that I’ve been looking back at my diaries from ten years ago, during the filming of Robot Overlords. From now on the diary entries you’ll see are the ones featured in the back of the film’s novelisation (and if you want a signed and dedicated copy of the paperback, then please step this way and click here).

I managed to convince Jon to cast me, my wife Claire, our kids George (11 and suffering from growing pains) and Emily (13), my dad Derek and his friend Kevin as extras in the Poseidon Hotel crowd scenes. By this point the shoot had moved to the Isle of Man.

Sunday 7th July

Douglas, Isle of Man

A rather noisy and thrumming flight on a prop engine plane to the Isle of Man this morning. Movies have taught me two things about prop engines: 1) they conk out, usually mid-flight, and 2) they’re good for slicing-up Nazis. Disappointingly, the engines on our plane did neither.

Our taxi driver did his best to sell the island to us: there are no foxes, moles or badgers on the Isle of Man, there are some stretches of road with unlimited speeding, and we had to say hello to the fairies as we crossed over the fairy bridge. Very peculiar.

Met with dad and Kevin for lunch and, later, dinner. Dad got all proud and soppy over dinner. It was very sweet.

We’d had a stroll along the front earlier to find the location for tomorrow, bumping into Ella, then Callan, then (our Line Producer) Aidan Elliot on the way. Claire had to take George back to the hotel early. Still tired from his growing pains. We relaxed in the hotel room all afternoon, watching Andy Murray make history winning Wimbledon. The room is nice, but stuffy. I did nod off, but was awake to see him win the final set.

Monday 8th July

Douglas – Isle of Man

A fun, but exhausting day as an extra at the Castlemona Hotel. We all arrived at 8.15am for costume. Our clothing was deemed ‘not outrageous enough’ and the costume dept. got to work kitting us out. Dad looked like a 60s acid casualty, and Kevin ended up in a dress with a mohair cardigan (the costume lady took one look at Kevin – a former police officer, over 6ft tall with a beard – and said, ‘I’m putting you in a frock!’).

I got off lightly with a cotton paisley gown.

We soon realised just what the costume department meant when I met some of our fellow extras. They looked amazing, and many came in their own clothes, with terrific hair and beards and one girl had these incredible metal cones on her forehead. We, in comparison, were quite the squares. Paddy got roped-in too, and his paisley gown complimented mine*.

*And in any subsequent script revisions we were referred to as the Camp Gentlemen in the gowns.

We started with an energetic scene — a punch-up between two brawlers, and the crowd went wild cheering these guys on. Claire had to pretend to be drunk/unconscious while all this was going on as Emily tried to wake her up, and George joined in the yelling with gusto. I couldn’t see, but apparently dad was cheering while standing on a chair at the back.

We worked our way through shot after shot, and the room got hotter and hotter, but spirits remained high. I got chatting to Jon’s dad Bill – also roped-in as an extra with Jon’s sister – who looked like Willie Nelson in his get-up. He was always quick with a joke to gee people on.

George began to flag and he had his head on the table between scenes. He was tired and in pain, not a great combination. But Emily was having a great time. She and I ended up in the scene where our heroes are grabbed by the mob. Em was pulling at James Tarpey’s coat, while I was wrestling with Ella Hunt. She was fighting me by jamming her hand under my chin. Her refrain between takes would be, ‘Right, let’s have the chin…’

Tamer Hassan, despite suffering with a foot in a cast, soldiered on through a key scene with a shotgun, and we all somehow kept the energy levels up… except George who spent some of the afternoon with the nurse. His growing pains so bad, that if you listened carefully you could hear him creaking like bamboo.

Jon seemed to think we’d all be in it, though so much would depend on the final cut. But he was happy and with two and a half weeks to go there’s a feeling that they’re in the final straight.

While Claire and the kids rested, I went for a drink with dad and Kevin. Ella was playing piano and singing in the hotel bar — and very good she was too. Had a quick chat with Ella and her mum before turning in. Early start tomorrow.

