Jogging Along

Joggers is half way through its shoot now - at least I hope so. If all goes like clockwork then maybe I’ll finish shooting without having to add extra days. However, that is not how things usually go so I wont announce the date of the wrap party yet. Maybe, to motivate the troops, I should announce that I celebrate in true Hong Kong Indie style by giving the actors and crew a bottle of Tsingtao to share and a packet of salt n’ vinegar crisps. This should increase the work rate by an extra three pages a day.Amazingly, we managed to get all the required shots of mosquitoes. I never realized how co-operative they were. The cold spell had all but ended their work season, but just for the filming they came out to aid us in getting that extra itchy look.   You have no idea of the negotiations I had with the insect unions. They are very powerful in this neck of the woods and supplying Winnebago’s for eighteen thousand extras is a considerable drain upon the budget. It is worth it, however. I showed my father some of the production stills. He said it looked like I was investigating a traffic accident. I guess those policemen genes I inherited from him keep coming out in me. Hitchcock’s  films were imbued with Catholic themes of guilt and confession,  Spielbergs with  predatory evil and saviours,  whereas Lawrence Gray’s movies cannot escape references to Dickson of Dock Green. I think the scene where “Cat”, in tight pink shorts and thick black eyeliner, leaps upon the bonnet of a car and hisses, “Evening All, and drive safely!” is a dead give away. Though I suspect that most people who are old and English enough to remember such a seminal moment in British TV history, are dead or have Alzheimer’s by now.Given the heat, I am rather glad that I decided against having my actors dress in latex. It worked for the Baywatch team. At least I used to think so until I was informed that it was Lycra that worked for them.  But, in the name of originality, I stuck with my typo until the heat returned and then decided better of it. Flexibility, is not a monopoly of those Mongolian gymnasts who can stick their heads between their knees and blow a kazoo, but also the sign of a truly great director. Now, to finish the film and prove the point!