Alarm goes off at 6:30. Still dark outside, damn that's confusing. I set the Google maps to Skegness, not a specific area, just the town in general. Of course we have to stop off via Leicester to pick up our star (a brilliant debut for Danny Lewsley), we tried to hire him a helicopter but he insisted on 'keeping it real', true method acting at it's best.
So off we set, The Three Musketeers, or 3 stooges, you pick, along A roads a-plenty, we pass a Pizza Hut, bugger too early for lunch. We pass a McDonalds, shit too late for breakfast.
Many cabbage fields and Eastbound and Down quotes later we start to see, and subsequently celebrate, signs to Skeggy, the celebrations increasing as the mileage numbers decline. Suddenly over the horizon we see a roller coaster, we can now smell OAP's, Fish and Chips and towel-clad Germans as our excitement increases. We hit the seaside road and all planning goes out the window. 'We've got to get in a cheeky game of crazy golf at some point lads', we all agree (after bickering as to whether pitch n putt is better or not..). 'Holy shit!...they have laser quest!?' we are now completely blinded as to what our quest of the day is with our minds replacing 'make an awesome short film' with 'laser the crap out of each other'. We stay strong though and head to the car park, promising ourselves that if time permits, lasers will be fired.
An air of complacency had hit the car, with the sun shining outside and the heating on full blast, we shrug today off as yet another filming day...until we step out and remember what exactly todays shoot we entail, hot pants being the main thing on our star's mind, and not for the first time.
Being possibly the only people in Skegness at this time of year with our own teeth we decide solid food is a must have. Fish and Chips surely? Well of course, sometimes you've gotta look yourself in the mirror and say 'when in Rome' and we did just that...except this was 11:45, a whole 25 minutes before the chip shops will be open, so a full English it was. But not just that, it was a full English in a pub/club/movie themed entertainment venue with movie songs being the soundtrack to our breakfast. There's no better way of getting in the filming mood than listening to 'Time of My Life' a few times on repeat.
So onwards with the filming.
A final props checklist whilst the star does some lunges to warm his body for the temperatures of the day and we're off to the beach, football, lilo and beach towel (which also doubles up as a beach bag..) in hand, what more could you need for a day on the beach?
First shot, the tricky one, Danny emerges for the water, soaking wet to see that he has in fact washed up on an off-season British pleasure beach. The Christmas jumper comes pre-soaked so he doesn't have to go under himself, what a diva he puts it on and we press record. Now don't let his performance fool you, it was cold. Very freaking cold to be precise, in the minus numbers if you want it even more precise. We had Danny wrapped in anything we could find between takes but it barely helped. Hell I was freezing and I was layered up, but I didn't dare tell him that!
Coppola reckons he had it tough on Apocalypse now (no comparison) but all he had was Heart Attacks, Typhoons and a difficult Brando. I'd love to see them deal with freezing temperatures on a dead beach and still come out with some of the golden footage we got.
As the sun was setting and the frostbite was kicking in we made a decision, we had enough shots and Danny had had enough of everything, it's back to car and back to the safety of the Midlands.
After a quick stop at McDonalds and a quick nap for Rob (he had an exciting day, the beach, cheeseburgers, he was a tired boy..) we were home and the cold already seemed like a distant memory. But damn we didn't get laser quest in, next time ay boys?
Please check out our efforts here and while you're watching keep thinking 'minus temperatures, minus temperatures, this guys is running in the sea with one sock, pants and a shirt on in minus temperatures' and just let the magic happen..
