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How Not To Live Your Life: The Final Filming Diary

Dan Clark Dan Clark — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 16:47:13 +0000

The last few weeks of the shoot for How Not To Live Your Life were in the studio. Don's house is a brilliant crafted set built in a less-than-desirable studio in the town of Dumbarton, just outside Glasgow. I say less than desirable. I certainly wouldn't call Dumbarton Studios the most depressing place I've ever been to, but it's definitely not Hollywood. It's cold (even in August) and damp and the walls are covered in pebbledash. It has an eerie feel to it. But it's what we called home for three weeks.

If you want a reminder of what the set of Don's house looks like, here's Don sharing his thoughts on Sam's new boyfriend:

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By the time we reached the end of the shoot, we were all relieved that it was over. Well, everyone except Sam Leifer, the director. He's an android. I've never met anyone who can work so hard on such little sleep. He turned up one day having only had an hour of sleep. He looked and behaved no differently to previous days. He didn't even yawn. In fact, I think he only yawned twice over the whole seven weeks. And one of those was by accident. Believe me, when you're getting up at 5.45am everyday and filming for 12 hours, you yawn. Unless you're an android.

It was a fun, exhilarating shoot which, I'm fairly certain, will culminate in being the best series of How Not To Live Your Life yet. By a mile. But I was thanking God when we got to the editing stage. Starting at 9.30am; sitting down all day, cutting funny scenes together, and lots of coffee and cakes. Oh, okay. I'll miss standing in the cold with a ball-gag in my mouth.

Dan Clark writes and stars in How Not To Live Your Life on BBC Three, Mondays at 10.30pm.

How Not To Live Your Life: Filming Diary Part 4

Dan Clark Dan Clark — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 10:41:16 +0000

Week four of filming How Not To Live Your Life was the musical episode. I don't want to give away too much information about this episode but Don joins the local theatre club that Eddie belongs to and they put on a musical. We had long conversations about whether to make the musical deliberately bad or actually surprisingly good. We kind of went for the latter. I say kind of because although it's poorly acted and very cheesy, they deliver the musical with gusto and passion. The art department on Series 3 created wonderful sets and at the end of the week we all decided we'd actually quite like to see the musical put on in the West End.

The musical episode also featured a guest appearance from up-and-coming character comedian Nick Mohammed, who you may have seen in The King is Dead. I've been a fan of Nick's for a while and knew pretty early on in the script writing process that I wanted him to play the director. He was brilliant. In fact, a bit too good. My ego was starting to feel neglected due to the amount of laughs he was getting. But the writer side of me was in love with him, as he was serving the script expertly.

David Schneider, he of The Day Today, Friday Night Armistice and Alan Partridge, joined us that week too. The scenes he was involved in were set during a pub quiz, which culminates into a bar brawl. David was a gent. And I was so pleased he came and did a bit as I've been a fan of his since my late teens.

Dan Clark as Don and Fiona Button as Jenny in How Not To Live Your Life

The bar brawl I mentioned is instigated by a female character played by Fiona Button, she's appearing in the BBC Three drama Lip Service as well as an upcoming BBC One sci-fi called Outcasts. I wanted to mention Fiona because she's so phenomenally good in the role of Jenny. A part that could've gone so badly in the hands of the wrong actress. Fiona's a brilliant actress who'll be a big name soon. She took to comedy so easily and her physicality made me laugh a lot. Her part is in one of my favourite episodes of the new series.

Dan Clark writes and stars in How Not To Live Your Life. The new series of How Not To Live Your Life starts on 8 November at 10.30pm with a double bill.

Next week you can read the final instalment of Dan Clark's filming diaries here and you can read parts one to three on the blog now.

How Not To Live Your Life: Filming Diary Part 3

Dan Clark Dan Clark — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 17:23:58 +0000

The third week of filming How Not To Live Your Life saw the beginnings of what is now known as 'The Curse of Bell Street'. I had written a scene involving Don bumping into Sam outside a café. It's intrinsic to the plot that she's sitting outside. This proved to be a problem. It rained the first time we tried shooting it. We had to abandon the scene and re-schedule it for a few days time. (Re-scheduling scenes that late in the day is a very costly exercise - you've paid to use the location and extras already, and you'll have to pay to use them again when you attempt to re-shoot that scene - these are just a few of the things you're faced with.)

