Lush Town: Episode Two

"By the way, I'm a singer too..."

It's funny the way things work out. Whilst bringing Lush Town to completion was obviously a lot of blood, soap and tears for everyone involved, on one level, it was almost scary how things just fitted into place. When we hired Kate Somerset How to play the role of Honey Waffle in Lush Town: Episode One, we had no idea of her vocal abilities. It was actually whilst we were in the middle of filming in Retro's office that she casually mentioned, "By the way, I'm a singer too". Just as unthinkingly, I half-joked back "That's great, if we make a sequel, we'll use that... We could do a Jessica Rabbit number or something", and then didn't think much more of it at the time. But when Episode One proved to be a success... well, why not try it?


The idea appealed to me for two reasons (both of them a bit sad, so please don't judge me). One, I'm a shameless fan of musicals - anything from Phantom to Les Mis to Little Shop of Horrors, I can't get enough of (of course, for every musical that I see, I try and have a big conversation about cars or football or set something on fire to keep the masculine/feminine balance). Secondly (and do remember the non-judging thing), I have a great big man-crush on Joss Whedon and everything he does (if you're unaware, Joss is the creator of Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show which unfortunately has a bit of a geeky reputation despite being one of the most original things ever put on TV). Buffy's musical episode Once More With Feeling had always been a favourite of mine, so the chance to write and compose a musical number for Lush Town seemed not only something that would take the series in an interesting direction, but would also be a no-brainer excuse to sate my scary scary Joss-complex.


So, armed with a list of Lush product names the length of War and Peace (but containing less Napoleonic Russians), and a copy of my trusty 'Bad Punning For Dummies' book, I started to bash together a script, and do my usual artistically retarded storyboards. With Lush Town: Episode One, we'd managed to fit in 64 product references, which seemed a lot at the time - but as with any sequel, with Episode Two there was the feeling of needing to go one further in every area (otherwise Die Hard 2 would have been subtitled Die Softer and starred Bob Hope). So, a few hours of linguistic gymnastics later, our script had the potential for an eyesight-straining 101 references.


One glance at the finished script and it was clear that if we were going to go down this route for Episode Two though, things were going to have to be on a much, much bigger scale than Episode One. As well as having to compose and write the musical number, and get it professionally recorded, we were going to have to find a large, 1950s-style barroom and stage - a location much larger and more complex than Retro's office. There would be extras to deal with, a much larger crew needed to handle the added workload, more complex filming equipment... and then added to that, we decided to film some scenes for Episode Three at the same time. This was going to be a lot of work.

INT - ICE HOTEL BAR - NIGHT
A spotlight has come down onstage, lighting up the figure of a WOMAN, dressed in a sparkling gown. She starts to sing, accompanied by a slow jazz band...

The words for 'The Bubbles Have Gone' were written, of all places, on a hotel balcony in Malta. Before you turn off on the delusion that this is in any way about to get 'glamorous anecdotey' I feel I should stress that I was there to film an exciting indoor corporate conference about a company that makes paper, and on occasion, cardboard. (A quick tip, if you're visiting a country for the first time, it's best not to do it on a job that requires you to spend every 22-hour work day editing people talking about the joys of tree pulp from the confines of your hotel room). The upside of this though was that I had the time to scribble out the lyrics to Honey's song in between the guest speaker on A3 and the one on A4.

Back home, I bashed out a melody and a piano part (trying to get something that was near enough to be reminiscent of Why Don't You Do Right from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but far enough away to not have Disney's lawyers reaching for their big red mousephones...), and then ping-ponged what I had back and forth with Alex Cornish, our composer. Alex then managed to do the impossible, and make my fingers-and-thumbs key twiddling sound polished and professional, arranging the song into a beautiful full-band version (something that moved it slightly further towards a more Chicago feel and further from the Jessica Rabbit impetus - this gave the whole thing a lot more energy, something which I thought would really help the film as I'd had to cut out all the car-chase and explosions scenes).

The next step was to lay down Kate's vocals, and needless to say, she blew us away, giving the track more sass than Carmen Miranda's favourite hat. It was a very odd feeling for both of us to suddenly find ourselves in a recording studio, all the result of an offhand remark, a hell of a lot of coincidences, and a particularly dull speech about corrugated paper.
(I also owe a huge thankyou to Tom Welsh at 3Sixty Studios in Fulham, who helped us to record Kate's vocals.)
So with the song out of the way, it was time to tackle the film itself...

