Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (26 page)

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I suppose that’s it, then.

I do feel peculiar.

But happy.

THE END (AGAIN)

Glossary of Terms

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1. The Director:
The director is the person ultimately responsible for the film and every aspect of the film. They are the Big Boss and absolutely everyone is trained to serve their vision. This does not mean you can’t have ideas of your own, however.

Our director is Susanna White, and she is very good at collaborating with people. The director designs the shapes of the shots and makes suggestions to the actors – well, to everyone really – about what will make the scene work. In a sense, the director carries the whole film about with them all the time, in their head. So that if someone has a specific question about any part of it, the director will be able to answer it. So it is pretty much the most important job and we are very lucky to have Susanna who has directed lots and lots of wonderful things and really knows her onions.

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2. The Designer:
He or she is responsible for the entire look of the film – the sets and the locations and everything.

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3. The Producer:
There are lots of different kinds of producers on a film, as you will see, and Lindsay Doran is the main one. This is because she started to work on the film five years ago, which is when I started to write the script. She edits what I write and sends me about a million pages of notes and then I write it all again. We do this A LOT – it takes years – and then when the script is finally ready, she does the next bit, which is finding the money to make it. Then she and whoever she has found to provide the money choose a director and then things start hotting up.

During the shoot Lindsay is there all day, every day, to solve any problem that arises with the script or actors or – well, anything really.
She
says that she’s there purely to help everyone else do their job. That’s how she describes producing. It’s very hard work and she doesn’t get much sleep and she is the best producer I have ever known.

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4. The Sound Department:
Much as you would expect, this department is responsible for recording all the sounds during the shoot (not the music – that comes later, in the edit).

Simon Hayes is our Head of Sound. He sits at his recording machine and listens like a hawk to everything that comes through the microphones. If there is a noise that interferes with the track, like a plane or some such, he will ask for filming to be stopped until it is quiet. A bad soundtrack means that all the actors have to go into a recording studio after filming is finished and record their voices again. This is called Additional Dialogue Recording (ADR) and it not very popular with most actors because you have to synchronise your lips with the lips on the screen and that’s not easy. But Simon and his team are so good that we probably won’t have to do any ADR.

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5. The Director of Photography (DP):
This is the person who is responsible for how the film looks – he or she decides where to put all the lights, what kind of lights they should be, where the camera will work best (although lots of people join in with this kind of decision, especially the director) and what will look good in the frame, which is the bit the camera is pointed at.

Mike Eley is our DP – he is very gentle and peers constantly around, almost like a bird of prey, checking every corner of his frame, checking the level of light, checking the sky if we’re outside – he knows everything about the film itself, I mean the black shiny stuff that records the pictures, and he knows everything about the camera and exactly what levels all its little controls should be at. Like the director and the producer, he has to be at work all the time, watching, watching, watching.

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6. Other Important Producers:
These are the people who have given us the money. It’s their job to make sure we a) don’t spend more than we have, and b) make a good enough film to see a profit on the money they have given us, and c) support everyone in general.

Eric Fellner and Debra Hayward are our Other Important Producers and they are terrific. They do not have to be there every day, but you can ring them if you have a problem. They are a bit like the headmaster or headmistress who don’t necessarily teach you but oversee everyone who does. I hope that makes sense. There are executive producers too and associate producers and sometimes co-producers but they don’t often visit the set and you don’t really need to know about them.

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7. Set-up:
This means the shot you are working on. One set-up may need many takes. A take is just a go at the shot.

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8. The Camera Loader:
This is the person responsible for putting film away in the right order and bringing new film to the camera and making sure the film is properly protected. It is a very important job. Both our camera loaders, Emma Edwards and Erin Stevens, are trusted implicitly by the camera team to get it right.

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9. The Focus-Puller:
This person must stand by the camera at all times and make sure the film is in focus, i.e. not blurry. You can imagine how important that is. Sometimes they move a little wheel attached to the camera. Sometimes, when the camera is moving about a lot, they move the wheel using a remote control. Our focus-pullers, Russ Ferguson and Matt Poynter, are very experienced, and during the whole four-month shoot there were only one or two moments they found tricky, which is extremely impressive.

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10. Animal Trainers and Handlers:
These are the people who begin their work months before the film starts shooting – training birds and animals to be ready for their close-ups.

Gary Mui and Guillaume Grange work at Leavesden Studios, which is where they shoot all the Harry Potter films. They bring up birds and animals, sometimes rescue birds, and look after them and work with them. They are passionately devoted to their animals and very proud when things go well – rightly so, because it is extremely difficult to train a bird or animal to do what it is told.