So we arrived to re-shoot that scene a few days later. It was dry when we got there. But shortly after the 1st Assistant Director called "action" the clouds decided to cry. We ended up abandoning the scene again. In fact, this kept happening over and over again and finally, on our fourth attempt at shooting the 'Bell Street Scene', we got a lucky break in the weather. Well, that was until the sun started going down and we ended up with a single shot of one character looking like he was sat there at night, while the others were there during the day. So, with a sense of disbelief and frustration, we went back to Bell Street for a fifth time and shot one person's single shot. Hoorah! Scene complete. It's about 3 minutes of screen time. Only took 5 days to do!

We knew we were going to make the show through BBC Scotland but we had to decide where exactly. I was pretty adamant that we'd have to do it in Glasgow. It's much more cosmopolitan than Edinburgh and easier to make look like a generic city. There's no getting past the gothic architecture of Edinburgh, or it's cobbled streets or posh Georgian residential houses. Whereas Glasgow has a great mix of different architecture, old and new, beautiful and downbeat. It's also a great city to be in; full of character and characters. They're incredibly friendly in Glasgow... and occasionally incredibly scary. It's got a great art scene and lots of music venues. I love it there. But... and this is a huge draw back... the weather is bloody awful! I mean it's one thing being incredibly cold during the winter but to be grey, chilly and wet during the summer months of July and August, well that's just taking the piss. I'd had visions of us all shooting Series 3 in t-shirts and hanging out on the streets of Glasgow on cool summer evenings. Standing around waiting for shots to be lined up, catching some rays. No. It rained almost every day. I'm not exaggerating. Almost. Every. Day. I don't know how they do it. The locals, that is. How do they put up with never having proper summers? It's probably why they love to drink.

But back to the upside of Glasgow. The people are great. And the crew are not only very hard working but they're a really good laugh. The Scottish have a wicked sense of humour. And that suits the show. The banter between the crew is what gets us through the hard work.

Next week you can read the fourth part of my filming diary to find out who guest stars in the musical episode. You can read the first two parts of my filming diary here on the BBC Three blog.

Dan Clark stars as Don and writes How Not to Live Your Life. Series 3 starts on BBC Three in November.

How Not To Live Your Life: Filming Diary part 2

Dan Clark Dan Clark — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:15:06 +0000

Firstly here's a treat for you, your chance to be the first to see some photos from the new series. This is a bit of a clue for you....

Noel Fielding as Marcus, Sarah Hadland as Karen and Dan Clark as Don.

Yes that is Noel Fielding from The Mighty Boosh, keep reading to find out more about the guest stars in the new series.

The shoot for series 3 was possibly the hardest one yet. Even though series 1 was the most stressful, this one was the hardest. On the first series I co-directed it with Gary Reich. It was a kind of a mistake. Not because we did a bad job. I think we did a great job, in fact. But trying to act in every scene whilst having the kind of pressure on you as a director is incredibly draining. I think my performance suffered a tiny bit because of it.

Series 2 was much easier because we hired a director in. This took a huge amount of pressure off. Even though I'm heavily involved in the production side of things, I was allowed to concentrate a bit more on my performance. The scripts for series 2 were much better too, so we were all feeling way more confident.

So for series 3 we decided to go with a new director again. Mainly to keep the show fresh, but we also liked the idea of giving each series a slightly different flavour. We hired Sam Leifer, a new kid on the block who's a passionate and creative talent.

The main reason series 3 was possibly the hardest yet, was not only because we shot longer scripts, with huge set-pieces in each episode (there's a musical, a bar brawl, a massive fancy dress party, country house, guns, running, and 50 speaking parts) but also because of the three weeks of night shoots. And we shot seven episodes instead of the usual six. The seventh is a Christmas Special of sorts. It's not set at Christmas but the story involves Don joining Eddie's local theatre club and putting on a musical - so it's festive. And it'll go out at Christmas.

But the series was a lot of fun too. I got to hang out with the old gang - David (Eddie), Laura (Sam) and Leila (Treacher). I built up the part of Jason, Don's boss, meaning we had Daniel Taylor on set for a longer than last year. And anyone who's met Daniel will tell you he's the loveliest man on the planet. And bloody funny too.

We also had lots of brilliant cameos too. First up was Rupert Vansittart, playing the dad of a very posh girl Don dates. Rupert is probably best remembered for his excellent performance in Four Weddings and A Funeral, in which he corners Hugh Grant in the hotel bar and utters the phenomenal line "I was at school with his brother Bufty. Tremendous bloke. Buggered me senseless. Still, it taught me a thing or two". He was absolutely brilliant on our shoot and a pleasure to work with. As were Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Jessica Knappet, who played his daughter and her best friend.

