Charlie Productions : How We Made It

Because it is fundamentally a one joke film, and because that joke is fundamentally a private one between Ben and Keith, "Danny's Found Jesus" had always been pushed to the back burner...

PRE-PRODUCTION.
"Danny's Found Jesus" began life in 1999 when Ben was comissioned to write some short scripts for Pistachio Pictures. He set himself the task of writing one a day for a week - which resulted in him scouring his cupboards for every joke or half idea he'd ever written.

"Danny's Found Jesus" came on a Thursday night whilst ironing a shirt. The joke between Ben and Keith that Keith was actually Jesus the Son of Man and the Son of Lord God is also the central conceit behind "The Bible According To Charlie" and had run since school. The screenplay was dashed off in half an hour (after the ironing was done) and is based around two ideas - that Keith as the atheist Jesus has no faith in himself and that the word "ARSE" is fundamentally comic.

Ben wrote it with no eye on costs since someone else was going to be making it and he presumed that they would at least have some sort budget - hence all the stuff with the rain and Keith not getting wet at the start of the script. This was also a good excuse to pay brief homage to Douglas Adams whose genius for logical contraction is poorly echoed in the script.

In the end Pistachio did not option the script, largely because they felt that it was too complex and not as funny for the rest of the world as it was for Ben and Keith (Though they optioned, but never made, The Dupe, in which Adam has to fight for his place in existence against Adam The Directors Cut and Adam Widescreen Boxset, perhaps not realising that this too was less funny if you didn't know the people involved) and apart from showing it to Keith and Tom for a laugh no more was thought about it.

However, it would not go away and bubbled around in the background being something that could be made maybe, perhaps, some time (A bit like The Recording Angel), until eventually Chris was in one of his "We must shoot every day, what can we shoot, we'll shoot everything!" moods and agreed to get it done.

Conscious that both "Burnt Bernard" and the first "Old Man Dies" had suffered from Chris trying to do too much he was keen that someone else should light the film, also, in Oliver Russell, he'd met the perfect candidate. Oli and Chris were working together at the Cruet Company in Wandsworth and not only were they friends but Chris respected both Oli's work and his outlook.

As with the involvement of Jo Harper in "Russell Square" it was Oli's presence that eventually helped turn this "Danny's Found Jesus" into anything more than a piece of throwaway nonsense. During the short pre-production stage once again we were talking the project and our ambitions down. In this case it was mainly because both of us, Chris especially, felt that the script was so much of an in-joke that it wouldn't really work for a larger audience.

Equally for the film to be true to itself it was important that it was set in the real Barnet where Keith lived and worked. Permission to shoot in the Monk and Halt, Keith's local, was easy to obtain since we were all on good terms with Nigel the landlord. Permission to shoot in Digital Village, the shop Keith managed, was easy too since, well, since Keith was the manager. The fact that this really was Keith's shop, Keith's pub and Keith's town were all important to our sense of this film as a private joke. As was the fact that Keith was Keith.

The rest of the casting was quite straightforward to. The title role of the recently reborn Danny was based on a school friend of ours called Tim and since Tim from "If Looks Could Kill" was now living in London he seemed like the perfect choice. Again in real life the part of Tony had been loosely based on our friend Tom Lloyd however we didn't know any actors called Tom. More to the point, having disappeared for a while following the filming of "Cold", Carl Pizzie popped back into our lives and having interrupted "Russell Square" with petulant shouts of "Why didn't you cast me in this film?" he left us wire dire warnings about our need to use proper actors.

As a result we advertised the role of "Tony" on Shooting People and ended up casting Oliver Broad, who was, strangely enough, rather like our school friend Gary. By now the first version of "Old Man Dies" was already in the can and it was clear that Nick was the perfect Angel Gabriel.

With the shoot date approaching Katie finally read the script and was deeply unimpressed. Due to Ben's arrogance and Chris' disinterested it hadn't been touched since the half hour it took Ben to write it a couple of years previously but re-reading it through Kate's eyes it was clear that some work was needed. Whilst the jumper joke remained the rest of the argument between Danny and Keith was re-written and substantially improved with a stronger dose of bitterness.

Then, with one pointless rehearsal behind us - we plunged in.

PRODUCTION I.
The bulk of the film was shot on St.Patricks night 2001 which was a mistake. Not only did everyone want to get drunk but the pub wanted everyone to get drunk and stayed open until midnight, which, since we could only shoot inside the pub when it was shut, meant that everything got pushed back an hour.

So we started by taking Nick onto the streets and shooting his 'walking towards destiny' scenes, mostly in the exact same locations that they had been written as. That said the prostitute cards had to be added at the last minute because if that sort of thing goes on in Barnet then it does behind closed doors.

Then it started to rain, just like it said in the script. Tragically of course we were still unable to do the bits where Keith is dry and everyone else is wet (or the lovely bit with all the umberellas) but, for the first time that month it rained. And then it started to snow and it felt like someone was taking the piss...

