November 2007
Alan, my brother, and I are sharing a one-room apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. Alan is singing and I am teaching toddlers. Alan gigs at the Trash Bar, Brooklyn, only to be upstaged by a pre-pubescent virtuoso pianist. A cross between a street urchin and a Carravagio Cupid, going by the name of Geo. He serenades on the accordion before moving his biting invective to the keyboards. Alan and I talk to him. He says he has just graduated from Yale with a degree in American Studies. Alan and I, think he would be perfect for a short film.

I start classes at UCB (Upright Citizens’ Brigade). Lennon Parham is my level one teacher

Geo broody good looks remind me of young lunatic artists, I knew when I was a student in Russia.

I go and see Geo play at Jimmies in the east village, with my friend Suran.
“My sister’s a cross-dresser, didn’t you notice the Ace bandage Geo was wearing round her chest!” Suran points out to me that Geo is in fact a girl.

I dream about a transgender who lives on the top floor of a New York apartment building, and watches the people on the streets below, fighting each other. My Dad reminds me about the war historian Jan Morris, who changed his sex, after completing “Pax Britannica”, A History of the British Empire. I begin to think about why people change their gender, are they conscientious objectors, changing their sex in order to save the world?

December
I meet with Geo at the Galaxy diner, on the corner of my block, 46th and 9th. I order her an omlette before her shift driving the prop truck at Primary Stages. She is reading Hamlet page one “What ho Bernardo!”
She reminisces about growing up in Hell’s kitchen and living in Manhattan Plaza, an old gangland site on 43rd and 9th. I ask her to play an angry young man, in my short. She asks me if I know she is a trans-gender, I tell her it doesn’t matter to me. She tells me she is in the middle of crossing over. I tell her that it doesn’t matter to me. After numerous, she decides not to be involved.

I go home to Mum for Christmas. Alan says that we’ll find another actor.

Alan tells the story of Geo to his friend, theatre director Phelim McDermott. Phelim mentions a young Bowiesque actor, called Kevin Townley who had understudied for him in “Shock headed Peter” on Broadway, and can sing falsetto. He thinks he could do the part.

We return to New York and spend News Year Eve at Jack Doolins on the 43rd floor of Manhattan Plaza. I decide I still want to make a film about the sky-dweller-transgender-moral vigilante. I ask him if I can make a film in his apartment, he says Okay.

January ‘08
I start having Saturday meetings, with the willing and able, to figure out how to get the story made. Actors, and technical crew alike come up to W.46th Street, to throw in their 10 cents worth. I come up with the story itself during my bicycle commutes across to the upper east side. I set a March deadline for a four-day shoot.

I want to do a love story. I decide to have three characters, a young girl and guy in love and a transgender. I ask Lennon to play the girl and start looking for an African American actor and an androgynous actor, preferably a guy to play a girl playing a guy.

I meet Kevin, he looks right to me.

Alan goes to Sundance, and he meets the Kassen brothers. They say they can lend us camera equipment, and maybe have access to the RED camera. Alan returns determined to do the film, he says he’ll produce it, but we have no contingency. My emergency credit card, in case of accidents abroad, becomes our collateral.

I start writing a script, and read about the battle for Haditha. I decide the African American guy should have been a marine in Iraq.

I go and see Kevin in a sing-through of a new musical based on the life of Martin Luther King. Will Jackson- Harper plays Reverend Ralph David Abernathy, and is brilliant.

February
Rebecca Gushin, my casting assistant friend from L.A., arranges a casting session for the African- American character and the transgender, but no one is quite right. We confirm Kevin and Will.

The Kassens’ meet me, and agree to give us the equipment, if we find a decent D.P.

After over a hundred replies from Mandy, and not a single likely candidate, Alan contacts, Luke Geissbuhler, the D.P. of “Borat” fame. Alan had worked with Luke on a comedy teaser and we knew if we could get him to agree, the Kassens would be happy… the independent film director Evan Lee Oppenheimer also becomes involved as an adviser.

We gear up for a meeting with Luke, who cancels half an hour before and then makes it. He comes to the apartment, and I give a fantastical explanation of the project. Luke is dubious, he is about 27 percent on board.

Alan puts Luke together with the Kassens, and things start to work out.

My Father, the actor Brian Cox, offers the administrative support of his personal assistant Ren Knerr. She and I start to crew up and draw up a schedule. Ren has the task of sorting out peoples’ dates, for shooting for no money. Alan organises location permits for the first week of March.

There is still no shooting script, but the production values are increasing. We need Art department. We find Chris Massi (Christmassy) and he and I start collecting stuff.

Oscar night is spent at Jack Doulin’s apartment, with Icelandic film director Dagur Kari. I find the Louisville Kentucky baseball bat, courtesy of actor Danny Mastrogiorgio. I am delighted. I use it to flag down a cab for Dagur.

Alan worries about shooting in Jack Doulin’s apartment with a full crew, and the potential expense of the project.

On Friday 29th Alan and I go and see Michelle Gondry’s “Be Kind Rewind”, I fall asleep. On our way home Alan advises me to pull the plug, the whole project is unmanageable. I can’t believe it.

I think about it, and call the the crew to set, in Jack Doulin’s apartment, at 10a.m. Monday morning

March
Day One
21 Crew arrive to Manhattan Plaza. Alan holds the actors at W.46th. Luke arrives to meet the 14-foot cube truck, with all his equipment. I am somewhat nervous about the scale of it all, but I put my fear down to first day nerves. We start unloading. The Security guards watch us come in and out of the elevator. The camera reaches the apartment on the 43rd floor, but as we try to get the jib in the elevator on the ground floor, the security guards stop any more equipment going up. The Super arrives to the apartment, and informs us we have to stop filming or risk the police being involved and Jack Doulin losing his tenancy. We have no choice. I phone Alan and tell him to warn the neighbours. We have to move the shoot to my apartment, W.46th Street. The crew start to pack up. Luke, Alex ( the focus puller) , the actors and I stay behind, to film some bathroom shots, (since there is no bathroom in my apartment, only an alcove toilet. and a tub in the kitchen), Jack is white with fear that he is about to be evicted.