Thursday 9th July – Douglas to Epsom

We did our longest school run ever today. Up at 4.45am to get to Douglas airport (where George and I saw the actor John Rhys Davies queuing in security. We somehow held back from sidling up to him and whispering, ‘Asps… very dangerous…’). We were on a plane a couple of hours later, then dashed from Gatwick to a local supermarket for packed lunches and quick change into school uniform and both in school by 10am.

Damn, we’re good. And knackered.

I did a little writing in the afternoon, but kept nodding off. Back on track tomorrow hopefully.

Oh, and I bought a new office chair. Exciting!

Also got a very nice text from Jon. I’d thanked him for letting us join in all the fun, and he replied saying that he hoped I liked the finished film, and that he was putting everything into it. I don’t doubt him for a second and am massively impressed with his efforts.

This was an insane few days, and we still talk about it now and yes we all made it into the final film. Sort of. Here are some screen grabs from the finished movie…

Claire enjoying her hat a little too much. That ghostly figure with the bottle is my dad! Emily understood the first rule of being an extra is to peek over the shoulders of the stars… that way you’re guaranteed to be in the film! A fleeting glimpse of George (yellow shirt, bottom left: click on the image to embiggen…) Failed actor Mark Stay playing the role of Shouty Man (as listed on IMDb) with typical understatement.

George’s growing pains really wore the poor lad down and he was exhausted and spent a lot of the afternoon’s filming with a nurse. He’s made up for it since. He’s six foot two inches tall, studying acting at university, and has his mother’s looks and talent so has the potential to go far!

Here are a few behind-the-scenes pics from the day…

Milo’s character was based on George, so it was great to see them finally meet! Outside the costume dept vans wearing this year’s summer collection. We all had to wear robot implants, held in place by sticky tape. Fashion icons. The cool kids, from L to R: Callan McAuliffe, Milo Parker, Ella Hunt, Emily Stay, James Tarpey

I could show you the photo of Dad in his moo moo, but he’s threatened me with legal action, so sorry folks.

And yes, we really did see John Rhys-Davies on that long school run which just added to the surreal nature of our little adventure. I had used up all my allotted on-set days by now (there was budget to have me on location for eight days only, including the rehearsals), so these were my last days on the shoot, meaning I did miss out on the day when they filmed the Spitfire, but I wouldn’t have missed these days on the Isle of Man for anything. Making movies is insane and fun and I’d like to do more, please.

Katherine Faulkner and “Light Americanisms” on the Bestseller Experiment

There comes a point in this week’s interview with Katherine Faulkner, author of excellent domestic thrillers like Greenwich Park and The Other Mothers, where she talks about making changes to her British prose for the American market: replacing pavements with sidewalks, trousers with pants etc. This is a commonplace practise now, particularly in the commercial thriller genre, but it does wind me up that this is very much a one-way street. Growing up, I devoured all kinds of American culture, including the likes of Stephen King and Mad Magazine which were stuffed with Americanisms. If I didn’t get a joke about Spiro Agnew (Mad were always making fun of this guy) then I had to find out for myself who he was. This usually meant asking my parents or going to the library. It opened my mind to a new culture and I learned a lot. So why is it that publishers and agents don’t think that the good folk of the United States can’t cope with pavements, nappies, biscuits and other Britishisms? I’ve got lots of American friends, and I’ve been there a couple of times, and the people I met were smart and curious about the world. I’m fairly sure they could cope with a few words outside of their own experience. I know authors fear getting one star reviews from people who can’t cope with the word ‘colour’ spelled with a U (I saw one such example just the other day), but I think living in fear of folk who are so blinkered isn’t exactly the artistic ideal we should be striving for.

When it came to writing Back to Reality, me and Mr D agreed to not make any such changes, but instead we would have a glossary in the back explaining what some of the stranger terms meant (including Colin the Caterpillar Cake and a Cheeky Nando’s) and we’ve never had any complaints. And I’ve just published the Witches of Woodville books in the US on Kindle and I’ve not changed a word. No puzzled readers yet. Mind you, my stuff has never been big in the US, so maybe that’s why? It’s possible that I might be working on a thriller with another writer late this year and I’m sure this will come up, so watch this space. In the meantime, enjoy this interview with Katherine. And in the extended version, me and Mr D discuss keeping the reader in the forefront of your mind and I offer a few tips for editing your first draft.

