DOING
Maybe it’s because we’re ever such nice fellows but I’m always so heartened by the unrelenting soundness of the people we shoot with and how willingly they open their doors to us.
Maybe they shouldn’t be so trusting but anytime we rolled up to their houses in Kerry or Meath or Cork or Dublin they’d the kettle boiled and often enough a few sausages under the grill and we’ve nothing if we don’t get that. We’ve nothing if people aren’t into us being there, asking weird questions and poking cameras about their home. We’ve nothing if they don’t see it the way we do, an adventure, that we’re not sure where it’s going to lead but the figuring out and seeing what happens is what makes it an adventure. We’ve nothing if they’re not passionate about what we’re turning up to film. Shooting these doco ads completely relies on the awesomeness of the people we find and trusting that they’ll let us in.
Fiona & Andrew were eloping yet we were the only guests. I had to put down my camera to pick up Hannah, their 10-month-old, who’d started crying in the middle of the ceremony.
Kyle & Shirley let us tag along on his surprise 30th birthday trip to Finland, we turned up to shoot them heading for the airport and arrived to sausage sambos for the whole crew.
In an interview Anthony told us (and Clodagh for the first time) that the half-built granny flat was a promise of his to her dying father, that he’d always look after his girls.
Mike O’Neill closed up the B&B operation out the back of his pub years ago, now he only opens it for the VW Club tours that come through and for us when we’re down in Tralee. I’m sure that’s a lie but I want to believe.
AIB or Diageo or Unilever asks us to go scour the land and come back with great stories, we always just smile and nod and hope for the best!
Thankfully we’ve not been let down yet.
