The Bounds of no Budget

Success or Failure?

The Bounds of no Budget was a project dogged by problems from the start. It's inexperienced crew, lack of technical and financial backing and consistant setbacks at the hands of school teachers all contributed to it's weaknesses. However, despite it's three days of production time and a measly thirty (30) minutes of actual footage, the two and a half minute screen time says buckets of what is possible, no matter what the budget.

The Cast
The cast consisted almost entirely of third and fourth year students of the PAtrician Presintation secondary school in Fethard, with one exception; the directors girlfriend.
The Cast was as followed:

Aidan Hickey

Cathal O Brien

Aisling Ahearn

Nicola Grace

Daniel Sheehan

Declan Allen

Darren Iddon

Dessie Iddon

Small, not particurlly dedicated, working in school through Easter Holidays and fit to murder the director who could'nt quiet communicate what he whated done. Aisling Ahearn was first to take the inititive, effectively walking out on the second day before appearing onscreen (and she still doesn't forgive me, don't ya not Ash!!), leaving the Director very much stuck. Her role as Sam McKay, Private eye was filled by Nicola Grace, after much persuasion! Infact, the whole Sam McKay sub-sequence was Dropped all together, Nicola's scenes being used in a Terminator satire instead. Aidan Hickey, also written in as the EVIL GUY in Sam McKAy became T-1000, as production time slipped away. This nesisatated Aidan Jumping through double swinging doors through 18 takes with a tin-foil "Dick-wound" taped to his nithers!! His crowning achievement however, was off camera, in his epic impersonation of "NANNY" from 'count Duckula', put simpley: "I'll Get it!!" - It has to be seen to be believed. Daniel Sheehan was chosen to play the heroic T-800, Arnie Schwarzenegger's part in the real films. Danny is the same height as myself, and I look up at anyone over 5"5, making him perfect for the part. Danny became something of a revelation. His low-key acting made him perfect for the part, and complete with a badly made 'intra-skeleton' battle damage prostetic on his face and cast with a mean red light - he actually looked the part. However, the whole sequence was almost adandoned when the "T-1000 Freeze" sequence was destroyed when the director (against Cathal's warnings) decided to shoot his tatched cottage for people in France!! The sequence was re-edited and placed in the abnormally long "Things we messed up!" rolly following the credits.

Declan Allen (former leader of camp cunt ) was to play the role of capt.Fatt, in the Star-Trek sequence, entitled "Star-Wreak, to boldly go where no-one in their right mind has gone before!". Despite multipule re-takes, an attempt at blue-screen technology (for subsequent chromo-keying) and a LOT of shouting, his two seconds of fame are no more than the epic lines:" I JUST CAN't Do IT CAPTIN" and "Sir, the warp-drive fluc-capicitor partridge-in-a-pair-tree kitchen-sink structural-integraty has failed sir, what will I do!!". He will not be forgotten!

Cathal O'Brien had the second most important job in the production; the three pronged task of camera-man, technical consultant (he bought two 'Camcorder user' mags) and actor, in the role of Jean-Luc Plichard, commander of the INS Booby Prise. Unlike David Fincher in Alien 3, the director did'nt shave Cathal's head, despite his pleas. However, Cathal was forced through the most difficult scene in the 'Star Wreak' sequence - the destruction of the INS Booby Prise! Many options were trundled over, including the actual petrol-bombing of the set by pryomanaic The FONZ! Eventually a solution was found through the rapid flicking of the Iris controls to produce a FLASH, accompanied by the Star-trek trade-mark of a shakey camera and actors throwning themselves around. It worked! The final moments of the Ins Booby Prises prove it's most exciting, with the ship being destroyed by a Plarpian race whose motives are never discovered. Cathal's acting through-out it's existence is best described as "slappin his ass!". His utterences of "Engague!" and "Fire" to Barf (The Clingon weapons controller played by Daniel Sheehan) have to be seen to be believed.

Darren Iddon's role was primerly that of the un-apperciated go-for. However, through this he was completely responsible for the sound, despite the fact it was never dubbed on!!! (I still have the tape Darren!!) Darren's main on-screen role (he played an extra in Star-Wreak) was that of 'Edward Furlong's John Connor in the Terminator satire. The pun? John Connor was a small furry yellow puppet rabbit! Darren's hand appeared for the cutiest 6 seconds of the films screen-time, while Nicola and Aidan fight over his faith. He Lives ya know, so there could be a sequel on the way ;)

Things that actually went RIGHT!
erm.................................................................................. .....................................................................
Well, there were the lo-res Star-Wreak anims!
Yeah!
They were good!
Lo-Res animations flowing at 15 frames a second were the order of the day on Cathal's dimunitive A600 (which I latter bought!). But they worked!

The Final Cut
The final lay-out of the demo (demoted from film) was as follows:
Title (The Bounds of no Budget)
Terminator Too!
Star-Wreak
Credit Sequence
Things we messed up!
Fin!
<./CENTER>
Terminator Too was to be a series of low-budget re-creations of Terminator 2 epic special effects, but was latter re-edited to be a mini chase scene in which the yellow bunny John Connor is being chased by the evil T-1000. As it seems all hope is exhausted the shape of the T-800 strides into view, disabling the T-1000 with a series of gunshots to the body, resulting in the literal blowing of Aidan Hickey's charactor through a pair of screen doors after he sustains a rather painful "dick wound".

Star-Wreak charts the story of the INS BOOBY PRISE on it's final voyage. It comes under attack from a large force of plarpian fighters. The Boobyprise immediate reaction is to attack with it's forward laser aray, destroying several of the ships. The Booby prise meets a sudden end when the structoral integraty of the warp-drive fluc-capacitor partridge-in-a-pair-tree kitchen-sink fails, resulting in a spectacular explosion on the bridge and the vessel itself.

The credit sequence which lasts all of 2 minutes, despite the small crew, and the duration of the film being no more than 2 minutes itself! Entertainment can however, be derived by counting how many times the name Dessie Iddon comes up ;)

The BIts we messed up!
Hmmmm, possibly the longest section, and shows some decent effects! It begins with a medium shoot of an AV-8B Harrier jump jet, jumping to a "yellowly" shot of a 1/48 scale model of a Harrier, including a voice over by Dessie and Cathal :) . It then jumps to the horribly embarrasing "HARRIER COCKPIT" scene, in which Dessie hides behind a card-board cockpit, stares out from behind a HUD, and smiles, revealing the BIGGEST pair of braces ever seen!!! -YUCK!-

How to freeze a friend
This sequence, which features the famous scene where Arnie blows the frozen T-1000 away, shattering it into hundreds of pieces. This scene nessitated the use of a detailed scale miniture, which actually looked the part on-scrren, several physical effects (break away hand and leg) and make-up (modelling clay over Cathal's face with a touch of sugar to get a glitter effect!). The actual shooting of the scene went very well. It's atmosphere however was ruined b the videospace backdrop being of a warm colour, instead of a cold, hostile one. The scene was further destroyed by the use of a phono cable to dump the shot onto VHS, ruining picture quality. Was fun thou!!

The film then jumped into black!

THE END