If you want to support the podcast and get your hands on the extended episodes and over 130 Deep Dive specials, then pop along here and become a Chart Topper supporter.

The Jewel of the Nile on the Authorized Podcast

In a follow-up to last week’s Romancing the Stone podcast, I was invited back by the Authorized Podcast gang to discuss the sequel The Jewel of the Nile. The film itself was off to a bad start in that the original screenwriter and creator of these characters, Diane Thomas, was not involved. At first she was working on Spielberg’s Always, then an Indiana Jones sequel, before tragically passing away in a car crash. This meant the film was scripted by Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner who would later go on to write one of my favourite Star Trek movies, The Undiscovered Country, but they only had a couple of credits to their name on this one, and from digging into to making of this film it seems there was interference from all sides, so I guess they were hobbled from the beginning. So anyway, this is my long way of saying we weren’t fans of this one. I feel for the novelist Catherine Lanigan who did her best to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Have a listen here…

Every little helps

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I finished the first draft of Entrapment this week. There’s still a long way to go – one thing I’ve discovered about myself in the last year is that …

Every little helps

Katie Fforde on the Bestseller Experiment | Understand a Reader’s Addiction

There’s a point in this week’s podcast where it all clicked for me. Katie Fforde — the multi-million selling “Godmother of Romance” — was telling me how she would read Mills & Boon romance novels on the sly when she was supposed to be working. What she understood was that books can be addictive and that if you want readers you have to feed that addiction. It’s what we mean when we talk about keeping the reader on the hook, and it’s an important lesson to learn.

There’s tons more, including tips for finding time to write around a busy life. And in the extended version, Me and Mr D go to town on celebrity authors and I give tips for writing historical fiction. To hear that, you just need to support the podcast. We’ve got over 130 Deep Dives exclusive to our Chart Topper supporters here!

Romancing the Stone with the Authorized Podcast

I was delighted to be asked to return as a guest on the Authorized Podcast to discuss the novelisation of Romancing the Stone, which is credited to the film’s protagonist Joan Wilder (played by the incredible Kathleen Turner), but is in fact written by the romance author Catherine Lanigan. What surprised us all was just how hot and saucy this book gets! Definitely rated R for Raunchy, as is the podcast. Enjoy and I’ll be back with them next week for The Jewel of the Nile…

My well-thumbed copy of the paperback…

Ten Years On: Robot Overlords and a chat with Sir Ben…

Long time readers of this blog will know that I’ve been looking back at my diaries from ten years ago, during the filming of Robot Overlords. From now on the diary entries you’ll see are the ones featured in the back of the film’s novelisation (and if you want a signed and dedicated copy of the paperback, then please step this way and click here).

In this jam-packed look back, I get to visit the set and bump into Sir Ben Kingsley and have a chat about Spitfires… as you do…

Saturday 22nd June 

Belfast and Carrickfergus

Crikey, where do I start with the last couple of days? I had a meeting with my accountant, which doesn’t sound terribly exciting, but he did explain and reassure me on a few things, and I came out with a confidence that I can get through the next six months of unpaid leave from work in one piece.

On Thursday evening I was at a colleague’s retirement party and I saw Gillian Redfearn (Gollancz editor) with a big grin on her face… I got the go ahead to write the Robots book! They’re offering £10k (which I think I have to split with the production) and I gather it was Gillian who convinced them to do it. I gave her a huge hug!

Then first thing Friday, (my wife) Claire dropped me off at Gatwick and I was Belfast-bound again. First stop was at the production offices to see our editor Matt Platt-Mills, his assistant Vicki Webbley and the rushes and first assemblies of the film. It’s looking very good. You’re going to hear this a lot, but SBK is fucking awesome. His interpretation of Smythe is nothing short of bloody genius and his improv lines really work*.

*The whole cowboy Wayne bit is his. So good I pinched it for the book.

