Wednesday, 30 December 2009
"Killer Bitch" Cross Dressing in the Celebrity Big Brother House?
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
"Killer Bitch" - How to Get Rid of a Dead Body
So that’s how to get rid of a body leaving no trace? Who would have thought it? I am a simple person and imagined the pigs just ate the flesh or, if you dumped a weighted body into the sea, you just used small-gauge chicken coop netting.
I had an interesting chat with our death consultant ‘Lou’ yesterday afternoon and he set me straight. Amazing a man who knows about such things can have such a delicate palate for food.
The editing has started on Killer Bitch with seven people ensconced in Northamptonshire working right throughout the Christmas and New Year period on three editing machines; plus editing work in Walthamstow and - ooh - somewhere in the depths of the snow in Kent as well. Meanwhile, In Borehamwood, home of both the Indiana Jones and the On The Buses movies, I am using an Apple quill to try to novelise the script. Thus my need to know about the intricacies of pigs’ digestive tracts.
Our ‘Lou’ knows almost as much about animals as the very nice indeed former drug super-dealer Howard Marks. His stories of the sophisticated uses of lion shit and reindeer urine take some beating. He seemed happy with his own upcoming autobiographical movie Mr Nice in which he is played by Rhys Ifans; he had seen a screening of the finished film. It’s certainly a cracking story.
We went to Leeds to film Howard’s scenes for Killer Bitch. They were either the final or penultimate sequences to be filmed.
I’m not 100% certain if they were our last bit of filming because, even though we have now started editing and will finish the final cut in January, there is an extra surprise scene which we may or may not be able to shoot. If we can do it, it will certainly put a smile on my face and should make audiences and journalists sit up in their seats.
www.killerbitch.co.uk
Friday, 11 December 2009
'Dodgy' Dave Courtney Lives Again in "Killer Bitch"
On “Killer Bitch”, we do like a bit of publicity and had plans to kill celebrity gangster ‘Dodgy’ Dave Courtney , but we were scuppered by police action.
We filmed all the set-up and preparations for his death at a big gangland party in South East London but, a couple of days later, before we could shoot scenes of his actual killing, the police arrested him on firearms charges and he was (in the technical phrase used in such circumstances) banged up in Belmarsh with no parole, despite the fact he had no witnesses to threaten, was no risk to anyone and was never going to do a runner. The authorities just enjoyed having him in prison, much like the Krays and Ronnie Biggs.
Dodgy Dave was arrested months ago. Poor Liam, our beleaguered writer/director, had to re-write the script so Dave’s excellent and expensive scenes were kept in the movie but so it also made sense he was not killed. Poor Liam later had to re-script the movie again when allegedly cross-dressing cage fighter Alex Reid (our main co-star) decided not to complete the sequences he had started shooting. Only he and Kate Price/Jordan know why; we certainly don’t. We had to shut down for a month.
The result of all this anarchy was a multiply-re-written script, extra scenes, extra characters, extra performers, extra action, extra colour and, ironically, probably an even better movie - though with escalating extra costs.
All we’re admitting is that the budget is now over £45 and less than £100,000. In other words, it has cost more than Welsh zombie movie “Colin” but has cost less than “Avatar”. It is also fairly safe to say it will be more entertaining than “Batman and Robin” and “The English Patient”. But then so was Andy Warhol's eight-hour movie of the Empire State Building at night; and, yes, I did sit through that.
The good news is that, this week, a London jury took only two hours to clear ‘Dodgy’ Dave on three charges of illegal firearms possession. Anyone who has been in the living room his Plumstead house ‘Camelot’ (you can see it in all its glory in “Killer Bitch”) will know its walls are lined with firearms, swords and I think there may be a suit of armour and a platoon of Japanese soldiers in there somewhere too. But would ‘Dodgy’ Dave do something illegal? I can hardly believe it. As he told the court: "The police keep arresting me for things, but I am no longer a naughty man."
Except in our fictional movie, where he plays himself and is certainly a very naughty man caught with his trousers down and his pecker up.
He will be one of the few to survive “Killer Bitch”. So far, we have had over 160 performers in the movie and most of them seem to have been killed. Still a couple more weeks to go; plenty of time to up the body count.
