Ben Gregor

on the coast south of Newcastle, UK
Most cliches are borne of truth. Don't work with children and animals, for example. Hackneyed? Perhaps. Good advice? Most definitely.

It's the tech recce. On a wild bit of coastline south of Newcastle. The minibus driver is driving like he hates us. Maybe a close relative was maimed/ assaulted/ spit-roasted by a film crew. Either way the delicious cocktail that's threatening to repeat on me (97% coffee and 3% nurofen) is putting me off my chat with the DoP. It's a chat about how we'll shoot this whole spot handheld. The DoP is lukewarm in his enthusiasm. Turns out he's had a skiing accident and is walking with a crutch for a month, making handheld a bit tricky to say the least. He assures me he has a plan though. Is it, I ask, to NOT shoot the spot handheld? My wild guess is correct! Luckily he can make things LOOK handheld through beautiful operating and gadgets. Handheld shmandheld! The production manager begs the van to stop and is sick.

DAY 0 - LATER
We're in a field where a bull will be. We're shooting a 30" and a 10" with three scenarios where people go to extremes: pulling the stop [signs] out, taking bulls by the horns etc. The more impossible the tasks look, the funnier. Much debate was had with BBH over what the scariest imaginable bull would look like. Turns out it's hard to get a mean black spanish bull as they live in spain. I like wild shaggy highland bulls with crazy horns. There's a concern they look too cuddly. But I've assured them our bull will look wild and unkempt. Anything but cuddly. Everyone's happy. The DoP is stumping his way across the field to take a sun chart reading thing. He's damn adept with that crutch. I imagine him on Blue Peter crutching his way across an assault course to the amazement of Connie Huq. He gets to the gate and stops. Gates are not part of his plan.

DAY 0 - EVEN LATER
We're standing in mud watching the tide go out. We have to shoot a scene on some tidal mudflats where someone tries to push the boat out. "Tidal" is not a word anyone likes when filming. It sounds serious, real and like something that can't be slipped a hundred quid to help us out. Other words in this category are "monsoon," "disease," "melting," "bleeding," "on fire," and, of course, the holy trinity of "not well," "dying" and "dead." Everyone agrees it's a good idea to shoot this tidal mudflat scene quickly, and to not be late to the location. I point out the previous scene is with the bull who may be unpredictable. The 1st AD gives me a thousand mile stare.

DAY 0 - EVENING
We're face to face with our bull on our bull-recce. The bull, I have promised, will not be cuddly. He is big. He has horns. He is shaggy and yellow haired. So this much is good. But I am distressed to hear the farmer address him as "Dougal" and announce that he is a "petting bull who loves to have his hair combed by kids". This sounds worryingly cuddly to Jimmy, who immediately bans the farmer from calling him D***** or talking about any activity the bull formerly known as D***** enjoys that isn't being savage and raping cows. We promise him a new name for the day. I'm keen on "Cellmate" but Jimmy likes "Big Red Killer". There are flaws with this name (he is yellow) and the farmer's looking confused so we decide to present the name "Dougal" as an ironically sweet name for the most savage bull ever to maim and shag in the Newcastle area.

SHOOT DAY 1 - 5am
It's foggy. Very, very foggy. Dougal, swathed in mist, looks like some beast from a Stephen King book. He's happily chewing on some French bread - his favourite snack. We all wait for the mist to lift. The tide in our next location is probably not waiting.

SHOOT DAY 1 - 7 am
The fog has lifted and we've shot some background plates. Always a good start though not necessarily comedy gold. Dougal is coaxed into position for a wide shot. Chewing on a baguette (to be posted out), he looks like a slathering fiend. All is well. We decide to do his close up. A shark cage type thing is erected round the camera to protect us from Dougal should he go postal. In fact the banging noise of it being put up scares him and he runs off and stands in a ditch. Soon we're set in our cage. Dougal is led out of the ditch to face us. The fog lifts more, causing jubilation amongst us but making Dougal suddenly jumpy. Turns out the lifting fog has revealed a field of cows behind us. Dougal - who has apparently been deprived of cow sex for at least three days now - bolts towards their field before we can turn over. He's dragged back to face us. This goes on for an hour or two. Dougal turns round, we shoot two seconds of Dougal fixating on the cows, Dougal bolts to the gate, Dougal can't get out and mate, Dougal jumps in ditch and sulks. Then he is dragged/ coaxed back for more of the same.