But also Milo in the scene where his dad dies… bloody hell, he really nails it

Scene after scene I was cackling with glee as each beat either surpassed my expectations or came very close to it. I left Matt and Vicki in good spirits and headed to the set on an industrial estate on the other side of Carrickfergus.

In a cavernous warehouse, there stood a huge bluescreen cyclorama, and next to it a set of the interiors of the houses in Fleetwood Street. I loved the details inside: the multicoloured piano keys, the plants in old baked bean tins, the graffiti on the walls, ‘Robot-Free Zone!’

When I arrived they were in the middle of the scene where Kate (Gillian Anderson) asks Smythe (Sir Ben Kingsley) if she can look after Connor. Everyone was on form, and I was sorry to be pulled away to do my EPK (electronic press kit – the kind of interviews you get as extras on DVDs).

These took place in the warehouse next door with the standing stones behind us as a backdrop. Trouble is, we were in a warehouse and not a proper soundstage, and so we had to keep stopping for the noise of trucks reversing, generators thrumming into life and jet aircraft zooming overhead*.

The noise did create problems throughout this section of the shoot: feet scuffling in the adjacent hall could ruin a take and our 1st Assistant Director Barry Keil had to lay down the law a few times.

*On Saturday we  had about 40 minutes of the Red Arrows zooming about.

The EPK was fun. My interviewer Ian Thompson asked interesting questions and, thanks to everyone at Orion showing an interest over the past few months, I already had some well-rehearsed answers.

But when I returned to the set, the scene they were shooting was not going well.

It was the swear box scene. Designed to show that the kids were sick of being cooped-up, and that Kate might be losing her marbles.

There were two problems: tonally it was just too broadly comic, and these beats and ideas were covered in other scenes. It’s the kind of thing you desperately try to iron-out during rewrites, but this one somehow slipped through.

We finished shooting the scene, but concentrated on coverage for the montage that followed it.

I was then asked to rewrite a couple of bits for Milo’s scene with his home-made rocket launcher, and I got to write it in an empty trailer at the unit base.

Yes, I finally had my own trailer.

For a bit.

They finished the day with an exterior bluescreen shot of Kate driving the boys in the Jeep. When the huge fan they had wasn’t strong enough to suggest driving at full pelt through the hills, the SFX guys managed to find two canisters of compressed air. Very resourceful!

Gillian had to dash to catch a flight right after, and so I missed my opportunity to say hello. Big shame, but hey-ho…

I had dinner with Jon (Wright, director and co-writer) that night. He’s bowled over by SBK. We talked Skyhook*, an LA trip, and his desire to do more big budget movies. He’s tired, but working through it and he’s great with the cast and crew.

*Skyhook was an awesome spy adventure that Jon and I wrote featuring a female lead. Alas, we were told his by his LA management that no one wanted a female lead in a spy movie and it never went out. Yes… I know… FFS…

This morning was all about the bluescreen stage and Tamer Hassan and SBK facing off in the belly of the Skyship. It looked fricking amazing, like something from Star Wars. All of us, including Jon, were geeking out. Tamer’s best known for playing hard men in movies like The Business and Kick Ass. He’s certainly a hard man in our movie, but he seems to  be having huge fun, holding his own against SBK in today’s scene.

There was some discussion about yesterday’s failed scene, and we decided to shoot some ennui boredom ideas for the montage. I was despatched to write them, but rather than go to the trailer (at the unit base about half a mile away) I sat on a sofa in the currently-unused house set.

This is where I found myself chatting to Sir Ben Kingsley and his PA Todd Hofacker. Sir Ben said some very nice things about the script and he asked what I was working on next. I told him it was a World War 2 movie (The Black Spitfire) and he seemed intrigued and definitely knew plenty about the period. We parted company, but ten minutes later he was back and asked if I knew the film A Matter of Life and Death. I told him it was a big influence on my new script and he approved. Since then I feel like I’ve been levitating about a foot in the air.

Callan and James came in on their day off to work on the scene I had written and they were about to start when my taxi arrived. A shame I couldn’t see them play with it, but I know I’ll enjoy the finished result.

Oh, and I got my photo taken in the Deep Scanner. My author photo for the book.

