Thanks gals
it was both exciting
and moving , and yes, I'm very proud of our kid ...he done good ;D
Back to the waffling ;D
The Q&A
Tony Earnshaw began by asking how difficult it was to film what is essentially a period film without a big budget
Pat...Very difficult , the lack of money meant that each scene had to be shot in real time , they weren't able to shoot scenes in one location , paint and rebuild sets and then go back to film other scenes .
Tony ...The attention to detail is phenomenal , was it hard to keep the feel of a piece essentially set 30 years ago without having the resources of a major studio behind you ?
Pat ... Well, we had a chap watching us like a hawk , we called him the 'Period Fascist' , and whenever something wasn't quite right in a scene he'd hold his hand up to stop us till we got it right ...a bit annoying at the time , but seeing the final result made it all worth it
Tony .... How much did the film actually cost to make ?
David ... It came in at just under a million .
Q from the audience . How on earth did you manage to get such an amazing soundtrack with such a small budget?
David...Mostly by begging !
Kevin ...I'll tell you a story about that , we wanted to use a Joy Division track and had a vague idea about where Peter Hook lived in Alderley Edge . We took a trip out there and started knocking on doors looking for his house, and at the first place a very posh old fella answered the door and said he didn't know .
A few minutes later there was a panda car and two polcemen that turned up ...if you don't know , Alderley Edge is the equivalent of Bel Air and they thought we were a couple of scallys checking out the joints .
After convincing the police we really were film producers , we found Peters house , explained what we were doing and showed him some clips of the film ...he was suitably impressed enough to push some buttons and let us have two tracks for nothing , and everyone else we asked were happy to be paid peanuts .
Tony ...This is to all the actors , how hard was it to leave the characters behind when filming ended ?
Stephen (Graham) Well, I didn't go home and batter the wife and put a fist through a window
Sean ... I didn't have much choice but to live with my character Robbie for a lot longer , it took four months for my hair to grow back !
Liam ...It was harder to leave all the cast and crew behind , everyone put so much passion into getting the film made ..
Nicky , yes , everyone gave it their all , we wanted to do the script justice .
Tony to Stephen , after Kevin had said that Stephen will be playing Al Capone in his next role . 'Can we talk about you playing Al Capone next ?
Stephen ...I suppose we can since Kev's already mentioned it , but to be honest , whils working with the likes of Johnny depp and Leonardo Di Caprio is great , working with these lads ( pointed to Liam , Nicky and Sean ) was an honour and I think they were outstanding in what is their first film , its a joy to be able to work with young British actors and you'll definitely be seeing more of them .
Tony ...being a very modest man , Stephen has neglected to mention that he'll be doing this next role for Martin Scorsese .
Liam cut in then to say , 'I just want to say that Pat was amazing , I've never worked with such a sensitive director , he brught out the best in all of us' ( everyone on the stage clapped and whistled as Pat went red
) Such a lovely lad that Liam
Tony ... The film is being so positively received , did you have any idea that you had made such a good film?
Stephen ...If ever you hear someone in the business say (he goes into a posh accent here ) 'Oh , we knew we were making magic on set ' ..its rubbish , we just turn up , hope we get our lines right and that the end result is good enough .
Audience question ..Kevin, is the story autobiographical ?
Only in as far as I lived through the time the story is set . I wanted to write about the time from the point of view of a directionless teenage football fan who wants to belong , to be part of the emerging culture of street fashion and music that started on the terraces . I'm not Carty or Elvis , those characters are an amalgam of many of the lads I knocked around with .
Audience question (female) There seems to be a homoerotic element in the relationship between Carty and Elvis ...
Kevin ... Hah, glad you brought that one up , what most lads tend to do as they're growing up is try to make friends with someone they admire , someone they perceive to be cooler than themselves , you could call it a crush . You'd meet someone with the same tastes in clothes and music and find yourselves bonding after a night out by talking into the early hours ...like the scene in the film where Elvis and Carty go walking and talking after meeting in a club .
Tony to Kevin and David ...You had set up your own production company to get Awaydays made , how did that come about ?
David ... Me and Kevin go way back , and basically, Kevin got fed up of trying to go the normal route and get backing from the big companies because they wanted to make radical changes to the story . possibly make it more like Green Street ( hisses from the audience !) , we had no choice but to do it all ourselves if we wanted it to be the film it is ....in a way it worked out well as we were under the radar and made it without any interference from the men in suits .
Tony ...the fight scenes are very realistic , with so many in the pack , were there any problems ?
Liam ... We had a brilliant fight co-ordinater who made sure it was all choreographed to look realistic ...the only problem was when he wasn't around and maybe some of those fights were slightly more realistic than they should have been
Tony...we'll have to wrap it up there , I just wanted to ask Sean if he could end the evening by doing the Robbie robot dance ...
Sean ....only if Kevin gets up and does it as well !
Kevin demurred slightly , but did get up on stage and dance ;D
It was a cracking night , topped off by a visit to a local Indian restaurant for authentic curries with all the cast and crew that could attend (loads !) and film festival organisers ;D
I wanna do it again