The Actors (part 5)

On screening the footage from the actors that showed up in Soho House for the auditions, Daniel, Daithi, Alan and I were present. Daniel was pretty sure already about George Maguire, that was a given and we all agreed.

But there were uncertainties for his fellow actor, that was until we saw the performance of Reuben Henry-Biggs.


There and then I was convinced and with the same enthusiasm that has brought me this far, vocalized that this guy is a star. I loved his face immediately, the guys were of mixed opinions, but I rammed home that this guy has to be Luke, he is incredible, and perfect for the part, and would provide the perfect dynamic in opposition to George's energy.  Within minutes I think everyone else was on board for that and so we made the decision about who the two male leads would be to bring to life Daniel’s script.


I had numerous lively impassioned conversations over the phone with Emma Griffiths Malin. Daniel had attracted her to the role of Molly, and they met from time to time to discuss matters. Emma is a whirlwind amongst many other things and literally brought truck loads of baggage to substantiate her part. She is a fan of horror and musicals and a bloody good actress, she did not have to audition for the part as thanks to YouTube we could see her abilities and trusted that she was more than capable of bringing vitality to the role.












We now had our cast, as in the main players, Amy Noble had been first on board.



John E Regan was a suggestion of Daithi’s an Australian theatre actor, living in Galway with an amazing face, this again we left to faith and trust, as indeed I trust Daithi’s aesthetic implicitly. Eventually we had a sort of casting with John on SKYPE one day, Daniel spoke with him and asked him in his own unique fashion to carry out certain acting scenarios for us live there and then. It was clear to all of us that yes his was more than an interesting face.

With all the actors being contacted and accepting happily our proposition, and negotiations going on back and forth with attempting to drum up an entire Red Camera crew from Toronto, Alan decided to come in for another investment, which was most welcome. Now I was working with a healthy budget and closer to the goal.

I had approached two friends that I thought might come in for another possible investment, but it turned out that they had too much on and so Kevin managed to secure another amount equivalent to a 2.5% stake of the production from a friend of his, so now having reached the initial desired budget before which I had actually gone over, it I still find that things are too tight, in fact a little confusion regarding the sound crew that Vinit has managed to call on board has occurred. I was offering X amount for the crew and was assuming equipment was coming with that, but no, so anyway we have the team but without equipment, so I have to hire that as well as extra lights and so on.

I had a conversation yesterday (March 29th) with a great business minded friend of mine who has recently moved from NYC to London, we had a one hour forty five minute phone call where I hurtled at her the entire pitch as I have done so many times with different individuals to date, she is interested and reading the script on Monday. She would be a superb mind to have on board especially when it comes to the finish line tactics and manoeuvres concerned with approaching the bigger financial players out there.

Waiting to acquire permission to shoot in the house was somewhat agonizing as we had built our hopes and in fact Daniel has begun in earnest the process of seeing the film in that house. We were on a cliff edge and had to approach the owner via his real estate agent, it took about a week to actually get an answer and I had to do some pestering, but alas we got it just before Easter and what would have been an insufferable delay stretching over another 5 days including Bank Holidays. This extra added insecurity to undermine Daniel's mind alas was now put to bed. But as one major factor subsides another looms, actual commitment from Vinit and his team, outside of the infrequent communiques via e-mail and phone calls due to his present work commitments consuming their time in Toronto, phone calls back and forth have dwindled somewhat!!!

laying the corner stones section 4

We arranged to come back that night and meet at 8 O’Clock with the rest of the students, and we arrived with my Mac Book Pro and there I was sat in their kitchen the only warm room exuded via the fire place, as there is no heating in the house, surrounded by a cool gang of motley individuals, as I pitched once again the story of this film. They were all open and eager and in fact two of them, Jerry Fitzgearld and Ray are both actors and had recently put on a play of Glen Garry Glen Ross at their college, and were keen to read for the acting roles. Jerry is in the process of creating a student film festival in Kerry, and although he did not get an acting role will work on the film while we shoot in the house, Ray will be away in Australia at the time. This is a great opportunity for him to get first hand experience by simply getting up early and walking down the stairs after his mornings toiletries.