After the taxi ride where the driver asked for directions… twice… I met (actor friend) Lou McGhie at the airport. She and twenty of her army colleagues will be extras in the final celebration scenes! Brill to get an Ashtead Players/Slumming-It* actor on the movie.

*The Slumming-It Theatre Company was the name of the theatre company that I ran with my wife Claire, and Lou was one of our regular actors. And the Ashtead Players is the am dram group where Claire and I learned a lot of our craft as actors.

And now I’m home. A tired, but very happy writer.

In the end I got to keep the ten grand advance for the book, and the production got any royalties after it earned out. I think, for once, I got the better end of the deal there. To say that Gillian Redfearn was pivotal in my career as a writer would be the understatement of the century. She also read very early versions of what was to eventually become the Witches of Woodville, giving me encouraging notes on what, looking back, was complete crap! My thanks also to Lisa Milton, Jon Wood and Malcolm Edwards at Orion who had to give the nod for the deal to go ahead.

I tried to find the EPK interviews mentioned, but I don’t think they were ever used. And we did more at Pinewood later in the year, which suggests the producers weren’t happy with them. I think clips might have been used in the making of on the DVD/Blu Ray. I’ll have to check!

Wandering through the set I was constantly taking notes. The little bits of wonderful production design — the plants in baked bean cans etc — were all details that I pinched for the book. And just as well as you hardly ever see them on screen in the finished film. All parts of a greater mosaic.

The on-set rewrites definitely focus the mind. Knowing that everyone on set is waiting for you to pull your finger out and produce something pronto definitely puts a rocket up your backside. No time for staring out of the window. Open the laptop and get on with it and write without second guessing yourself. I learned an important lesson that day. Write without fear. It’s very liberating.

Here are a few pics from the day…

The on set rewrites… Our amazing blue screen stage. Our VFX supervisor Paddy Eason. A fuzzy pic of Jon, James and Callan on set. Weirdly this didn’t end up as my author photo. Can’t imagine why…

JD Kirk on the Bestseller Experiment: Libraries Change Lives

JD Kirk (real name Barry Hutchison) is a phenomenal writer, having written over 200 books in a little over ten years. Many of these were children’s books, which would be shorter than a regular novel, but they all have a beginning, middle and end and anyone who tells you writing kids’ books is easy is a liar. You learn how to write by doing it, and you’ll learn even more by finishing something, and if you finish over two hundred of the bloody things you’ll learn an awful lot about story, character, structure, theme and how they’re all intertwined. It’s that ten thousand hours theory on steroids. Barry was a real treat to talk with and his tales of naysayer teachers, and getting inspired by librarians and the legendary Iain Banks will hopefully inspire you, too…

In the extended version, me and Mr D discuss the secret to writing crime fiction (actually, a secret that applies to any genre), dealing with publishers and something called The Unicorn Compromise. To hear this and hundreds of hours of bonus material you can support the podcast here.

Ten Years On: Robot Overlords on Location

Long time readers of this blog will know that I’ve been looking back at my diaries from ten years ago, during the filming of Robot Overlords. From now on the diary entries you’ll see are the ones featured in the back of the film’s novelisation (and if you want a signed and dedicated copy of the paperback, then please step this way and click here).

In this thrilling episode I get to fly out to the location! They only had enough budget to have me on set for eight days, so I had to pick and choose them carefully. I’d written a scene where the gang decode a message left on some ancient standing stones and I really wanted to see how it was done. And thus it was that I headed for Tollymore Forest Park in Northern Ireland (which was used extensively in Game of Thrones)…

Tuesday 18th June

Belfast and back again

Left work early, hopped on the Gatwick Express and was in Belfast City Airport by nine o’clock.

No sign of my taxi driver (again), but I was greeted by hordes of teenage girls, weeping with mascara running down their faces… turns out I’d just missed JLS passing through Arrivals.