EXT - CITYSCAPE - NIGHT

Looming through the falling snow, the fanfare heats up as "LUSH TOWN" slams onto the screen. We move in on the city, this time towards the towering beacon of the Ice Hotel…

As with ease of the initial concept, further things were to luckily fall into place once again as we launched into pre-production - after spending so much time during Episode One trying to find a suitable office for Retro, for Two we found our 'Ice Hotel' bar almost immediately - a remarkable venue called the Cobden Club. Tucked away on a back road in London's Ladbroke Grove, we were amazed when the building's unassuming exterior turned out to harbour exactly what we were looking for - an amazing art deco bar with, crucially, an extravagant opposing stage area. (In fact, the exterior of the place was so unassuming that on the shoot day a number of extras thought it was a derelict building when they arrived on the shoot day and nearly wandered off...)
The only downside to the Cobden was that it was still a working club, and so at the end of each day we had to disassemble the entire set, equipment, lighting etc so the club-goers could come in, only to have to set it all up again the next day! As I'm sure you can imagine, this made for some pretty hectic shooting days, especially when we had to get a grand piano in and out of the building past some very confused punters!

As with finding the location, our additional crew needs were also easily solved, with Lisette 'Pixie' Lawrie (our DOP/Production Designer/whirling dervish) bringing on board some fantastic additions to our previously tiny family. Amongst them, Andy Lowe joined us as our gaffer (A gaffer, for everyone that sits at the end of film credits and sees the usual unintelligible job titles, handles the lighting side of things on the shoot. I still haven't worked out what a Best Boy is though - I suspect it may be something sexual). We also had Lotte Nuszer join us as a Runner (see the Episode One making of article below for a description on Runners) - Lotte is a film student who works in the Regent Street Lush store in London, and we'd bumped into her when Episode One was released. After confusing our minds with a long conversation about walnuts and onions that I still don't understand, she took advantage of our mentally confused state and didn't let us leave the store until we'd agreed to give her a role on Episode Two.



The main addition for the cast was the role of the Barman, a role that went through a number of variations. Originally the idea was for the barman to be a more stoic character - like a gruffer version of Lloyd the barman from The Shining. No matter which way I tried to work it in the script though, it just wasn't clicking - Retro was already a no-nonsense kind of character; to have anyone similar that he had to interact with would just lead to them having a manly gruff-off, and the whole film would explode in a shower of testosterone, which no one wanted to happen. It all fell into place though when we tried Mat Ruttle in the role though (and with an audition picture like this, showing his obvious cocktail-making skills, how could we not try him). Mat, a friend of Sam's (Retro), was a gifted comic actor, and through his natural birth-given talent, could play a completely hapless dork without even breaking a sweat. Making the part completely the opposite of what was originally envisioned worked brilliantly - Retro now had a suitable foil to bounce off, and Mat was kept off the streets for at least an afternoon.

INT - ICE HOTEL BAR - NIGHT
We see the bar in its entirety. It’s a class act – bottles line the back wall of the bar like rows of shining teeth...

If you've read the entry on the making of Episode One below, then you'll know that when it comes to the visual elements of the film, our lives are very much in the hands of miss Lisette 'Pixie' Lawrie. And what wonderful, strangely stubby hands they are. As with everything else in Episode Two, for this part we really wanted to go one step further in complexity, and really expand the idea of a film noir world made of soap and Lush names. Our solution was to make this episode the first in which the actual products were featured - not as references for the competition, but as props; to not be featured directly but rather layered into the background detail. The cocktails, the food at the tables, even the table decorations would all be made out of Lush products. True, the downside to this was that we would have to play around and have fun with an inordinate amount of Lush goods, but that was a just a burden we were prepared to bear.


Sorting all this out with the Lush factory down in Poole was going to be too difficult logistically, so, one morning, with permission from Jack Constantine (our Executive Producer, and, as ever, evil mastermind), myself and Pixie hit the Covent Garden Lush store with a mission to stock up on enough products to fully decorate the bar. And thanks to the brilliant Hilmar and the Covent Garden team, we left with everything we needed.