We might even have time to kill ‘Dodgy’ Dave, but I think poor Liam might not be able to face another re-write and will let him live - perhaps for the sequel which, in the current draft script, opens in a Scottish religious building. Who knows how subsequent events may change it?
www.killerbitch.co.uk
Thursday, 3 December 2009
“Killer Bitch” - A Slasher Movie?
Rather more drastic on “Killer Bitch” this week was cutting off the penis of one of our lead performers. It was quite complicated.
Our death consultant ‘Lou’ had to go into a Soho sex shop to buy a rubber penis and testicles. He told them some cock and ball story.
On the day, our performer had to be ‘tubed up’ with rubber piping so blood could be pumped out of his groin as the cock was cut off.
Our director Liam reversed his normal instructions and, to start the scene, shouted: “CUT!” When the scene finished and the penis fell, he shouted: “We’re rolling!”
‘Lou’, always a perfectionist, ensured that the bloodied and severed penis left lying on the floor of the laundrette (don’t ask) was seen to be sliced at the correct angle to correlate with the previously filmed angle at which our girl slashed the knife through the cock with the yell: “This is for all the women of Britain!”
Attention to realistic detail is important on “Killer Bitch”.
The previous day, when gunning down around 20 innocent people in cold blood in a warehouse in Gravesend, one of our lead actors who had better remain nameless interrupted to advise: “He wouldn’t say that before he shot him,” and, “They wouldn’t be killed like that. We did it this way.”
It is always best to have experienced advisors when making a movie.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Killer Bitch, Killer Transvestites and Dirty Birds
One irony of “Killer Bitch” is that the movie was originally partially conceived with the intention of outraging the Daily Mail. The irony lies in the fact that almost the sole newspaper to ignore us has been the Daily Mail. This may be because, early on, amid the initial tabloid furore, the Daily Mail sent an e-mail asking into what genre “Killer Bitch” fell; would it be correct to describe it as a hard-core porn movie? They were, it seems, not happy with the evasive answer they got.
Today, was a quiet day on the set. Only one attempted knife suicide and one person shot to death in a disused Gravesend warehouse. Oh - and our star Yvette Rowland did sensibly ask, “Can you catch anything fatal from bird droppings? I seem to have been lying among them for hours”. The answer she got was as evasive as the one the Mail received in September.
“Eh… no, no, no… I don’t think so. No, I doubt it,” was one unconvincing answer.
“What about bird flu?”
“I don’t think a single pig in the entire world has ever died from swine flue.”
“What’s that got to do with bird droppings?”
“Well…”
Pigs and birds are messy. And you can’t train pigeons to respect the costumes worn by actors in post-modernist art cinema,
Geordie entrepreneur Steve Wraith - aka The Krays’ Geordie Connection - came all the way down from Newcastle to try to kill Yvette and his suit was so messed-up by the end of the day that he left it behind in a plastic bag. The blood probably didn’t help either.
It was a day of blood, feathers and white droppings.
“This movie should sell quite well,” someone suggested.
“Who knows?” I replied, “But people will get value for money. You don’t get thalidomide martial arts scenes and dwarf-throwing in Jerry Bruckheimer movies, though there might have been bird shit in "Pirates of the Caribbean"...”
www.killerbitch.co.uk
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Killer Bitch, Deaf Armed Robbers and a Strange Sweet Smell
It makes me wonder how the ‘chaps’ in South London and in Essex avoid becoming deaf. All the armed robbers I’ve met have had perfect hearing. But letting off pistols and sawn-off shotguns in enclosed spaces must surely do your ears in after a while? I suppose, though, that firing guns is the last thing the chaps actually want to do.. The cost, my dear! Even sugarglass breakaway beer bottles are expensive.
I bought twelve bottles from Breakaway Effects at Shepperton Studios - cheap and excellent value at £8 a bottle, but still not to be broken lightly.
I thought this was the day we were going to film the scene where transvestites attack and try to kill former football hooligan Jason Marriner. But, apparently, the transvestites need longer to prepare.
So it was a fist and bottle fight in a pub and a gunfight in a boxing club. A relatively quiet day for “Killer Bitch”.