Daniel came over again on Monday the 10th of March for three days to see what progress had been made on the ground as well as to work on the props necessary with Daithi as Daithi is our more than competent in fact brilliant Production Designer. The afternoon Dan arrived his plane was delayed by three hours as we had some heavy storms blowing through Ireland and England, added to that a farce where the Bank of Ireland screwed up a money transfer into his account from mine which left him penniless, especially for that all important previous Friday to meet with the actors in Soho House. I eventually got that money back and gave it to him the day after he arrived. With no time to waste we drove from the airport and had our second meeting with all the crew in the house, video footage of which I shot for a planned documentary we are making on the making of the film, Jerry did his screen test as well that evening. We visited the house again the next day this time Alan came and met Daniel and joined us as we photographed the house and measured it out. We all then went to see the second location which Daithi and I happened across while searching on that faithful day for our desperately needed new main location. LOCATION LOFUCKINGCATION.

Shit! I just got some bad news while writing this, a friend of mine named Paul Fryer called me to tell me that Angus Fairhurst has killed himself. God Rest His Soul. He was a good man. He and Sarah Lucas, Abigail Lane, Paul Fryer, Padraig MacEgan and my great friend now also deceased, Donal na Greine, all had a few days together here in Ireland back in 1997, and now two of those souls have gone, it makes me sad and yet passionate as a lust for life must be drummed up from sometimes banal interior states of despondency, and making this film work is an act of exactly that, trying to make living here in Kerry while a magnificent county when it comes to mother nature, it can sometimes be rather dull. Angus’ death will be a terrible loss to a lot of people.

The second location is a 1970’s house in the Spa owned by a lovely couple Brendan and Regina who have been very welcoming. We all went along to see that, and had a chat with Brendan, then went for lunch and talked out logistics. Daniel and Daithi worked day in day out on the shooting script and room requirement layout as well as on props. Daniel will come again probably on Monday the 14th of April as we are scheduled to begin shooting on the 21st for 18 working days in Ireland including Saturdays as well as three days in London, the logistics of which are also extremely involved and costly. Daniel has done lots of painstaking work in organizing that end in relation to scouting out locations and enquiring after parking suspensions.

I have also been working on setting up a limited company here to be entitled ‘Spiderhole Productions Limited’ Daithi and I had a meeting with John Naughten about that on Friday the 14th of March I think, then we had to go back to him on the following Tuesday with regard to good advice he gave on the structure of the company. Alan and I had a meeting with Philip Manzor our account on the Thursday that Daniel left, he has a very sharp and keen mind and is also a good adviser. We should have our articles of memorandum on Wednesday with which to open a business account with the Bank of Ireland, I have had a few phone calls with a young manager in there named Tom Keane who has been very helpful, and it appears if all is in order then we might have a functioning account that evening. This is essential as we will need transparent accountancy details when it comes to applying for a possible finishing grant from The Irish Film Board, Sarah Dillon has been very helpful from that governmental body.

A lot of the aspects of Brian Nolan’s initial concerns in relation to the setting up of the necessary structures of making a feature film have now been set in place, while oddly enough Brian I know is harbouring excitement about it all, he is not overtly on board so to speak. I know he has plenty of other projects on the go, but I did think he might be more full on in the process of this pre-production to date, having written that he has been there on call when I needed to know something everytime, and did come out for a meeting one evening here, where Alan, Daniel, Daithi and I trashed out various elements of the plot. I had wanted to pay him and give him a percentage of the production but I was left unsure as how to structure that myself as I was not at all working with him on the same level of exchange as everyone else, hence he has relinquished my initial offers as all Brian wants is to see the film get made, and he is happy to do whatever he can for free, this type of selfless behaviour is inspiring to me.

Post no.3 onward and upward

Our then DOP mentioned to Daniel over their first conversation that he might have the possibility of getting his hands on one of these beauties (or beasts). We entered into price negotiations with a couple of English companies during the process of which the daunting reality of this new technology became all too apparent, regardless of this I had set my mind on it no matter what. The quotations from London were budget busting as we now realized we would require an expensive team to handle this new pretty much uncharted territory. A DIT to handle the technical requirements, at 250 pounds sterling a day, and a a first AC at yet another significant sum. 