Lunchtime we arrive to West 46th Street.

Luke tears the apartment apart putting up lights and cameras. He even succeeds in sneaking the jib up the four floor walk- up, much to the consternation of the neighbours. I create “Kevin’s Lair”, turning the apartment into the nest of a madman, (which was not that different from how I actually had it). We shoot. "Kevin’s Lair” The rookie technical assistants, the various logistical issues of continuity, the lost location and the patchy catering, make the shoot very difficult. At the end of the day Luke feels he is not able to continue with the crew the way it is. I persuade him to return the following day, but he refuses to promise his involvement for the rest of the shoot.

Day Two
It is calmer, but still the lack of professionalism exasperates Luke. He threatens to hit the truck driver and he taunts the rookie crew, (the largest of whom has blocked the one and only toilet), but luckily he remains happy with the gaffer. We have half an hour to transform the apartment to the world of the loving couple, and still no bathroom. The actors provide the eye of the storm, and seem to be able to deliver despite everything else. We shoot Lennon and Kevin before lunch and Will and Kevin after lunch, with Will’s entrance at the end of the day. Luke’s day’s work impresses everyone on set. We are ahead despite the set back of the day before. I am really pleased, but thoughts of neighbourly angst, the lost bathroom and Luke’s inevitable withdrawal from the project ,end any confidence I might have that things were going to be get easier. At the end of the day, I announce that we will try and schedule the two other days filming for next week. Luke tells me to hire a professional 1st A.D. I took that suggestion to be an ultimatum.

Day Three
The sobering interim, back at my day job, had given me new energy for the last heave. The building had been flooded but not by me and I had invested in a new toilet, for everyone’s comfort, (although frustratingly the three Hungarians did insist on installing it during our last minute production meeting, leaving Alan and I to drag the old one down four flights of stairs to the yard).

First thing, we shot Lennon looking for her wallet on the bed. Despite our efforts to be quiet, the crazy neighbours sniffed out the circus and one by one confronted the A.D. The old Chilean woman thought we were a gang of thieves trying to break into her bathroom, the milky eyed Guatemalan lady, thought we were trying to get her evicted, and Sean the burly caffeinated artist, yelled through the floor threatening to murder us. But as we got outside to film, those stresses disappeared.

We walked all the equipment down to 39th street, to film Kevin’s run.

New York City is the best place in the world to shoot, and it gives it all for free. The background is a conflation of architecture and humanity that screams at you what to shoot. The only problem was the amount of choice. The extra expense of Bruce Edward- Hall as the 1st AD was well worth it. After lunch we shot Will and Kevin’s walk, and we used my Dad, walking down the street on his cell phone, to cue the actors in the crowd. It finally felt like we were a film crew. It finally felt like this was my day job.

We got back to the apartment at the end of the day; with still enough resolve to shoot the closing shot of the film, Lennon falling asleep in her armchair. And we wrapped, knowing tomorrow was the last day but knowing that we would finish.

Day Four
Alan and I arrived to Union Square still too early for the bright sunshine. It was today or never. As the sun started to come up, we both felt the home strait. We were on schedule, Luke was happy with the shots, and Kate Reindeers of the “Tastiskanks” was perfect as our instant activist hippy-chick. We moved to the Zipper Factory before lunch, and it felt like nothing could go wrong but then we saw the bathroom.

Ren, had come to a very amicable agreement, with this owner of garment district history, we could film whatever we needed, but when all we needed was a public bathroom, we were surprised to find the black designer restrooms. They couldn't be more different than the dirty abused restrooms of Port Authority bus station . In a frenzy of activity we dressed it as best we could and with Bruce wielding the bat, we shot the killing scene. 15 takes before lunch and 9 after, on a shoot that had been working at a ratio of 3:1. Eventually we finished, getting out of there by mid-afternoon. On our way back down 9th avenue, we managed to steal some establishing shots of Port Authority, but we were all exhausted.

A tense and difficult time was spent shooting Will and Lennon’s scene in the apartment. There was no script, and the actors hadn’t even been briefed about what the scene contained. But in faireness to me that was because I didn’t know. All I knew was that, we had to communicate everything about their relationship in this scene. To add to the difficulty, Luke wanted to shoot it handheld. We decided to shoot two sequences; they told the same story, but in two very different emotional registers. Shooting either end of the apartment, my idea was that we would cut from one sequence to the other and hopefully expose something essential of the characters. During the shooting of the scene, the art department assistant Chris Massi, locked himself in the alcove toilet. He cleared it, cleaned it and painted it, in order to create a white background against which we could finish the various missing bathroom shots and that the more abstract Beckettian “Not I” shots. We hurtled through the last of it, celebrating with the martini shot of Kevin disappearing. We wrapped out, and it was all over.

An almost full moon shone down on the neglected street garden, outside my apartment window. I switched on my cellphone to check my voicemail. There was a message from Joe my landlord:

“Hey Margaret, I know what’s been going on and if I’d known, I’d never have let you guys do that, anyways I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I know you might need a week or two to get your stuff together and let your job and your Mum know, but you’ve kind of overstayed your welcome. You can't shoot a movie in an apartment in New York..."

He paused.

“You know if you’d let me know I could have.. anyway if you do this kind of stuff you’re supposed to cover your ass.”

21st March
I flew to London.