And, on the first bottle fight, there was a problem. The cage fighter smashed the boxer in the face with the bottle but then decided to wham him in the side of the head. Realistic, but he hit him on his ear which was still buzzing from gunfire. We had to have a cooling-down period.
On the “Killer Bitch” filming, we all wear yellow ear plugs supplied by Lou, our armourer and death consultant. Perhaps armed robbers wear them too? They may become fashion accessories.
Guns are glamorous Boys’ Toys even to ‘hard men’. In the back room of the pub in Gillingham, Lou (who has a licence to do such things) opened up his heavy suitcase to let our director Liam choose which weapons he wanted and it was like a flock of tattooed moths suddenly descending on a series of metal flames. Revolvers, automatics, an Armalite and an AK-47. Hard men wanted to touch them, to hold them, to be photographed with them.
Later in the evening, at the boxing club in Chatham, after various club members were filmed being floored by punches from former WBO World Champion Robin Reid, we shot a sequence with Robin firing the AK-47 at two black-coated baddies firing automatic pistols.
Afterwards, as always, the air was filled with the smell of a gunffight.
Our make-up girl Claire looked up at me with wide eyes. “The sweet smell of cordite... and testosterone,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
www.killerbitch.co.uk
Sunday, 15 November 2009
Jehovah's Witnesses and Killing a Baby
"Are you filming in the moat?" the man asked.
"Yes," I told him, "We've been filming here the last three days."
I was told Fort Horsted was one of three Napoleonic forts overlooking the former naval dockyards in Chatham in case the French invaded. In fact, it was built in 1880 to defend against who knows what. Fort Horsted's moat is empty, a bit marshy and has walls maybe 60 feet high. Our co-star, former world heavyweight boxing champion Robin Reid, had been 'executing' people in the moat all morning.
"What sort of film is it?" the neat woman asked.
"A gangster film."
"Not one of those Madonna ones?" the man asked.
I looked at him blankly.
"You know," the man explained. "Her husband. Guy Richardson. I don't like his films."
"No, not one of his," I reassured him.
"Been going well?" the woman asked. "The filming?"
"Well, our star was trying to shoot a girl about half an hour ago," I explained. "He was trying to shoot her with an AK-47 and she was great. She was screaming out, terrified, in a high-pitched voice, 'No! No! No! Don't kill me! I'm pregnant! My baby! My baby!'. Very good she was. Michelle Dormer. Great scream. She should be in Doctor Who."
The neat Jehovah's Witness couple looked interested.
"Then," I explained, "On the fifth take, a little voice pipes up from 60 feet above us - a very polite man's voice asking, 'I say, are you OK down there?'
"We look up and there's no-one up there. I think he must be some bloke who lives in one of the suburban bungalows on the other side of the moat from the Fort. He must have heard the screaming and gone down the bottom of his garden but couldn't see into the moat. So our director just shouted back: 'It's OK! We're filming!' and the man's voice shouted back: 'Oh! Alright!' and we carried on with Michelle screaming 'Don't kill my baby! My baby! My baby! Don't kill my baby!' for about four more takes.
"The moral to the story is," I told the neat Jehovah's Witness type couple, "if you are committing a serious crime like murder and anyone asks you what you're doing, just say you are shooting a film and they will ignore it."
The couple smiled politely.
"What's the film called?" the woman asked.
"Killer Bitch," I replied.
"Ah," the woman said.
"What do you do?" I asked.
"We're police," the man replied.
"Ah," I replied.
www.killerbitch.co.uk
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Oscar Wilde and the "Killer Bitch" sick concoction
I particularly enjoyed:
"Bring it on! - Aaaaarrggghhh! - I'll rip your fucking eyes out and stick them up your fucking arse!"
Fine words, screamed at the top of his terrifying voice by former bare-knuckle champion and now feared unlicensed fighter Norman Buckland in a large farm shed in the field behind his house as he fought Katie Price's on-off boyfriend Alex Reid. Real punches. Real kicks.
Norman is a terribly nice man and said afterwards: "I dunno where that stuff about the eyes came from. I've never said it in my life before!"