Kevin Hannifan who had lived in Toronto had given me contact details for a friend of his named Peter Parks, a man that runs a serious camera rental company in Toronto. Peter had kindly offered some advice, my next e-mail to him was in relation to the Red Camera, he replied that he did not have one, but gave me the contact details for a guy that did. Vinit Borrision. I called him immediately and on answering his phone he was pelted under a torrential RANT from a delirious yapping novice Irish Producer who initially was in hot pursuit of a pricing deal and by the end of the phone call was offering him the option of being the DP of the film.

Vinit told me that should he decide to do that on the strength of reading the script, that he would give me an unbelievable deal. Little did he know that I thrive on all things unbelievable.

By then unfortunately Daniel had lost confidence in our English DP and in fact he had just left the day before after having come over for his second stay in Ireland, the above mentioned phone call was made Friday evening, March 14th. That which was looking an impossibility, the prospect of shooting with a Red Camera had now become a contender once more. Fingers crossed that Vinit would like the script. Meanwhile Daniel was researching the camera on sites like www.creativecow.com and low and behold came across a picture of Vinit with the camera in all its glory at a symposium in Montreal for Final Cut Pro users and DP’s over there. What were the chances of that?. Daniel was now incredibly excited that he was now teasingly about to have the possibility of having his first feature shot on a camera that will basically have a '35mm' look. No farting around with lower level cameras, I was getting closer to putting into his hands the best possible camera for the job at this point and time.

All of this was going on while I was here studying and learning the trade on the run. At night watching videos on line into the late hours from www.freshdigital.com that were incredibly enlightening for me as I needed to converse with everybody on so many levels.

So here I was learning about the importance of a focus puller and being blown away by what that entailed; anyone reading this will probably laugh at the absurdity of my largess in proportion to my ignorance, but there you go, I say, jump the FUCK in at the deep end. My initial interest beside the fact of a couple of years back in the mid to late 90’s attending the Everyman Cinema in Hamstead in London watching many of the great master pieces from the spectrum of world cinema greats, to my recent early forays into actual editing, and previous to this having written two scripts. And now Producing a feature from scratch. A-Z learning curve in a matter of months, and WHY NOT! My role as a Producer will be to initiate, coordinate and supervise matters such as fund raising, hiring key personnel, and arranging for distributors. But I think this film will be somewhat different as well as the above I am going to have to create the entire vision for where can go and what we can accomplish as a group of talented and courageous individuals, and inspire people to do more for less on his particular adventure.

Meanwhile back on the battle field we had gone through the ordeal of loosing our first chosen location, I recommend not making the same mistake I did by banking on what seems perfect and seeking out more than one location to suit your needs. That same day we went out and found another perfect location, but did I heed the advice I just gave you above? Did I fuck!!! And this lead to another slightly torturous and anxious wait with regard to seeking permission to shoot there after once again setting our hearts and minds upon it. This time we had found a brilliant house built in 1829, Bellmount House, and lived in by a group of interesting somewhat anarchical students. We arrived one afternoon to witness loads of beer bottles and cans all scattered by the front door. Daithi and I had actually come here once before as the house was known to Daithi, during that visit we saw signs of life and thought that a family must be in residence, so we just drove away without further enquiry, it seemed a forgone conclusion. This time it had the hallmarks of what we had hoped for all along, a mecca for students who love to party.

We met with Sam who unwittingly opened the door and was a cool, attractive young musician who showed us around. Our first sight was that part of the ceiling had fallen in in the entrance hallway, the aftermath from a big party one night where someones foot went through the floor. The rooms were huge with grand high ceilings actually in tact!! But the basement was the real gem, great big rooms, one of which houses the band equipment where they can play and rehearse full steam ahead without any grief as there are no immediate neighbours to hector at the noisome mayhem of these students untrammeled nocturnal exploits. Music to our ears.

Part 2 The plot thickens

I went up to Alan’s house the next night and showed all that I had managed to muster together in terms of possible DOP then being Owen McPolin, and possible sound guy, we had Noel Quinn in mind, all of these were Brian’s suggestions, and a cluster of possible formats and methods for making this happen to Alan and his wife Joanne, they were both visibly interested and more than accommodating. The next morning I e-mailed both of them the script which they printed out copies of and read quickly. I was asking for serious money. Eventually a number of days later that realistically became an actual offer of a sizable percentage of the main sum, they had both read the script, their first ever and really liked it.

