I've nearly built it! Episode11

PAGE 10,191

INT: THE CUTHBERT BRODERICK: NIGHT - A typicaly cold, windy & wet yorkshire night. It's shit. It is late January 2009. MICHAEL is showing artwork to JOEY & ROBIN which is sprawled out all over the table. MICHAEL frowns slightly as he notices the flecks of spittle all over his work that JOEY has sprayed forth due to over excitedness as he talks so loudly that everyone is staring. ROBIN is sat in the chair opposite MICHAEL like a humunculus.

JOEY (loudly)
Yeah wow this is cool!! Wow. Wow!! Its awesome. Yeah I love the Vulcan cannon....can we have the plasma rifle somehow fitting to the backpack? Awesome. Thats really cool. I think its awesome......blah blah blah.....when the BIOMESS evolves.......mutants.....spores.....plasma.....lazers..animatronics....spores encrustating in egg sacs.....awesome. Wow!!!

Spittle fills the air. MICHAEL watches the pattern evolve on his picture as the saliva turns the paper a weird green colour in little dots all over it. The table of attractive women on the neighbouring table look at JOEY, ROBIN & MICHAEL with expressions that say "You bunch of gimps". On this occasion MICHAEL is inclined to agree.

MICHAEL
OK cool. So whats your budget? Have you got one yet?

JOEY looks to ROBIN who stares back with the expression of someone whos mum has just caught him wanking into her laundry basket.

JOEY
Yeah i think £500

MICHAEL
There's no way you can have this for £500!!

JOEY
Well if its going to be an issue I suppose I could make do with 3 suits instead of 6

MICHAEL
No no!! Shitman! Five hundred quid wont even get you ONE of these!!!

JOEY & ROBIN look utterly defeated. MICHAEL reaches into his bag & produces a new piece of artwork. This is gonna get covered with spit like all the others now, he thinks to himself as he hands it to JOEY

MICHAEL
I figured money was going to be a problem so I have an alternative that you may or may not like. Customise motorcycle body armour. You might be able to get some second hand stuff cheaply & I'll use whatever money youve got left to at least make a helmet & customise the armour. But either way £500 is still pushing it.

JOEY screws up his face at the picture & picks up the other one

JOEY
I want THIS!!!

MICHAEL
You can't afford this

JOEY
I'll find a way.......I want THIS ONE. I think you should start a maquette now.

MICHAEL takes a sip of his coffee and starts to roll himself a cigarette as he sits back in his chair......pondering. OK then, he thinks to himself, at least I've got some artwork & will soon have a maquette for the portfolio. Fuckit.

MICHAEL
OK then. If you're sure. I'll start a maquette & have some pictures for you in 3 or 4 days. If you''re sure you want this design.

JOEY
Yes definatly. I HAVE to have it.

ROBIN
Errr yeah so.....if you do a maquette and errrrr....we'll errrrr yeah.. sort out errrrrrr

MICHAEL spares ROBIN the pain

MICHAEL
Yep ok!! Youre sure you want this one?

JOEY
Yes...motorcycle armour will look rubbish!

ROBIN
Yeah

MICHAEL
Ok. You boys best get yourselves a paper round then.

INT: PAUL LEWIS' CAR: NIGHT - PAUL is driving with JOEY in the passenger seat whilst ROBIN & MICHAEL sit in the back. MICHAEL is looking out of the window. Yet again it is cold, wet & windy to the point where the car is being swayed by the gale as it aquaplanes in the wake of the massive truck in front of it. PAUL'S visibility is questionable. It is June 2009. There is nothing for miles around except bleakness & sheep. Its shit. JOEY is waffling.

JOEY
blah blah blah.......so what do you think Mike?

The name MIKE makes MICHAEL itch

MICHAEL
Dunno...What was your question?

JOEY
What are your thoughts right now?

MICHAEL
It must be really shit to be a sheep in this weather

EXT: Suburbia, Bolton. The car pulls up outside a house. The four of them get out of the car & approach the front door. JOEY rings the doorbell. Moments later the door opens to reveal THE SMALLEST LITTLE BOY IN THE UNIVERSE.

ROBIN
Errrr. 'Ello......is yer mam in?

THE SMALLEST LITTLE BOY IN THE UNIVERSE (shouts)

MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMM!!!!

He returns to the tamagochi or whatever it is they've got these days & walks off into the house. His MOTHER comes to the door.

ROBIN
Yeah hi.......we've come about the motorcycle armour......

Fade out & into main title sequence.

And so there we were, 4 months after the idea had (literally) been spat at, sat in some random house in Bolton watching Spongebob Squarepants with some tiny little children... I mean tiny even for kids, whilst waiting to be shown the body armour we'd all come to look at. The woman came in with an assortment of protective gear for us, or more accurately me, to try on. There were several variations to try out so I did so quickly in order to let this woman have her living room back. I picked the most suitable armour in terms of looks rather than comfort, although it was all very comfortable & made me feel like a right hard bastard! Jobin & Paul then began their inevitable debating about all manner of pointless factors that wouldn't matter, much to the dismay of the woman & myself & probably the kids who just wanted to watch Spongebob in peace. Then they got round to the exchanging of payment. I have no clue where Jobin is getting it's money from but I suspect someone's going to be getting a call from their bank manager soon. After some baffling request from Robin regarding receipts & the subsequent eternal writing & re writing of said receipts we said goodbye & were on our way with 6 sets of motorcycle armour.

