Saturday, May 31, 2008

The Damned United - Life as a Luvvy


Filming was Cancelled on Thursday due to losing a day with rain earlier in the week, so Friday 0730 we arrived in a Catholic Church Hall ready to be taken to wardrobe. I came out with a garish green and black tie and a 'mod' style depressing green jacket. My dad was fashioned in a long beige flasher mac and a flat cap.
We arrived on set about 900 and waited along with the other 'Featured Extras' of which there was about 50 - the rest of the crowd would be made up of 300 non-costumed 'Deep Background Extras' and 300 thalidomide blow up dolls - made up of just dressed torso's a face mask and hair.
The first scene shot was set in the Charity Shield of 1974, and the feature scene was the double sending off of Billy Bremner and Kevin Keegan. Some of the 'lookalikes' were a little OTT with the seventies hairstyles, and had bodies that weren't more in keeping of Dart players then Football players - Norman Hunter and Tommy Smith both looked as though they would have difficulty reaching down to tie their boots , never mind use them to kick a ball. But then again back in the 70's healthy lifestyles weren't the thing of the time.
Anyway Saltergate became Wembley for the next 5 1/2 Hours, and our role was simply to react to what we saw on the pitch, through the eyes of the Leeds Supporters. It was quite enjoyable although some of the scenes seemed to require shooting over and over and over. The scene for the Liverpool goal provide a little light relief with around 15 takes needed to get the ball in the net - there lack of instinct in front of the goal made you wonder if they had recruited the Chesterfield First Team for the parts.
We then moved onto signing the National Anthem whilst 'Cloughie' - the only shot involving the films Star Michael Sheen (Star of 'The Queen') during the pre-dinner session - stood with his players waiting presentation to the FA. During this scene we were treated to a full team moon by the stars playing the Leeds Team.
The morning session finished at 1430 after briefly visiting 'Elland Road' for a fixture against Luton where we were required to chant 'There's only one Don Revie' as a taunt towards Cloughie after his dismal start - we were told to pronounce the name as 'Revvy' as rhyming with 'Heavy' , not quite sure about that ?? - I always used to call him 'Reevy' as rhyming with 'Leave(y)' - perhaps its the way they say it in Yorkshire ?

Anyway after lunch we were taken back to 1968/69 and played various groups of supporters (Derby, Norwich, Blackpool) in a series of scenes that will be used to form a 'Cloughies Golden Years' montage -during this session both me and dad had our best shots of making the final cut when we appeared both behind and at the side of dugouts whilst Cloughie,Taylor et al jumped from them celebrating various Derby victories. These scenes saw the second appearance of the day of Michael Sheen and the first appearance of Timothy Spall (Auf Weidershen Pet, The Street) playing the part of Peter Taylor. The costumes required to revert back to the 1960's meant handing out of numerous flat caps and (normal) scarves and the removal of most of the scarves bearing any club colours.
Anyway the afternoon flew by and next we new they were calling it a day around 1930 in the evening , a visit back to wardrobe and £40 each for our time and we arrived back home about 2045 - a long day but something you don't get chance to do everyday.
The finished production is rumoured to be due for release in March 09.

1 comment:

Mike said...

can i have your autograph :-)

Mike