Shooting started at AMMOBILE on Mary Street in during the very early hours of Monday, August 7th. The shop – specialising in mobile phones and electronics – had very kindly allowed our props expert, Ciara Sheil, to convert it into a pawn shop. After a morning shoot there, Grand Social, by the Ha’penny Bridge, opened up their venue to us for a photoshoot where Isobel Lorde on wardrobe and Zerica Griffin on makeup transformed the artist Nicola Devine into a different kind of artiste – the fictitious music icon ‘Melanée’, who is central to the plot of the film. Ciaran, at the Grand Social, was an absolute legend – creating a ‘big stage’ atmosphere with smoke machines and lights while I snapped away on a Canon 5d Mark IV with an L Series 24-70 (for anyone interested in such technical details). The main cast and crew took the opportunity to grab some lunch and then we were on to the second location of the day – the Grand Canal at Mount Street Bridge. Here we had two scenes, one a morning set up and the second an evening where the location had to be transformed into a road works site. Hollybrook Property Holdings had been good enough to furnish us with traffic cones, red and white-striped tape and barriers, which we put to good effect. The only hiccough was a middle aged couple who, seeing that our lead actor was Polish, expressed some racist remarks which, for me, only served to illustrate why this film, about the challenges facing the newer members of our Irish family, is important.
Our second day shoot was split into two – a very early morning at the back of Whelans and Opium of Wexford Street (who had gone out of their way to accommodate us) and a very late evening at Grand Canal Dock. The morning had required a lot of extras and our locations and productions manager, Ashling Delaney didn’t disappoint. The scene is the final one in the film so there was a lot of pressure to make it really special – and both crew and cast did.
The evening shoot, saw veteran actor Richard Wall, who was the security guard in my Oscar-qualified short “Whatever Turns You On”, travel up from Kerry to play the role of a homeless man, after which he drove home through the night. He is the only actor who didn’t come through the TikTok casting process which has made this film so unique. We couldn’t resist the ‘nod’ to Whatever Turns You On, showing that one is likely to reap what one sows.
This weekend sees us shoot full days on both Saturday and Sunday. All going well, the film will be in the can and the edit begins.
Follow on social media @DeclanCreative or here on my site to keep up with developments!
