Office Devils

A James Bond film from the point of view of the supervillain's lowly employees. There's romance in the air in the Human Resources department, but the henchman-hiring routine is about to be rudely interrupted...

The £50 Film

Office Devils was our first film of 2005 - first film at all, in fact, for most of the crew. Many of the current regulars had arrived at the Cambridge Filmmakers' Network recently, and nothing had been in production since we got there, so we agreed to write something in the week between meetings - something very simple, with minimal cast and locations. The two resulting scripts were Office Devils and Duck Feeder.

As the first to be shot, Office Devils was our only short made in old-fashioned, non-HD miniDV. We used Joe's friend from the US air force base as lead actor, a disused office at the National Extension College where Jo had worked as a location, some work lights and a still photo lamp (which we melted... ah, oops) for lighting, my TRV900 as the camera, and loads of indigestable American junk food that Joe brought for snacks, until Jo fed us lunches made of actual food once a day.

The shoot was lots of fun - it lasted two 8-hour days, involved 47 set-ups and lots of smoke inhalation, and we set off the office's fire alarm twice with the smoke machine. Colin - the NEC's security bloke - was very cool and tolerant.

Office Devils cost £50 in food and a train ticket for the one Londoner. We did agree to pay a small location fee, but when I offered, they said they'd get back to me about how to pay it, and eventually seem to have decided they couldn't be bothered. So currently this film holds the record for the cheapest short we've ever made :)

Production Snapshots

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