He is a real gent and a great ad-libber. During his scenes, he dropped a large breeze block on top of his head. It wasn't scripted. He just decided to do it without warning to try to help make the scene even better. Afterwards, he turned to our director Liam and asked:
"Did you get it OK? D'you want me to do it another couple of times for safety?"
For safety? FOR SAFETY????
Liam declined, but he was very grateful for the offer.
Perhaps I had too sheltered an upbringing in Ilford, Essex, but I thought
But it was run a close second today by a scripted line delivered by Yvette Rowland - a line which, alas, can't be printed here because it gives away one of the movie's major plot twists.
But it is maybe no surprise, given this is "Killer Bitch", that Yvette was sick immediately after she said the line. All in the interests of Art, of course.
She vomited out a creamy-orange-coloured concoction of lemon energy drink, water and crushed biscuits mixed together by our make-up effects man Akgun who, while the scene was being shot, was turning a hairspray can into a flamethrower. I think he may have seen just one too many James Bond films.
www.killerbitch.co.uk
Monday, 9 November 2009
Electric Eel Shock, Flying Dwarfs and Irishmen
I was taken aback when Lou, our ‘death consultant’ on the “Killer Bitch” movie replied: “You’re ‘aving me on, John,” and genuinely didn’t believe me.
How could he not believe me?
A couple of months ago, our director Liam had got so frustrated by the torrents of abuse “Killer Bitch” was receiving from the tabloids over often completely fictional scenes that he asked: “Can anyone get me a dwarf for tomorrow?”
“I’ve got a dwarf and two midgets,” volunteered Lou.
And, sure enough, the next day, we filmed Mike Tyson’s long-time sparring partner Joe Egan throw a topless female dwarf (the very lovely and charming Sarah Bennett) off a roof in Watford. Shortly afterwards, a police helicopter started circling overhead, though that was more to do with the fact Joe Egan and four other Irishmen were running around an alleyway firing handguns and a sub machine gun. Fortunately Lou had forewarned the police and filled in the appropriate forms. Yes, there are indeed forms for such occasions.
So how could Lou not believe we would have former WBO World Boxing Champion and Olympic medallist Robin Reid kill Japanese rock star Akihito Morimoto by shoving a fish down his throat? Lou needed to see the fish before he would believe it.
www.killerbitch.co.uk
Sunday, 8 November 2009
Alex Reid, Jordan, Salvador Dali and flying pigs
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/107314/The-Kate-escape-/
has an interview with Jordan's boyfriend, the former co-star of "Killer Bitch" in which it says:
"The Ultimate Fighting Championship star, who used to appear in telly soap Hollyoaks, is expected to leave Britain on St Valentine’s Day at the start of his £9,000 trip. Before that, he must fulfill a number of work commitments linked to his upcoming film Killer Bitch."
Well, this is news to me, as I'm financing the "Killer Bitch" movie and it's cost me an arm and a leg because we had to shut down production for a month and do a complete re-write of the film's basic plot because Alex waltzed off the production after only shooting half his scenes... and then there was the whole rigmarole of whether or not he might re-appear... or not... I wondered if aliens had kidnapped him and I was going to wake up in a shower and find I'd dreamt it all.
This is England. No-one in their right mind sues anyone for anything unless they have a spare twenty million pounds sloshing about. The English law's aim is to make money for lawyers. You might as well toss a coin or revert to Trial By Combat with two people beating each other round the head with wet fish.
Alex seemed a nice bloke to me but, lord have mercy on us, what are these "number of work commitments linked to his upcoming film Killer Bitch"? Is he mounting a private publicity campaign for the movie's release in February/March and hasn't told us? I'm grateful if he is. Is he going to turn up without warning at a film location he doesn't know about? We re-started filming with a revised script last week, shooting the Japanese rock band Electric Eel Shock in a North London goth club and we really get into our movie-making stride again this coming week.
Or maybe the press just making up stories again? That's something we certainly know about, as several of the stories about "Killer Bitch" have had a touch of the Salvador Dali and William Burroughs about them - total surrealism with some stories simply made up from beginning to end.
Though all the publicity, true, false or fantastical, is welcomed. Who cares what's said, provided we're splattered all over the tabloids? Not us.
www.killerbitch.co.uk