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11. The First Assistant Director:
Martin Harrison, our 1st AD, must tell everyone what to do all the time. It’s not because he’s bossy – it’s his job. He takes his orders only from the director and everyone else takes their orders from him. He is Scottish and very smiley, so everyone is very happy to do what they’re told.

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12. The Camera Operator:
Phil Sindall is our camera operator on camera A, and Ian Adrian our camera operator on camera B. They look down the eyepiece and actually see what is being filmed at first hand. They are the only people who see this, which makes it vital they understand everything about the scene, the lighting, the frame, the focus and the story.

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13. The Dolly:
A metal contraption with wheels that you can sit the camera and the operator on to move it about. The people who work the dollies and move the camera are called grips. I suppose it’s because they do a lot of gripping.

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14. The Second Assistant Director:
The 2nd AD has to listen to the 1st AD and help to carry out his or her instructions. They are in constant communication not only with the 1st but also the 3rd AD and also all the Runners (see below). They must have eyes in the back of their head and know what is going on at all times. Heidi Gower is our Second and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her sitting down.

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15. The Dresser:
This is the person who looks after everything to do with your costume and makes sure it is all ready for you and helps you to put it on in case there’s a zip at the back, like there is in my fat-suit. Needless to say they have to see you with no clothes on and are as a consequence always very discreet, kind people who are good at hiding a shocked expression.

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16. A Two-Shot:
Oddly enough, this describes any shot that has two people in it. Or two piglets even.

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17. Pick Up:
This is when we haven’t quite managed to finish a scene and we need a few more shots to complete it. These shots are called pick-ups.

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18. Singles:
A shot of one person. Or one piglet.

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19. Props Artists:
Our props department is run by Peter Hallam. He and his team must find every single thing that is used by the actors and place it on set. Props is short for properties. It is one of my favourite departments because you can go in and asked for a stuffed owl and no one shrieks ‘What??’ They just ask you what species.

The props people are on set all the time and they make sure all the right props are there in the right place and the right location. If, for instance, your prop happens to be a hot cup of tea or a squealing piglet, it is up to the props people to make sure your tea is hot and your piglet is squealing. They are wonderful people.

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20. Foam Piglets:
We had some incredibly realistic stand-in piglets that had to be used in some scenes when the piglets were asleep or under the Scratch-O-Matic. They were very expensive and kept under lock and key by props. We also had white foam stand-ins, which we used for underwater work and throwing about and so forth. The very realistic ones were made of silicone and had thousands of hairs individually punched into their pink skin.

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21. Greg:
My husband. He is very good at this job and brings me tea every morning and makes comforting noises like ‘Not long now’ and ‘What do you want for dinner?’ Also he is not put off by my warts.

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22. The Call-Sheet:
A piece of paper issued by the producer and ADs every night, which has everything every department needs to know about the next day’s filming on it: what we’re doing, where we’re doing it, who’s in the scene, how many cameras, all that stuff. Everyone gets a call-sheet at the end of each day.

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23. The Line Producer:
Another essential producer, who starts work on the actual filming process almost before anyone, doing the budget and seeing how much it’s all going to cost and what will be spent on what and then doing a schedule and working out what will be shot when and where. The line producer knows everything about the nuts and bolts of the production. If you need to hire a baby elephant, he’s the one who has to go off to Whipsnade, for instance.

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24. The Can:
This is the camera, really. Well, sort of. It is short for canister, I imagine – the canister in which the film sits, which is also called a mag. But no one ever says, ‘It’s in the mag.’ They only say, ‘It’s in the can,’ which means that whatever it is has been successfully filmed.

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25. The Costume Department:
As the name suggests, this refers to the people responsible for all the costumes. Sometimes they buy them – for instance, Asa and Oscar are wearing old Aertex shirts which will probably have been bought from a costumes supplier. But my costume and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s and Rhys Ifans’s have all had to be made from scratch. A lot of sewing goes on, and a lot of washing and ironing. I’ve got five versions of my costume, because they get smaller as Nanny McPhee gets smaller. Rosie has about ten versions of the costume she gets muddy in – some clean, some very muddy, some torn – all according to what bit of the film we’re shooting. It’s all a great deal more complicated than it looks.

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26. The Script Supervisor:
Generally a woman, although I have worked with male script supervisors, this person is responsible for continuity. Continuity means things like when you’re drinking a glass of water in a scene, she has to make sure it’s always in the right hand and the right place and that the water is at the exact right level for whatever part of the scene you’re shooting. If you’re in a scene where you’re sitting with your legs crossed and you take a break to go for a wee or something, and then you come back and cross your legs the other way by mistake, the continuity person will shout, ‘Cross your legs the other way!’ Irene never misses a trick.