When it eventually arrived, I shared the taxi with Martin Chamney from (our VFX company) Nvizible. It pulled up outside a magnificent hotel facing the sea in Newcastle (the Slieve Donald Hotel, look it up… it’s amazing). It must have had 200 rooms, a golf course, spa and luxurious marble lobby. ‘This,’ I thought, ‘is more like it.’ Of course, it was the wrong bloody hotel!

We were directed to our correct hotel in the main street, passing the condescending sneer of the concierge as we slunk out.

The Main Street Donnard hotel was much more welcoming. A friendly man and woman waved us in, not needing us to sign anything, and their son (?) showed us to our rooms. They were comfy if basic. Martin and I popped out for a drink and when we returned the woman was watching a horror movie on a laptop in a corner of the lobby… When we came down at 6:45am she was in the same spot with a duvet wrapped round her.

We arrived at the location in Tollymore Park bright and early. I got chatting to the security guy who had a London accent and it turns out grew up not far from me in Hornsey.

I jumped in a minibus with the VFX guys and we made the bumpy journey up twisting, narrow roads. The location was terrific. Sweeping views of hills and mountains and a lake and, in a clearing, were our standing stones. Made of polystyrene coated in concrete, they look so real that some of the crew thought that we’d desecrated an ancient monument (the story requires that they’re covered in graffiti).

SBK was up first. He had to converse with two robots who weren’t there, but he really delivered and put everything into it, take after take. We had a Panavision crane on rails, which swooped above him for the robots’ POV, and the shots were very cool.

Between set-ups it was great to catch-up with the crew, and I got chatting to SBK’s stand-in Brian. A very affable chap, not only a veteran of Game of Thrones, but also an architect. This is something I came across again and again today: many of the NI crew and extras know one another from shows like GoT and work so well and efficiently together, they save us time and money, essential for an indie movie like ours. Brian told me of SBK’s first scene of the shoot, which involved a rain machine. He told Jon in no uncertain terms, ‘I don’t get wet!’ Somehow Jon got him on board.

I was interviewed by a couple of guys from Radio 4, and Total Film. I hope I didn’t say anything slanderous…

After lunch, Gillian and the kids arrived and the energy levels went back up a notch. They’ve clearly bonded brilliantly during the shoot. Good to catch up with James Tarpey, who took the time to have a chat. Milo’s dad Ray was also on good form. Milo is having the time of his life.

Unfortunately, I had to leave earlier than I hoped as I was sharing a cab with Piers and producer Steve Milne (whose flight was departing earlier than mine). But Steve is a Spitfire fan and I took the opportunity to drip-feed bits of Black Spitfire to him and I think I might have his interest.

I also got talking Robot sequels with Piers. He’d like a pitch by the end of the month and a script by May.

Uneventful flight home, though I did see Air Force One land at Belfast International (it’s the end of the G8 summit).

I discovered later that we had been taken to that first posh hotel because that’s where the actors were staying and the taxi driver assumed all the crew were staying there. I presume the producers heard that I didn’t play golf and that’s why they put me in the cheaper hotel… (insert your own shrug emoji here).

The day was my first opportunity to see the actors in full flow and they were definitely having fun with it. There’s something very odd about watching Oscar winner Sir Ben Kingsley have a conversation with an invisible robot, speaking dialogue that you came up with in your lunch break at work.

And no, Steve Milne wasn’t interested in The Black Spitfire project, but talk of a Robots sequel was exciting. Sadly, that’s all it was in the end. Talk. But we’ll get to that later. In the meantime here are some pics…

We named the castle featured in the film after Grabbers screenwriter Kevin Lehane. Shall we do Stonehenge tonight? Mossies were a real problem. Here, Piers sprays Jon. Big crane! SBK moments before he’s zapped. SBK having a conversation with an invisible robot. The gang had really bonded by this point in the shoot. Jon deciding who he’s going to vaporise next…

Robot Overlords on the Fifty Years of Sh*t Robots Podcast

I was delighted to be asked back on the wonderful Fifty Years of Shit Robots podcast to talk about Robot Overlords ten years after we started filming! Luckily, the hosts Matt Brown and Stephen Murray enjoyed the film and we discuss the films that influenced me, why we’re not making a sequel and what I really think of the movie after all this time. You can listen here…