So with Nick and the crew soaked and frozen we retired back to the pub to wait for closing time. Starting with the wider shots we used extras culled from the ranks of anyone in the Monk who was willing to accept silence as the cost of a lock-in.

The rain soaked monitor died and we were forced to use Nigels' TV from upstairs. Then a light exploded and nearly took Oli with it. These set backs, combined with the slowness induced by working late on a cold damp night meant that it was gone three before we were finished filming Nick's scenes. By now all of the extras had gone home and we were filling shots out with the crew, and filling the crew out with rounds of toast that Nigel kept bringing out. However by around half six we were finished.

Despite the problems of tiredness and cold it had been a really good shoot, especially for us as Directors. Oli had brought with him the might Ben Liddell as assisstant and the thinking space we gained from having them on board was almost as important as the veneer of professionalism that they brought to the film. For the first time in a long time we were able to just sit back and direct, as a result, when we eventually did cut it all together it was a simple process with none of the great stress of our previous three films.

This night was also a turning point for us. It was the first time we worked with Oli and Ben and the last time we worked with Phil. It was also the first time that we finally accepted what working together actually meant, instead of the pair of us barraging everyone with two slightly contradictory opinions we huddled behind our monitor, discussed and then found we could give everyone simple answers.

PRODUCTION II.
The plan had been to come back the week after and shoot the early evening footage of Keith leaving his shop. However, as usual with pick-up shots, this didn't happen.

First Keith was too busy, then we were, then Oli was. We got close at one point, but we were shooting dawn for dusk and Zee had forgotten to ask the Monk to keep the lights on and so when we turned up the street looked irrevocably early morning.

In the end these scenes were shot six months later on the 26th August, after a screening of "Burnt Bernard" at the Curzon, Soho with only us Keith and Oli.

POSTPRODUCTION.
Although the edit was simple we were busy and distracted and the first cut wasn't completed until October. Much the same excuses explain the fact the film wasn't finalised until late December the following year.

The main thing that really held us back was the lack of a score. Being fairly pleased with how the film was looking we decided to leave the final edit until there was some music that we could cut to. Initially Keith was adament that he would score the film however after six months or so it was clear that this wasn't high on his list of priorities. Consequently we began the thankless task of looking for a composer.

After wading through countless CD's of badly synthethesised orchestral swoops as insipid as they were deritive, we struck pure gold with Danny Fromajio. He sent through a library release called CheeseCore which showcased his astonishing ability to make lounge music that actually pleasant to listen to. Along with this he sent a sampler of his film music and for almost the first time we found we were listening to music that instantly conjoured images to mind.

Delightfully, at the time, Danny had his studio on a houseboat moored on the Thames and so it was almost a disappointment when his first draft of the score for the film was so good that it prevented the necessity for many subsequent visits.

Despite the delays in finding a musician, the main stumbling block with getting "Danny's Found Jesus" finished was simply that it was pretty low on our list of priorities. However as it seemed like the final cut would co-incide with the end of 2002 we decided that it'd be a nice idea to send the film round as a video Christmas Card. In a stroke this gave the film it's niche. It wasn't trying to compete on the international short film stage it was just a silly joke that would fall out of people's Christmas post and hopefully make them laugh.

With this in mind we polished up the edit, adding footage of Keith playing Jesus from "The Bible According To Charlie" and created a Christmas Card credit sequence in the style of the sort of cardboard theatre that use to while away damp Wednesdays in the Summer holidays when we were kids.

The reaction to the Christmas Card was mixed. Some people loved it, others found it rather confusing. One agent whom we sent it to because he had previously expressed an interest in our work, sent his copy back with a note that it was good but still not quite his thing. Thankfully however most people realised that as a Christmas Card they were meant to simply throw it away...

In 2003 we did try submitting "Danny's Found Jesus" to film festivals and it was screened at the Microkino Festival in Belgrade. However by this stage we'd been making shorts for about five years and our priorities had shifted. This partly meant spending more time writing feature scripts and meeting people, mainly though it meant that we didn't have the time, energy or passion to stuff envelopes with tapes of an evening. Whilst it isn't either as interesting or as good as the final version of "Old Man Dies" it is better than the response it recieved and both films under achieved for what they were.

Whilst it was never intended to be such, this film, which was so much about where we grew up and who we grew up with, was in mainy ways a goodbye to that part of our life. It was the last one we worked on with Phil, it was the last one we tried to make Zee produce and it was the last one (for a while) that Katie worked on.

It is a re-imagining of the central conceit of our first film and it features Nick from "Old Man Dies", Tim from "If Looks Could Kill", the A-Z of souls from "Russell Square", the top hat that Ben religiously wore as a teenager and the pub that we all used to drink in. It's the last film that Zee walks through shot in and the last that has Adam somewhere in the background.

More importantly it is the first film we worked with Oli and the rest of the professional crew we found working shifts at the Cruet Company and the first film where finally gave ourselves the space we needed to actually direct together.

Danny's Found Jesus was shot in Barnet, Hertfordshire and cost £52.

Charlie Productions believe passionately in doing things and always trying to stop in time for tea.
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