Sometime in 2006, Allen Stroud had discussed the possibility of shooting a short film based around Maelstrom. We talked about the possibilities of shooting a sea battle and various effects. I came up with an action sequence that would have been suitable for part of the sea battle and talked to various crew members about it. It presented a really good opportunity for a showcase for lots of the guys (including me) so, when life, time and money got in the way and Allen’s film fell through, I decided that we should shoot the action sequence anyway. As a crew we shoot together a lot but we were all really busy so we put it on the back burner for a while.

I finally got my shit together around July 07 and started storyboarding and favour pulling. We cobbled together a plot (more of an excuse for a scrap) by using spare footage of a miniature Tudor street and garret set that I had shot for a different project several years before with Neil Dabson. Badger Towch did the voice over and we were off. Our first shoot date in September fell by the wayside as various people had other commitments so we rescheduled for November, instantly making our lives harder with short days and potential bad weather.

Sam Kahn, our Fight Director (from As if by magic), designed the hand to hand action and began rehearsals with Kiera Gould, our trainee Stunt Performer. Then later a horde of Lrp extras (the usual suspects) descended en masse on Sam’s back garden for several days of mayhem. Chris Puttock, the pirate who gets the hook around his neck, is also training for the Stunt Register. Stuart at Norton armouries constructed a prop axe, suitable for repeatedly smashing the breakaway prop hook. We decided early on that lrp weapons would look shit on film so everything we used was real.

Ilona, Sam’s better half, took charge of the wardrobe requirements, designing Kieras costume and setting the style for the rest of the motley crew.

A lot of us are involved one way or another in film Art Departments. Between us we’ve worked on all of the Harry Potters, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Batman Begins, James Bond, V for Vendetta blah, blah, blah, so we used what we’ve learned to put together the cheapest, quickest pirate ship in the world. Badger, our Production Designer, produced set designs and five of us spent a very long weekend at Shepperton Studios building a flat pack ships deck, which was then broken up and stashed under Hogwarts as it was too big to store at home.

Where possible we built most of the dressing props (crates, boxes, exploding barrels etc.) to keep the price down and so the guys could put them in their prop making portfolios. Rich and Jess at Evenlode lent us weapons and a selection of  guns and Mick Parkin, our resident evil genius, wired them up with hidden micro switches so that Toby and his guys could load them with explosives (teeheehee). Kiera, myself and her long suffering little sister spent several mind numbingly boring evenings in my front room cutting, stripping and taping 500 metres of cabling and fitting connecters for the 50 odd bullet hits that would later be drilled through and be hidden in the ships timber. Then we took a trip up to Lincoln where Tony Lewis let us test bullet hits and bangs at his explosives factory.

Luke Bryant, our Director of Photography and I pre planned and mapped all of the shots based on the set designs and the storyboards. Alan, our 1st Ad then worked out our scheduling based around the number of takes and the length of time resetting pyrotechnics would take.

So on Thursday 15th Nov , the Art Department picked up the set and headed for Venus Hill Farm near Watford. By the end of day the day we’d set up the steel decking on the top of a small hill and begun to assemble the basic walls. It froze overnight but the forecast snow held off. As we had a field full of borrowed gear, which we couldn’t really leave, we froze too, sleeping in Badgers van and my car on a pile of Kiera’s crash mats. We spent Friday assembling and dressing the set and fitting the pyro cabling and then drank ourselves to sleep again on cheap cider.

At 10.00 am on Saturday morning, the rest of the troops arrived, 14 cast and
22 crew from as far a field as Manchester and Cardiff and full rehearsals began with the set dressers dodging through the background trying to work without getting stabbed. The first quite spectacular injury occurred when Sam, whilst demonstrating how a move should be done, managed to stick a steel cavalry sabre about an inch into Kiera's thigh. Once patched up, she practiced somersaults and jumps with mats and rehearsed her fight with Harry Harrold, our pirate captain. The pyro guys spent the day wiring and testing. Meanwhile, the weather forecast changed from snow to torrential rain instead. Hurrah! 

6.30, Sunday morning saw Ilona and Lara franticly costuming and Alice slapping on makeup, with Alan our American 1st Ad yelling for actors to “get that fucking breakfast down them and on set now, now, now!”. Shooting in winter is always tight as daylight is really limited so we had to be ready to go from first light.

We shot 16 takes of the full fight with two cameras in under an hour, running the cast ragged and then moved into close ups and cutaways. We shot 4 takes of kiera running through 50 bullet hits, 10 somersaults and tonnes of musket fire. I only got shot in the face once, which I consider to be a bonus. To finish on a high note, Alan had scheduled the exploding dark powder barrels last. We lined up our small fleet of vans between the set and the nearby cottages to absorb the shrapnel and took cover. Obviously we had to blow several barrels up, just to be sure. 

The second we finished shooting, the skies opened so we dismantled the set in a downpour, in the dark.

After that, we did nothing for a bit, did the Christmas thing and then the talented Neil Price started editing. Machines broke, leads didn’t work, all the usual chaos. Once the cut was finished, Mike Crook (Bosh from Golden Apple) composed the music and that was pretty much that.