Ten Years Ago Today: Robot Overlords and Gillian Anderson is Injured!
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).
Filming was well under way now and I had returned to the UK and was back at Orion for my last few weeks in the office before taking six-months leave. This meant I was relying on Jon for updates on the filming and he was kind enough to send me messages on a regular basis. But today’s update was a shocker. We nearly brained our leading lady…
Sunday 9th June – home
Jon called today with an update on the week’s filming. Gillian threw herself into the fight scenes with gusto, nearly flooring one of the stuntmen and banging her head on the ground! But she dusted herself off and carried on without a word of complaint*.
*I later heard that she’d been accidentally kicked in the head during this scene and lost her eyelashes!
Jon is completely in awe of SBK. The second the camera’s on him he’s completely in the zone and often nails it on the first take. Jon said he was giggling watching the edit – it’s that good.
The overall message was it’s going very well. The crew are outstanding and they’re on schedule. Jon sounded relaxed too. Can’t wait to get out there again.
Careful with that Axe, Gillian…
I was also taking meetings with film and TV production companies to see if I get more writing gigs. I was pitching a TV series idea called Myths & Magic, this was an early version of what would eventually become The Witches of Woodville books. I had also joined a group of filmmakers called The Vipers Nest, who were chosen by Samantha Horley (then MD of the Salt Company) as up and coming filmmakers to watch. Here’s my diary entry for our first meeting on Wednesday 5th June…
First Vipers meeting last night. Any worries of reservations I had about feeling out of place vanished almost instantly. They were a great bunch of people, all passionate about movies and their projects. Sam singled me out at the start, telling them that Robots was in production. It was a wee bit embarrassing, but there was a genuinely excited and encouraging round of applause from the group. Of course, I soon discovered they all had far more experience than me: they’d all made shorts, or written for TV, or made documentaries or commercials. I tried to talk to as many people as possible, but mainly chatted to Tom Fickling (sci-fi and comic book fan), Joy Wilkinson (writer with a nice “Geek” t-shirt), Mustapha Kseibati (big hair, big personality), Jacqui Wright (comedy writer with Alice Lowe) and Jonathan Pett (filmmaker working in France). I arrived at 5:45 and the next time I looked at my watch it was nearly 10. Time flies when you’re talking movies…
This group would go on to have a big influence on my thinking about screenwriting as a career (and one day I might even be able to pay the mortgage with it… one day…) and I made some excellent friends in this group.
Tune in next time when the film ends up on the news.