The playback rushes confirm what I fear. Our close up is pretty sketchy, even after twelve takes. There is the odd second of Dougal looking in one direction before he bolts (which we need), but his gargantuan body is always facing kind of the wrong way. The video village gives a big thumbs up but I have sneaking premonition the cutting room floor might become a good friend of this close up. The post guys assure us it will be fine. Of course they do. Things I get wrong make post guys rich. Flame ops are like the ambulance chasers of shoot problems. They probably stuffed one of Dougal's baguettes full of Viagra. Either way the tide is coming in. Time to shoot some humans being funny. Cast are good, no urge to mate and no ditch jumping. We wrap and pack up to catch the tide.

The next bit Jimmy and I see from our van. Apparently, on leaving the field, someone (who may or may not have been the head client) becomes gripped by a desire to comb Dougal's hair. The animal handler, delighted with the attention from one so powerful, hands a comb over, encouraging her to lean into the pen. Dougal, who's had a rough morning, finally goes absolutely postal, reversing out of his pen, knocking the back wall off (he weighs half a tonne), and charges down to the end of the field, terrifying the crew, who scatter. The lady-with-comb is unharmed and is, in fact, highly amused by the sight of the panicking crew. As is everyone who is not being chased by half a tonne of sexually repressed beast. Those being chased are not laughing very much. Even the crutch-wielding DoP breaks into a run. In a way, Dougal has created a miracle. Praise be to Dougal. We all get in our vans and head to the sea.

SHOOT DAY 1 - 12pm

The tide's just right. It's muddy. We start building a platform to lay track on, upsetting the crabs. Then we find out the man playing the role of "Tractor Driver" has very little idea of how to drive a tractor, and needs to be taught. He's a mad-looking bloke who does personal appearances as Abraham Lincoln. He discovers the things the pedals do while hurtling along at 30 mph across the mud flats. Left and right feet = different. The crew are scared again. We shoot our man pushing a boat beached on mud until he begs us to stop. Then we film a little bit more and get our funniest stuff. For some directors, "the magic hour" is to do with light - the precious moments before the light is lost. For me it is more to do with sanity - the precious moments before an actor loses the will to live and calls their agent. With physical comedy, these wild moments are generally pretty funny. And it's great revenge for not having the glamorous life of an actor. Off to the pub after filming some disapproving reactions from lobstermen.

SHOOT DAY 2 AND EDIT AND GRADE AND DUB

So the second day was pretty easy in comparison. We filmed by a road and all survived. The star of Broadway's "Avenue Q" wiggled a stop sign well. We worked with some chickens who cooperated well: mainly because they'd been processed into chicken sausages. I can safely say that filming food beauty shots takes a long time. The armoury of food-fluffing devices that the food stylist had was impressive: pipettes with cheese sauce, brushes daubed in "sausage polish" and a probe-like Ketchup Prodder (patent pending.)

An interesting moment was the roll-call of extras who'd been chosen to sit and mime conversation in the KFC restaurant by the local Newcastle-based production facility. There were no blokes and about 75% of the women looked like they were straight from the pages of Viz. Deemed "not the target audience", our ladies were told to "have a sit down in the dining bus for a bit" (only compounding the issue of course). A load more were drafted in, young slim, male and aspirational, and all was good. The 1stAD sweated over how to break it to the ladies that they would not be miming conversation in the KFC for us. It was definitely his most stressful moment on the shoot. He solved his dilemma by delegating to a minion. 1stADs definitely have the best stocked "minion cupboard" of anyone on set.

And so, straight into the edit. Things got changed around a bit, then changed back. The editor had patterns on the bottom of his sneakers, which was a nice touch I thought. Musicians went mad with lots of changes and then we used a library track anyway. Brian Blessed did the voice-over in between telling us hair-raising anecdotes about Kenneth Branagh. And thus the ad became dubbed, clocked and dusted. Hooray. Dougal was not party to any of this, of course, as he was confined in the same field for three weeks due to Blue Tongue movement restrictions. I think they let some cows in with him though. Lucky cows!

Click the links to watch Sign, Bull, and Motivation.