I held back the info from Brian for a little while that we now had less money than what we required, but that was cool as I was intent on raising more with another individual who was floating in my mind, and as I had suspected came in for a significant investment simply on the strength of our initial conversation in Quinlins, one of the best bars left in Ireland and owned by Hugh O'Connor a lovely, intelligent and humble man. This was something I was trying to avoid, a conversation over a pint, as I had wanted to formally meet with him and show him all that we had garnered together. And this man is the ever supportive and generous Kevin Hannafin.

Over that Quinlins pint, also by the way one the best pints of Guinness in Kerry to my knowledge, Kevin stood up to become a wonderfully positive force in the production of this movie. A couple of days later, Daithi and I went around to his house for the first time and I showed Kevin and his wife Meta in greater detail what this project was all about. And explaining to them who Daniel was, and what he had accomplished in the past. Kevin is a man to my mind that acts upon instinct, and these are the type of individuals I want to be around, how sound that instinct is, is yet to be played out. I now had a more substantial purse of euro at my disposal, and was gun hoe and ploughing ahead.

The search for actors, a DOP and a sound crew was underway, and the phone was printed to my face.

Daithi and I were renting films and watching a DVD of Irish shorts a friend of mine Maurice Galway (Director of the Dingle Film Festival) gave to me to help with the process. We were making lists and making phone calls, and I entered into a communication with the Lisa Richards Acting Agency in Dublin, getting the scripts to Irish Talent that we liked, all this eventually came to naught as Daniel and I made our choices via a casting I set up for Friday the 7th of March in Soho House in London thanks to Mandy Kean booking a room where Dan reeled in his contacts with agents there and shot footage of a number of guys for the two male lead roles.

My contact in the Lisa Richards agency never returned any e-mails again as I apologized and thanked him for his communications to date, but informed that the director had chosen the cast elsewhere, ZERO communication after that, that was a bit odd!!! NADA!! I mean what if we need someone for something else or whatever!!! I don't know, but I thought that odd practice.

I had been in London for Octavius Black’s wedding on the 14th of February and before returning I stayed a night with Daniel and we screened some casting material which he had from his Hollywood feature BORN (still to this day stuck in a budgeting palaver). We both liked Amy Noble and saw her immediately as Zoe. Now where were we going to find Molly? A week later we had interest shown via Amy’s agent and she had been sent the script. By the time Daniel was back in Ireland, and we had got the interest of Emma Griffiths Malin to play Molly, she being the most experienced of the actors and a young woman that looked to be of an exceptional character. (little did I know, and what a character she is).

We had an English DOP on board by the 29th of February, but for a series of issues this ultimately fell apart after three weeks of somewhat infrequent talks. I liked him, but he didn’t really inspire Daniel with confidence and was just too slow in relation to actually reading the script and making strong and impacting decisions in relation to making this movie happen. Lists of lighting requirements were being drawn up, I was passing these along to try and establish what we could get from FAS and what we would have to rent, but the DP was somewhat on the back foot as regards hammering his requirements home. By now we are thundering ahead, and new horizons were beginning to dawn. Enter THE RED CAMERA. WOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

This new film making phenomenon was first made know to me last March when I had set in train a night class in film editing given by Brian Nolan. I first met Brian in early January with some gig footage that had been shot on an NTSC mini dv tape. This I needed converting to PAL and Maurice Galway put me in touch with Brian who did it for me in a heart beat. That was in mid January, on seeing the equipment that FAS had, I asked him about whether he had ever given a night course in Final Cut to which he answered that he had tried, but could not get sufficient numbers. Next morning I woke up with the idea to phone him and suggest I go and get the people, which eventually got done after weeks of painstaking phone calls. The course was great, and he is a superb teacher and a superb creative asset for kerry. During this course and amongst the many plums of knowledge he imparted, including enlightening me to the brilliance of www.lynda.com he spoke about the Red Camera that was then still in development.

