Filming Log: Musicville aka "production goblin goes to River City"

There's a point in any demanding shoot where you kind of want to kill everyone, starting with yourself. It's usually near the end, when time is tight, people are tired and things just aren't going to plan. Luckily it's often followed by the point where everything comes together and you love everyone and they're your best friends again.

Musicville was a very tough, very rewarding shoot. The hours were long and the conditions were tough; I certainly wasn't the worst off - I didn't have too far to travel to and from the rendez-vous and unlike the cast, I got to wear a billion layers.

My job varied from day to day, but it could be roughly summed up as a production runner (or "production goblin" if you'd rather, and Murdo did). I looked after cast and crew, moving them around, making the tea etc; I did the calls, informing the entire backlot when we were going for a take; I also did a half dozen other little things that just needed to be done, such as salting the ground and managing the radios.

Possibly my most stressful job was cake wrangling, which involved transporting and caring for a gigantic cake and lighting the candles for takes. That day was, overall, the most stressful. A thick blanket of freezing fog made everyone miserable, the scantily clad actors doubly so, and it also thoroughly messed up our schedule. The cold and the difficulty of that scene (we needed an actor on the cold, wet ground and the cake prop was incredibly awkward) made shooting slow, which caused even more stress. Inbetween set-ups we had to try to prevent the actors from catching hypothermia, which meant bundling them in coats and shoving hot tea at them.

The next day was fantastic, though. We wrapped in good time, the set looked lovely and everyone was happy.

To reflect, I'd say what I learned was how to do things properly. I'm rather fond of the guerrilla, unprofessional style of filmmaking but on a proper set with professional crew, they do things right. I learned that you can't put an actor on a step ladder, legally, but you can put them on stacking wooden boxes. Weird.

I also practiced the ability to put up with awful jobs: I'm now fully qualified to dispose of rotten vegetables and to sweep away the salt I've just put down. It's unpleasant but things like these really are necessary - without it, the film wouldn't work just as much as if the camera operator can't focus.

I think Musicville is going to be a brilliant film, certainly nothing a film school would normally produce, and even though my role was as the lowest of the low I'll be able to see my contribution in the fact that we kept to schedule, the props were where they were meant to be and the actors were kept sweet enough to be able to perform. That matters, and I'm very glad I was able to be on this shoot.