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Q: How do you know if a director is famous of not?

A: In photographs a famous director is always seen pointing and if you’re seen pointing in a photograph in a publication such as Screen International you’re really famous and have probably been nominated for an Oscar.

I am not quite up there with those chaps although was once photographed biting my nail which in my calculations means that although I am not famous, a famous person once saw one of my films - Martina Navratilova, Aspen Film Festival circa 2001 – the film was ‘Half Full, Half Empty’ and I know this ‘cos the writer of the said project saw her there.

We are over half way through our 18-day shoot and things have gone swimmingly until now. I have not had one tantrum and no one has as yet to put me up against a wall to throttle the living daylights out of me.

But today could be the day. We are shooting exterior pretty much all day, have four location moves and 16 scenes to shoot. We start at a graveyard out of town and then move several miles to a park and then into the city centre where we have amongst other things a bunch of scenes to shoot in one of the busiest shopping districts (Capel street) and then some night work. It’s the sort of day where you really would much prefer to stay in bed sticking hot needles in your eyes.

The day starts off well enough. We need an angry mob for the graveyard and although it’s very hard to get people to give you their time for nothing, the production office do a fine job in getting a selection of people who between them make up a very nice rabble with a even nicer range of foul expletives that they are happy to holler as they chase our heroes. Given that they have to run at full tilt for about a hundred meters and that one of them is also pushing a woman in a wheelchair I am kind and only make them do it about fifteen times. What a trooper I have turned out to be.

We complete our two scenes at the graveyard and leg it to the park where we have 3 scenes to shoot and about an hour to shot them in. When you are shooting out and about like this you are at the mercy of real people who often take an overly keen interest in what you are doing and won’t leave you alone until they have reaped satisfactory reposes to their gazillion questions – what are you doing? Are youz making a film? (again) Is there any stars in it? Can I be in it? Give us your watch.

There are also the other types who take umbrage to the fact that you have put the camera right on the spot where they want to stand and so you’d better move it now ‘cos they have rights ‘cos THIS IS a public place.

You grit your teeth and move the camera five inches and try to focus on the positive, whatever that may be. We get two scenes done and are already over our allotted time and by now should be in town instead of still standing in this bleeding park waiting for the hoards of schoolchildren who have suddenly appeared to stop waving and jostling with each other to get in shot. We also have no tea or coffee or buns or anything to distract us so moral is descending fast. The third scene here involves a moving car and two actors, one of whom has to drive. Now, if you have ever spent more than ten minutes on a film set with a moving vehicle you will already know that this sort of scenario has all the requirements for disaster  (and occasionally emergency transport of all the cast and some of the crew to the nearest trauma unit) and my common sense tells me to dump it and replace it with something else. So I have a quick huddle with Nuria the DOP and we come up with something much simpler. I change the dialogue and brief the actors and in ten minutes we’re out of the child-infested park and on our way into town. Just in time for rush hour.

In the process of getting into the city we lose half the crew who have either been swallowed up by some insane one-way system or have much more sensibly gone home. I of course arrive on set first ‘cos have no equipment to pack and unpack and begin to pace frantically as the seconds tick away and the enormity of what we still have to shoot overwhelms me. If I thought the park was a challenge, this scenario is a billion times worse. My teeth are clenched as is my bottom, ears and hair. It’s a three lane one-way street and is already choc a block with traffic and crazy cyclists and irritated people stomping along the pavement trying to get home as fast as they can. We set up our camera right in their way. The shot is of Dave’s Ma as she makes her way down the other side of the street into a pawnshop. Simple you’d think except that every time we get her into her start position and the crew are ready to roll, a bus stops right in front of us and instead of us seeing Maria (Dave’s Ma) we get a load of bored people sitting on the bus who spot our camera and proceed to squish their faces up against the glass to make what they think are hilarious faces. We also get a million people pushing past us with such greetings as ‘get the f**k out of my way’ or ‘No, I will not f**king stop, I don’t give two sh*ts what youz are making’ We get the shot (which ends up in the cutting room floor anyway) and move on. Very rattled.

There is a slight reprieve from the madness whilst we shoot a scene in a restaurant and as the actors are so good and funny, I even spot a couple of the crew smiling. I decide to lead by example and laugh out loud but moral has not quite been restored to normal levels and they look at me as though I am nuts.

Before we know it we’re back outside. It’s dark and although the traffic is not so dense it has now been replaced by lots of drunken people. I wonder will this day ever end. Our two actors are meant to be drunk so blend in perfectly with everyone else around them. But we are stoic and battle on in an attempt to be impervious to the puking and staggering and general mayhem that surrounds us. As we do our final shot, two guys walk past the camera. One of them turns around and proceeds to unzip his fly and takes out what those of us who are doctor’s daughters like to refer to as his ‘lad’, which he wiggles around for maximum cinematic effect.

What a perfect end to a perfect day.