Vultures Eps4: When Jim met Pat (Director’s Diary)

The weeks have quickly flown by, slowly but surely we’ve ploughed our way through the scripts for Vultures episodes 5 & 6. We shot hours of footage, it’s taken weeks but as I begin to flip through the sheets in “my bible” more and more of the pages have a large red line down the side, the line means “it’s done, we got it, move on…”.That’s a line I hear myself saying or I’m thinking constantly throughout the shoot, as we battle the clock against actor or location availablility.

The past few weeks I haven’t been able to read the schedule, it became a foreign language to me as it bounced around and had to be “re-jigged” for one reason or another. Thankfully (and thankslessly) John Morton can read it and then translate it to me several times a day!? Right now, I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be anywhere shooting something, so I have time to upload some more behind the scenes shots from episode 4.

The usual spoiler warning applies now, if you haven’t yet watched ‘The Case Of The Poisoned Dates‘ then click here and have your name scratched off my “list of doom”.

I’ve just uploaded a batch of new photos taken when we were shooting the scene where V.P.I detective Jim Vultour (John Morton) meets his harrassed ex-girlfriend’s (Sarah Black played by Niamh Moroney) new boyfriend; patterned-jumper-wearing trad band frontman Pat Cairo (Paddy Dunne). (NERD TRIVIA: This would be Pat Cairo’s first appearance, along with Paddy’s on camera debut. Himself and John have spent over two years writing and developing the show). I was really looking forward to shooting a lovely scene with the two of them meeting as their relevant characters.

This is one of my favourite scenes in episode 4; it’s got some of my favourite lines and reactions and I love the lighting, but the shoot actually took place over two days (MORE NERD TRIVIA). We arrived in Alan Slattery’s (”Sla”) parent’s house early on a Sunday morning. Sla has so many jobs that I’m not sure what to put in brackets after his name, but imagine the list is something like this: “producer, camera operator, editor and a lot of other stuff!? His parents seem only too happy to let us use their house to shoot in. So, we show up every couple of weeks, rearrange their furniture, drink all their tea, eat all their biscuits and then disappear before washing up! (FACT!)

This particular Sunday was no different. We spent the night before shooting the scene in Ryan’s pub, after this shoot in Sla’s parents, we’d be shooting the montage sequence in the park where Jim & Janine stalk Pat & Sarah. After that we’d be back in Ryan’s to finish the brawl.Did you follow that!? That’s what it’s like when I talk to John Morton! Sunday’s are usually our busiest days, it’s the day when everyone is free.

Every Sunday, as we’re taking a tea break, we laugh at ourselves. When you ask most people what they did on Sunday, they don’t have much to reply with. After today my answer would be something like: “On Sunday, I was working on that sitcom thing I told you about. We were shooting a bit where Jim breaks into his ex-girlfriends house to sleep on her couch and when she throws him out he meets her new boyfriend, who wears patterned jumpers, you also get to see his trad band ‘The Cairo City Ramblers’, they’re in the back of the van he jumps out of singing…”. By now I’ve mastered spotting that glazed-over look in people’s eyes. I stop, exchange quick pleasantries and go where-ever John Morton told me I should be, to shoot what he told me we were shooting.

Due to actor availability and, I can’t believe I’m saying it: “van availility”, we shot this scene over two days, weeks apart. On the first day we started with the scene inside the sitting room, quickly moving on to shooting all of the dialogue between Jim, Sarah & Pat at the front door. There’s always a worry of splitting an outdoor scene shoot in half, simple things like the weather can mess it up. But when we returned on the last day of shooting to finish the scene we were delighted to find it wouldn’t be a problem.

The last day of shooting was a very happy and relaxed one. We showed up at Sla’s parent’s house early Sunday morning, it was frosty and cold. As we tried to wake up, we attacked the Slattery tea & biscuit supply, dressing KenMc’s van (VAN ENTHUSIAST’S TRIVIA) with flags and trad instruments. As the sun began to shine and the neighbours awoke, looking out their windows to see where the blast of trad music was coming from, I’m sure they were left wondering “what the hell is going on in the Slattery’s drive-way!?”.

To add to the “session in the back of the van” look; we ran extension cables from the house through the front of the van, to power two multi-coloured floor lights (LIGHTING NERD TRIVIA: supplied by KilkennyMusic.com: we also used the lights to make the Watergate Theatre look like a cinema!) . Add some pints and the bearded-band of merry trad men that are the Cairo City Ramblers; Tommy Dowling, Laurent Murray & Mick Slattery (RANDOM TRIVIA: Mick is Sla’s dad, he has an awesome beard & is possibly the loveliest man ever!). Enter Pat Cairo… in a blaze of trad glory which we had to film several times to get a take where nobody was laughing behind the camera and then a couple of times more so we could all laugh!

Following Pat’s entrance we pulled the lights from the van and set up over Jim’s shoulder to shoot the van entering and leaving the driveway. Sla would later work his magic making it all seem as one but that was a wrap on the Vultures Eps4: ‘The Case Of The Poisoned Dates‘.

Rest assured I still have plenty more photos from the shoot to come along and my behind the scenes documentary. With the episode 5 & 6 shoot end now clearly in sight, there’s plenty more to come over the coming weeks and months.