A couple of days before Jobin had dropped the bombshell that everything had to be finished by the end of June. Up untill now the project had been ambling along in no particular direction whilst Jobin changed deadlines again & again & again pushing back completion dates to somewhere in the 25th century. I had my own internal schedule that I was working to as this job was getting a bit silly due to various random interuptions. This whole thing could have been done in two months. We were now in month six. Suddenly, out of the blue I had 3 weeks to finish 6 full suits of armour. Paul shat himself. I laughed. All I'd made so far was a helmet & a torso. Admittedly I would have been a bit further along if the first helmet & torso had been right! But hey....trial & error! At the rate we'd been going I wouldn't have the rest of the stuff made until I was 40 as technically speaking we had no where to work! We werent supposed to be in the place that we were, let alone use it as a mini factory producing armour & weapons. Luckily Jobin had taken this into account & had no choice but to perform a u-turn with regards to the budget & time saving motorcycle armour idea. I hoped that I could convince Jobin to abandon the rest of the sculpting & molding in favour of combining what we already had with the motorcycle stuff. This would also save me a world of pain as I would have had to get my head around moving joints & engineering if we were to continue down the sculptural path.

So here we were back in the studio ready to do a test fit. There was no shortage of guys willing to try out the armour. Our first specimen, Richie, gleefuly put on the motorcycle stuff that consisted of an armoured jacket, some padded shorts & some knee/shin pads. Wicked. It looked cool. Now for the chest piece..............oh for fucks sake!! The motorcycle armour was preventing the sculpted armour from clipping together. Sorry Richie you're too big! Right!! Even though this new armour was much bigger than the first one it was clear that only thin guys were going to be able to wear it. Not a problem. Tall, thin guys please. We had a thin guy in the room as my studio was also serving as a production office & youth club. He was thin but not very tall. Oh well he'd have to do for now. Our second victim, Matt, donned the motorcycle armour & immediatly started going on about what a hard bastard he felt. OK cool, this guy was going to have fun with it & enjoy himself unlike Paul who just had no clue what to do with himself once he was suited up.

We attached the sculpted armour which fit perfectly over Matts smaller frame & he donned the helmet. In recent days Paul had been beavering away at constructing a Plasma rifle from designs by some guy in cleveland. This prototype was made from mdf which would be moulded & reproduced from a lighter material. For now though we had the mdf rifle.....that weighed a fucking tonne! Matt strained to lift it & hold it properly but it wasnt really an issue as we just wanted to see how it looked scalewise with the rest of the suit. We spent the rest of the afternoon making adjustments & I shot test footage for my own reference. I must say I find it most baffling that Joey never films stuff. He's the only aspiring director I've met that looks at you with a confused expression when you suggest it might be a good idea to film this so he can do some homework & start planning stuff out. Shit...the fact that I even have to suggest it to him in the first place is quite worrying.
Anyway, Matt had a whale of a time that afternoon as he bumped into walls, knocked stuff over & veered off at strange angles whilst walking. The helmet only had a temporary vision hole in it at that time so this is understandable. Also there was nothing inside the helmet to keep it in place on his head so it was prone to lolling about. I think he stayed in the suit for about 2 hours. A good sign for me as it meant it was comfortable to wear even in its raw state.

Obviously he was far too short and everything kind of hung off him a bit but it was adequate enough for me & importantly Jobin to see where it was headed. After a long consultation with Jobin about how to proceed we had a plan. Drastic measures would have to be taken if this was going to get done. I would spend the week in the studio casting out more helmets & armour in secret so as not to attract unwanted attention from teachers. Never thought I'd have to worry about getting told off by a teacher again. Paul would return to his house & spend the week making guns. This made him very happy. Over the last few weeks I could see that he wasn't enjoying himself. He only has very limited experience & I could tell he felt way out of his depth with the suit which was a bit worrying as we weren't doing anything majorly complex at all. This was fairly basic stuff & it was melting his head. He'd be of most use in his own comfort zone & he was more than happy to oblige.

I instructed Jobin that their little office game was over. This was a workshop & I had shitloads to do & having them in there was a bit of a hinderance to say the least. Besides if they stayed the fumes of fibreglassing 6 suits & 6 helmets in an UNVENTILATED room would have them dying on the floor within a couple of hours. I further illustrated the point by explaining how fibreglass particles are tiny little hooks & all it takes is for you to breathe one in & slowly over the next few years it will rip itself through your lungs resulting in slow agonising death. Probably got a few tearing through my lungs right now! You never know. For the rest of the project the students of Leeds treated that room like it was infested with plague. Excellent!!
And so I set to work casting out helmets & armour in peace.........once I'd got Paul to put me into the armour. It was tight, but it fit....as long as I didnt try to move. Some minor adjustments will have that sorted. Oh yes.......i will go to the ball.


Next time:

• The cavalry arrives!
• The monster arrives.......
  
• Warhammer 40,000 freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak comes to help paint & after 3 days of talking about nothing but Space Marines leaves when he finally gets that we are NOT making a Space Marine. Don't get me wrong I'm an utter gimp when it comes to 40k....I love it & it influences me massively (the helmet is proof of that) but this guy acted like he thought it was real!
• The armour is finished!!

Take it easy,
Michael