Tender is the night

I'd forgotten the joy of night shoots. Working while the world sleeps. Several years ago now I did an all nighter for a Channel 4 drama docuementary. Shooting under some railway arches by the Thames. It was all a bit make and do and at 4am they came up with another page of script. I remember standing by the Thames trying to learn it as quickly as possible while an entire film crew waited in the dark to shoot it. At least in Leeds they aren't making up the script as we go along. I'm here for a week shooting a new gangster heist comedy caper set in Yorkshire ( pushing the genre envelope there I feel) and I have drawn the short straw for a week of night shoots. My first day today started early afternoon and will end at 3 am this morning. In theory. We've just done nine takes of a cup of tea being spilt so who knows? The crew have been shooting for five weeks now and I've come to join for the last week. Mercifully I'm a significant enough character in this to merit a warm welcome and that's what I've had, though you can just see how tired everyone is. Night shoots play with your mind. For a start there is the food. At lunchtime okay we started with a cooked breakfast. At seven thirty this evening we had lunch. Not bad and of course like all good location lunches it involved custard at the pudding stage. Then the evening started to go downhill. I'd been sent advance filming times with an estimated wrap at 11.30pm. We seemed to be making unceasingly slow progress. Then a check on my call sheet showed a revised wrap time of 2 am. So at 11.15pm we were served afternoon tea of cakes and sandwiches. From the location car park I can see my hotel. Warm and tempting and yet it's now going to be several hours more before I get back there. Things slow down even more. The night tightens its grip on effectiveness and we are now all asked if we will work an extra hour for cash. It's hard to say no. We're all asked individually and privately, but if I were to say no there is nothing they can do, so I agree. 2.30am and it's panic all around. I change costume for the next set up which also for continuity involves me being sprayed with water as I've come in out of the rain. The real rain will happen on Saturday night. back on set we rehearse for camera. 22 minutes to go to the 3am deadline. Voices are raised and hitherto temperate men are pushed closer to the edge. We supposedly have be go at this. I'm joined by an actor who has waited patiently since 6pm for his one line, and one knows we'll have to go twice yet the clock is against us. Action - move-cut. Someone has miscues the lights. We reset. Three minutes to go. Action. We stumble through it. The other actor misses his line but we carry on. Cut. The director needs one more and it's 3 am deadline. No one speaks and we reset. It's assumed we will carry on. Two more takes and it's a 3.08 wrap. Hate to think what that scene looks like. Mercifully it's very dark and hopefully will stay that way. And so just before 3.30 it's hotel and bed and more nightime joys to come.