Here is an interesting article by Oliver Milburn, producer of Sugarhouse, in ‘The Times’ on the trials and tribulations of making the flick, see below:
As I squeezed the mop into the bucket of filthy water for the umpteenth time, it did cross my mind; surely someone else could be cleaning this god-forsaken toilet? One of the people I was employing, for instance. I doubt Dino de Laurentis started his career as a film producer by cleaning the bogs.
Having been an actor for fifteen years, I was now also producing my first film, ‘Sugarhouse,’ starring Steven Mackintosh, Ashley Walters and Andy Serkis. Five years of work had come to fruition in August 2006 and fifty-odd people were going to help realise the dream. The cracking play that Ben Dixon, my partner in our production company Wolf Committee, and I had seen at the Old Red Lion in Islington had become a film script; the writer Dominic Leyton had brilliantly sweated it out over countless meetings. Dom’s father John Leyton played The Tunnel King alongside Bronson and McQueen in ‘The Great Escape.’ We were hoping a bit of that stardust would rub off on us.
After joining forces with established producer Matthew Justice, we met Slingshot, a new company dedicated to financing low-budget features, and they gave us £250,000 to make our (and their) first film.
£250,000. Roll that figure around in your head; lots of money, I admit, but not much to make a film with. By comparison ‘Layer Cake’ cost four million pounds. We had one sixteenth of their money, fifty people and twenty-four days to make our film work.
With Slingshot we hired a director, Gary Love, whose enthusiasm and strength fitted the project perfectly. We needed someone who wouldn’t flinch when we said no. Gary just laughed and moved on: when he stood his ground over something, we knew it was important.
The rest of the crew soon came on board, people of all ages and different levels of experience. Our Director of Photography Daniel Bronks had shoulders broad enough to not just carry a huge camera, but also at times the whole shoot. The film looks fantastic. Our sound recordist worked on the Monty Python films, and we promoted a twenty five year old to be our Production Designer. She spotted the potential in the plumber who came to plumb in the aforementioned toilet; as part of his payment we made him our Water Effects Supervisor and he nailed the complicated effect Gary was after.
Young runners not only worked all day on set and fetching kit from all over London, but they also drove our actors to and from work in their cars. When you are Steven Mackintosh you are usually driven to work in a Mercedes Benz by fifty-year old men from Kingston called Geoff. Our crew worked long hours, and I am proud of the fact that none of them threw in the towel and walked off the film, and that the actors dealt with the situation with such good humour. It meant we were running an effective, professional set, even if our crew photo looks like the memento of a Carhartt-uniformed sixth form.
However, in order to run a set we needed to have a set. ‘Sugarhouse’ takes place in East London; a huge derelict warehouse is the main set, and as time ticked down to our first day of filming, we still hadn’t found one. I called a friend who puts on art shows, he gave me the number of an estate agent in Bow, who told me about a client of his who said he might, just might, have a place we could look at. I drove there more in fervent hope than expectation.
It was amazing. Two huge interconnected warehouses, one with wonderfully cinematic mezzanine levels and even a slow-turning industrial fan, straight out of ‘Angel Heart’. There were rooms we could use as offices, which meant we could base the whole production there. I stood on the roof and waited for aeroplanes, one of the reasons so much time is wasted when filming in London. Silence, beautiful, blessed silence. Suddenly, things were beginning to fall into shape.
During this period of pre-production I took Ashley Walters up to Stratford Station to do some character research. He was playing a crack addict and needed to feel what it was like to be on the margins of society. Dressed in rags and looking smelly, he approached the public and begged for change, cigarettes and even a sandwich. I was struck by how people reacted; some scuttled across the road as though he was a mortal danger to them, others who recognised him were amazed that he had fallen so low, and some just refused point blank to believe it was him. He even found his first cousin working in a phone shop in the shopping centre and said hello. She was horrified, having not seen Ashley for a year; the previously smooth and successful man she knew had morphed into a desperate crackhead. It was a weird and wonderful couple of hours, and I know Ashley got a huge amount out of it.
Monday 18th August, 2006. Eight AM, first day of shooting. We could hardly hear each other speak as private jets carrying bankers in and out of City Airport banked over our heads. Never have I hated the corporate world so much. Somehow we dealt with it though, using fail-safe methods such as putting a shot of an aeroplane into the film and, er, having the sound of planes all through it.
The shoot was fast, frantic and incredibly exciting. We had members of the stunt team that did ‘Casino Royale’ working for next to nothing, dangling our actors from wires over fifty-foot drops. This makes you feel pretty good if you are a young person working on your first film. We worked on the incredible Robin Hood Estate in Poplar for a week with only one egg-throwing incident and plenty of positive resident involvement, and as the days ticked through we realised that we were close to pulling this off on schedule.
In order for a small film to have a life, you have to have actors who are prepared to put up with tough work conditions and give their all, both on set and when you are trying to sell the finished product. Andy Serkis arrived in the U.K. twenty hours before he was due on set, and we spent almost all that time painting tattoos on him. He joined the shoot half way through and his energy and passion kept us going right to the end. We knackered him out but he went with it and the result is astonishing.
After a four-week shoot we wrapped ‘Sugarhouse’ on time and on budget. Months of editing, sound design and test screenings followed, and then finally we were done. The film was finished and, importantly, it will have a commercial life. Many British films never secure distribution, but we are opening on fifty screens nationwide. Dominic Leyton might still be fitting carpets in Solihull, but his film is on in Leicester Square, and that feels great.
The Times 16/8/07
SUGARHOUSE IS OUT IN CINEMAS FROM TOMORROW… FRIDAY 24TH AUGUST!! GO HERE TO SEE WHERE IT’S BEING SHOWN NEAR YOU.
