Slawter, as Davida told us when she visited Carcery Vale, is the title of the movie and the name of the fictional town which features in it. It’s also what they’ve called the huge set which Davida’s crew has constructed. It’s an amazing place. They found a deserted town in the middle of nowhere. Rented the entire area and set to work restoring the buildings, clearing the streets of rubble, putting in fake lamps, telephone wires, signs for restaurants, hotels, bars, etc. They also erected a lot of fake buildings which look real from the front but are entirely empty on the other side. Walking down the streets, it’s hard to tell the real buildings from the fake ones—until you open a door.
There are trailers on the outskirts of Slawter—the movie veterans refer to them as the circus— where many of the cast and crew sleep, but a lot of us are staying in the old, real buildings. Since we’re so far from any other town, Davida decided to turn some of the buildings into makeshift hotels, so everyone could stay in one place, in comfort. The “hotel” where Dervish, Bill-E and I are staying looks like a butcher’s shop out front, but it’s cosy inside.
I’ve been told this isn’t the way films are normally made. Usually the crew does a bit of location work, then heads back to the studio to shoot the interior scenes. But Slawter is the studio. There are huge warehouses, built beyond one end of town, where the interiors can be shot. And since all the outdoor action in the film is set in the town, everything can be done on site. They even do the editing here, and the special effects. Often, on a big budget film, there might be several teams around the world working on effects at the same time. But Davida wants to keep total control over this project. She refuses to farm out any of the work, even though it makes life much harder for her. This is her baby, the jewel in her movie crown, and she’s doing it exactly the way she wants—damn the inconvenience!
She even insists on keeping the cast together for the duration of the shoot. Emmet’s worked on a couple of films before and explained how, if you have a small part in the movie, you only turn up for a few days, shoot your scenes, then head off. Even the big stars don’t hang around the set the whole time.
Well, here they do. All the actors, cameramen, artists, carpenters, caterers—everyone—had to agree to stay here until filming is finished. Davida kept everything secret in the build-up to shooting. Now that we’re all on set and the cameras are rolling, most of the secrets have been revealed. Copies of the full script have been circulated and we’ve seen some of the demon costumes. To make sure none of the secrets leak to the outside world, Davida arranged for everyone to remain in Slawter until the entire film has been shot.
It costs a fortune to keep us here—food and drinks are free, games have to be organised to keep people amused in their spare time, two swimming pools have been built, tennis courts, a football pitch and so on—but Davida doesn’t care. Her other movies made a load of money and she’s managed to convince her backers that this one is going to be a mega blockbuster, so she’s free to spend whatever she likes.
Not having any jobs to do, Bill-E and I have been enjoying the filming. We wander through Slawter, watch scenes being shot, check out the old buildings and fakes, hang out with some of the other kids and generally just have fun. It’s great. Reminds me of when I first moved to Carcery Vale, when Bill-E and I spent pretty much all our free time together. We’re best buddies again, breezing along in a little world of our own, no Loch Gossel or other friends of mine to complicate the situation.
You can divide the children of Slawter into three groups. There are the actors, twenty or so. Most haven’t much experience, or have only been in a few films, like Emmet Eijit, who’s our best friend here.
Then there are the actors’ relatives. It’s a big deal being a child actor. There are all sorts of rules and regulations. They can only work so many hours a day. They have to be schooled on set. At least one of their guardians—normally a parent—has to be with them all the time. And there have to be other children for them to play with. Juni’s in charge of that side of things. She makes sure the kids are being looked after, having fun, not feeling the stress of being part of such a costly, risky venture.
Finally there’s the likes of Bill-E and me, children of people working on the film. Because everyone involved had to move to Slawter for the duration of the shoot—at least three months— they were allowed to bring their families. Davida likes the relaxed family atmosphere.
We don’t have much personal contact with Davida Haym. Or with Dervish. He’s been working closely with Davida since we arrived, advising, censoring, subtly guiding her away from the workings of real demons wherever possible. He’s one of the few people to have seen inside the D workshops. That’s where the demon costumes are being created. The demons are to be a mix of actors in costumes and mechanised puppets. There will be some CGI effects, but Davida’s trying to keep the computer trickery to a minimum.
The costumes and puppets are housed in a giant warehouse, the biggest in Slawter, and access is granted only to a chosen few. Some of the costumes have been given a public airing, but most are still locked up within the D. Dervish said it’s a maze of corridors and sub-sections in there. He’s only been allowed into a couple of rooms so far, but he’s trying hard to gain access to the rest, to check out all the demonic details.
“I’ve always wanted to eat human flesh,” Emmet says again, running through his big lines for the fiftieth time today. He plays a minor villain in the film, a kid who becomes a cannibal and works for the demons. He dies about a third of the way through, having been discovered by one of the heroes while eating the corpse of their headmaster.
Davida is shooting the film in sequence as much as possible, although as on any movie, certain scenes from later in the script have to be shot early. Which means Emmet is getting to “die” a couple of weeks earlier than he should have. He’s super excited about it.
“This is my first death scene!” he raved yesterday. “Most kids don’t get to die on screen—how many films have you seen where a child bites the big one? And it’s the first visible killing of the movie!”
Later, excitement gave way to nerves. He’s been fussing ever since, worried he’ll blow his lines or not be able to scream convincingly when the demon turns on him and rips him to pieces.
“At least, not much badder than—Hellfire! I did it again, didn’t I?”
“Afraid so,” I laugh.
“Take it cool,” Bill-E advises, mimicking Davida’s on-set mannerisms. He’s been even more impressed by the whole movie-shooting experience than me. He now wants to be a director when he grows up.
“Cool!” Emmet snorts. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one up there on display.”
“You know the lines,” Bill-E murmurs, then laughs like Davida when she’s trying to calm a nervous actor. “You probably know your lines better than anyone on the set, even Davida. You’re a professional. They’ll come when you’re filming. And if not, who cares? Nobody gets it right the first time. And even if they do, Davida reshoots it anyway. You’ll nail it the fifth or sixth time.”
Bill-E’s not exaggerating about the reshoots. Every scene is played out at least six or seven times, from various angles, the actors trying out different expressions and tones. Repetition is part and parcel of the film-maker’s life. I don’t know how they stand it. I’d go cuckoo if I had to do the same thing over and over, day after day.
“He’s quite the expert, isn’t he?” Emmet remarks cuttingly.
“Hey, man, I’m just trying to help,” Bill-E says, unruffled.
“For someone with no real experience, you certainly know a lot about it.”
Bill-E laughs Emmet’s criticism away. “I’m just calling it like I see it. If you’d rather I removed myself, no problem. Come on, Grubbs, let’s go and—”
“No!” Emmet pleads. “I’m sorry. I’m just all wound up. One last time, please. If I don’t get it right, we’ll quit and all go play foosball. OK?”
“OK,” Bill-E says. “But don’t forget—coooooolllllllll.”
Emmet shoots him an exasperated glance, then shares a grin with me. Focusing, he repeats his lines silently to himself, then tries them out loud and all too predictably blows them again. As soon as he breaks down, we drag him off to the foosball table and keep him there, though we can’t stop him muttering the lines as he plays.
Dinner with Dervish, Juni and some others, in the ginormous catering tent at the heart of Slawter. Everybody talking at once, a nice buzz in the air. A mime artist signals to me that he’d like the salt and pepper. His name is Chai and he’s a bit of a nutcase. He never speaks, although he’s not mute. Apparently he’s perfectly chatty when he’s not working. But throughout the duration of a shoot, he keeps his lips sealed. It doesn’t matter that he has a tiny part in the movie and will only be filming for a few days. Chai considers himself a method actor.