Now the 6 P's are key to any shoot. Proper Preparation Prevent Piss Poor Performance. However even with proper preparation,things can go wrong.
Those readers familar with the top motoring show "Top Gear" will be familar when Clarkson says "How hard can it be", or when your team is leading 2-0, and you turn to your friend and say "cmon ref, blow up now, nothing can go wrong now" and you watch your side get defeated 3-2.
Picture the scene, everything ready, models have been picked up from the station, model relases and the like printed out, final framing of the cameras, when one of the models recieves a message that a family member has been rushed into hospital. And bear in mind, the other model is a very close friend, cue tearful model and a quick trip back to the station by yours truly.
As I left, the Scouse one mentioned the following....
"I'll see if Annabelle is available"
Now there is no more forelorn sight than a studio, ready and raring to go, gunge primed, pool inflated, cameras pointed, and nothing to shoot.
Cue thumb twiddling, massive panicing and frantic rescheduling. Our mystery guest was joining us for pizza and beers at 5 ish, we knew there might be some overlap, with clean up and the like, and the fact that she had been bouncing like Tigger for the week previous, meant that we had a sneaking suspicion that she might have wanted a play then. So 1 down, 1 to get!
Now those who remember the infamous Messy Jessie shoot know that she was joined with Annabelle, star of eps 2 and 6. She lives fairly local to the studio, and is a self confessed convert to the cause. As inventor of XRPS... the extreme Rock Paper Scissors finale, Annabelle is now a bit of a legend. She has gotten us out of a mess, by being so up for getting in one!
So she was picked up, and Mystery Guest and partner were left in the capable hands of Jo, chief cheerleader, cleaner upper and the like, and shooting happened until the gunge got cold. Cue me dropping Annabelle back to the station, and a rarity as a five man clean up began - Pizza ordered and eaten at near midnight, cud chewed, dust sheets changed and a huge sigh, as bed called at 2am.
Up again at 7am as we had yet another shoot, the scheduled one with Mystery Guest, with the visit of our first ever gunge victim, Karen (From Episode 1, 5 and 9). Emergency sets of additonal underwear were bought!
Many games were played, which further underlined Karen's paranoia that all the games are rigged against her, despite having games of complete chance!
A gungey cuddle greeted then end for us from Karen, who had warned us it was coming, and to be fair, it had, but it was tame. Had it had been bigger, the bigger the retribution! She did say she'd travel home in one of our stylish binbags if necessary - I would have loved to be the traffic cop who stopped her!
So clean up and Mystery Guest packed back to whence she came, Bob goes to get a chippy tea. Disaster #1. Chippy was closed. So with buckets and everything cleaned, we decided to leave the rest of the re-rigging til Monday morn! We sat reviewed the footage with a beer and then, beep beep, goes the text from Monday's returnee saying that her babysitter had also been rushed to hospital! Drat! So off the subs bench comes a model that had done some nilla photography with el Scousio. All sorted, I started making plans for Tuesday down in Cornwallshire, and snoozed liked a good un. Monday morning. Another casualty. Said Nilla model has been biten by a mozzy, and it swelled up meaning she could barely walk! Bugger. We tried and scoured for a Monday shoot. Morale was low. I was gonna head home. We were exhausted. We scoured our usual sources, and we struck gold - purely by accident. We looking at this models hilarous profile, a true piss take of every bad model's profile. Dropped her a text thru a third party and 30 seconds later, a phonecall from a giddy and excited Layla! She was already shooting, and well wanted to reschedule and do it in the evening. So sadly, I had to change the plans I made and Tuesday, and Candie came along too, and well, we was ready to rumble...
"No Papa Smurf, not the face, I've been a good girl".
Such innuendo and one liners made it an absolute joy to work with, and Candie loved it too. So a quick finish including Layla getting dropped home via me, leaving Candie, Jo and the Scouse one to clean up the mess...
Bloody exhausting I tell ya.
Currently on Messy Mayhem we have episode 9, starring the aforementioned Karen and Lorna - coming increasingly soon is the XRPS, that launched a thousand innuendos!
Til then, where's my medication, Matron?..... blarble ..... ***drool***
The Cornish One (with Padded Walls, and a nice buckled jacket)