The following week we were graced with Noel Fielding's (The Mighty Boosh) presence. Noel's an old friend of mine. We met in Edinburgh, during the festival, back in 1999. We've remained good friends since. He said to me a few months back that he'd love to do a small part in the show. I suggested we try and put him in a part that was totally against type. A part no-one would expect to see him play. "Good idea" he said. "I should play a black athlete". I told him that might be pushing it a bit far. And anyway, I hadn't written a black athlete anywhere in the show.

Noel Fielding as Marcus and Dan Clark as Don

Noel ended up playing the part of Marcus Blade. A corporate type (loosely styled on Michael Douglas from the original Wall Street film of the 80's) who head hunts Don in a rather questionable fashion.

We had a lot of fun. Possibly at the expense of the shoot. We kept corpsing. Noel's ability to adlib is effortless. Often all he does is add one new word to a sentence and it'd catch me off guard and have me in hysterics. He's also got an incredibly odd face. Only really noticeable when he has his hair slicked back and in a side parting. He's often hard to look at without laughing. Seriously, I've never known someone with so much sex appeal, yet so odd-looking.

That same week we had two other brilliant cameos - Sarah Hadland (from Miranda, That Mitchell and Webb Look and Moving Wallpaper) and my old comedy colleague Adam Goodwin. Years ago, I used to be in a sketch act called Electric Eel with Adam and Cliff Kelly. It was great to get them both in the series, albeit in smallish parts.

Make sure you check back here next week for the third installment of my filming diary and if you missed it you can read part one now.

Dan Clark stars as Don and writes How Not to Live Your Life. Series 3 starts on BBC Three in November.

How Not To Live Your Life: Filming Diary Part 1

Dan Clark Dan Clark — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:52:26 +0000

I ended my first day on the set of How Not To Live Your Life Series 3 tied up in S&M gear, running around outside, barefoot, freezing my breasticles off. Although we were filming in July, the weather in Scotland (where we shoot the series) was like a mid-February evening. I was cursing the writer for putting me through all this. Yes, that's right. I was cursing myself.

It's a strange thing. Every year I find myself shooting a scene I deeply regret writing months before. It's normally nudity or sex scenes. If you've seen any of Series 1 or 2 you'll know there are quite a few scenes featuring nudity or sex. People often ask me if I love getting naked. No I don't. But when I write those kind of scenes I'm not thinking about the fact that I'll have to film them. I've trained myself to forget that something I'm writing might be horrible to shoot. However, that's not the case with the aforementioned S&M scene. As I was writing that particular one, I knew I'd be cursing my own name in a few months time.

The premise - without giving too much away - is that Don has been tied up in chains with a ball-gag in his mouth in preparation for some bizarre sexual encounters. He's not entirely into the idea, but the girl involved is incredibly domineering. The episode ends with Don running around a large country house, hiding from the girl's father. We (myself, the producer Gary Reich and my script editor Drew Pearce) wanted to incorporate more physical comedy into this series. I had recently re-watched the little known Peter Sellers' film The Party, in which Sellers, as an Indian man, goes to a party in LA and simply wanders around causing minor chaos with very funny slapstick set-pieces. There's very little dialogue in the film and whilst it's by no means perfect, it's occasionally hilarious. I liked the idea of a scene or section of an episode of How Not To Live Your Life where Don can't speak; hence the ball-gag. But because the scenes amount to about 8 minutes of screen time, this meant me being in the costume on and off, for four days.

I even had another brief stint in that costume a few weeks later. I had to stand on the side of an A-road and act trying to hitch a lift; to real cars driving pass. Even though it was incredibly embarrassing being seen by all those drivers (who, by the way, couldn't see the cameras and therefore thought I was a genuine member of the public trying to hitch a ride in S&M gear!) I could also see the funny side. I mean, if I was driving home one night and saw a man in chains and ball-gag, thumbing a ride, it would probably make my day. One car even turned around to come to pick me up.

So, the next time I write a funny scene involving a hideous situation for Don, maybe I'll hesitate.

Make sure you check back here next week for the second installment of my filming diary.

Dan Clark stars as Don and writes How Not to Live Your Life. Series 3 starts on BBC Three in November.

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