Spiderhole The Movie ( The Story Begins )

Since that first day (Thursday, January 31st 2008) when I strutted about Daithi Magner's (my friend and the Production Designer) apartment and pitched the energy and attitude of a Producer in declaring to my friend Daniel Simpson the script writer/Director that we make SPIDERHOLE, his script, here in Kerry and that I will get the money, as my mind tossed wildly impinging that THIS can be done, we have rocked forward with great results. I recall phoning Brian Nolan (Final Cut Pro aficionado) and arranging for an impromptu meeting (February 2nd), where Dathi and I sat before his capable experience and assaulted his thought process with that initial mind set necessary to MAKE anything happen. WE CAN DO THIS. WE ARE GOING TO DO THIS.

Brian was the classic realist in the seat of devils advocate, bating back at my ping pong mind, as we played a fast paced service. Yes, No, Yes, No, maybe, No-WAY, We simply must! I don’t think so! I don’t agree, BUT PAT!!! Brian, look, WE WILL!! PAT DO YOU REALIZE!! I will deal with that when the time comes!! and so and so forth. We began the process of trashing. And Daithi sat their having met Brian for the first time, with his usual deep seated wisdom and patience observing THE RANT and play of one of the our first actual steps in pre-production.

The stage was being set, and I needed Brian on board. I showed him Daniel’s short film ‘The Uninvited’ which we had to skip on through as his mind was not really in need of this but for a few scenes to get the deal, I was attempting to express and hint at the quality of this venture, and where we intended to go, and show that this was going to be something more than perhaps he might have come to expect around these parts. What I consider to be a necessary arrogance!! And the fuel of desire for me to project to others the FUCKING wherewithal to want to do it in the first place.

We left with a new list of requirements, camera considerations, possibilities of 16 mm, and or shooting on the Sony XD CAM EX 1 with a Brevis Lens adapter. And allowing Brian to believe that it would all be shot here with local talent, something I had very little intention of doing as I felt we will need to go further afield to get the positivity and talent required to set up a production with any real chance of a pretty good result. Smoke and mirrors to distract from his grounded understandings.


I wanted to gather a team, and I had little intention of calling up too much local Irish input as in my experience that would be fraught with a baggage train I was not intent on tirelessly transporting. All those people that say ‘I will come out next week and see what you are doing.’ (And of course never arrive) when I have attempted to instill ideas before their thought processes, are not the kind of individuals I want to be around when it comes to making something like this a real possibility, I needed fast creative and inventive minds. And more to the point, minds that get in on the level of conception, and not minds that want in when the entire bigger picture is manifested before their eyes. I needed mavericks, as well as solid square realists, of my choosing.

I left Brian with the script, I had only just read it myself that morning, Daithi had read it the night before and loved it. Now I had to get someone to offer money on the strength of this as yet tenuous proposal. My initial possible investor was pretty quickly knocked out of the equation via the process of friendly advice, not denigrating the individual as such, but simply informing that he may not be the easiest of people to deal with once the money is pledged, and so my first major source was no longer and now I was facing into a temporary vacuum. FUCK, where to now?.

A few weeks previous and down in a local bar one night, I had listened to Alan O’Sullivan talk about a possible business plan, and he had asked me to get involved with designing a website. This then placed a seed in my mind in relation to something more plausible that Daithi and I had discussed, as we had been shooting and editing some little short video sketches together, and had worked on a fifteen page script to be sent to a friend of his who is a Producer in LA for a potential TV series. Daithi has an exceptionally inventive mind and I believe his ideas for possible ventures are winners.

I had some wee phone salvos with some friends about maybe getting together a patch work of investors, perhaps all pitching in a barrel full of euro’s each. This was unrealistic and I immediately skipped ahead and phoned Alan one night and asked him to come and see me if he would the next afternoon, that was if I recall correctly Sunday, February 9th. I pitched the project to him and he was as I had hoped immediately intrigued and positive, that positivity he has brought ever since to this production. And by then we had found a great location and had had another meeting with Brian. Brian had also recommend a great Irish DP named Owen McPolin who I had a series of e-mails and phone calls with, but he ultimately could not get involved in the project, although he did love the script.

One of our first finds for the film was the make up artist Samantha Sheehan.
Daithi came across her name while searching through the net for possible choices, we saw pictures of her work and made contact, then sent her the script. Sam has been delightfully enthusiastic from the get go and exceptionally detailed in her work on breaking down the script in relation to her requirements. This will be her first involvement in a feature, and she has a lot of work to do, and a lot of energy with which to carry it out, and definitely a daunting task ahead of her.