....It was a lot.











However, not wanting to give the impression that we just did a runner with it (and it was very tempting!), the result was some truly brilliant creations that really brought the bar to life - not least the enormous Lush centrepiece on the bar. It ended up being a bit of a shame that we couldn't feature some of the smaller arrangements that were made more prominently in the film, so I've included some pictures of my favourite ones below:



As well as this banquet, the other main elements of the set were assisted exponentially by the two new members of our Art Department, Georgie Gunn and Caroline Bailey (as well as our other new runner, Christine Spooner).
What isn't immediately apparent from watching the film (or even from the behind the scenes pictures) is that the venue, when we arrived, had hardly any of the furniture and dressing that you see in the final film. The tables, the chairs, the big red curtains on the stage, even the grand piano all had to be sourced, brought in and rigged up - rigging the scaffolding and hanging the drapes from it was an especially enormous job! But thanks to Georgie, the curtains looked fantastic, and none of the scaffolding fell down - which was good as having Kate rendered in a wheelchair for half the song would have required at least a 10 minute rewrite of the script.

The Lush graphics team back in Poole also helped us out with some props, creating some brilliant vintage-style posters for the bands of the Ice Hotel, which we based on the genuine articles.

INT - ICE HOTEL BAR - NIGHT:

Retro turns in his seat, and stares. The woman looks just like Honey, except for her long, blonde curls, dress, and the black pearl necklace she’s wearing...

Considering we had the same amount of time as we had for Episode One to shoot Episode Two (just two days), and given the far, far increased complexity of it, the fact that we managed to fit it all in (and I'm still amazed that we did!) is really down to the commitment and dedication of the crew - so I apologise if some of this long-winded account reads like a great big 'thankyou' list, but everyone who gave up their time really does deserve their due (and they'll hit me with sticks if I don't mention them). The shoot itself is covered pretty extensively in Paul Cope's great 'making of' video (which should be up on the main Lush Town site), so I won't go into much detail on it here, with the exception of mentioning one or two things. Firstly, the lady that Retro gives the cocktail to at the beginning of the film is Sarah Mathers, 'Dylan' on the Lush Forums, who won a competition on the International Forum to appear in this episode. (One of the competition questions actually ended up being a little embarrassing, as it asked the forumites to name two other films I'd made... which inevitably led to some specialist in internet-dredgery managing to not only find my old A-Level coursework on the net, but also some films with rather suspicious titles like Sex Actually and The Fist Trilogy... Please, don't ask.)
Sarah was absolutely lovely on set and looks brilliant in the film - a million thankyous to her for being so great on the day and putting up with having to force her feet into some rather too-small shoes!



Every other person sat at the tables of the bar was a friend of the crew (or in the case of Clare Constantine, family!) who put up with a very early morning and a long day of sitting around to make the bar seem much fuller than it was on film, all for a few dark shots of the back of their heads... so a huge thankyou to all of them!

Kirsty Bailey, our makeup artist, along with her new assistant Jenni Davies once again did a fantastic job of making the cast look fantastic, a task made all the more difficult this time with all the extra supporting artists to have to put into makeup- not to mention dealing with Kate's wig, almost a character in itself!

And last but not least, Alex Cornish, our composer, once again worked his magic on the episode, expanding the themes established in Episode One (have a listen to what music plays for what character... there's clues to the case in there...) whilst at the same time making sure that the first half of the film felt as legitimate as the second, rather than just being a preamble to the song (always a worry!).

INT - ICE HOTEL BAR - NIGHT

Retro takes a sip from his drink. With the glass to his lips, he frowns and looks down at it, but it is too late – as the jazz band bring the song to a dramatic close, Retro collapses from his stool and falls to the floor! As Retro’s vision fades, we pull up, out of the Ice Hotel…

(PS I know these chapter headings are getting longer and longer, but I promise this is the last one!)

Lush Town isn't just the films - there's a whole range of extra bits and pieces that have to all come together in order for the whole thing to work. One of the key things to change in between Episode One and Episode Two was the launch of Lush Town in America and Canada, and with it, a brilliant new site design courtesy of Kurt-Russell-alike Matt Bowen at Lush NA. Matt also set me up with this blog (even if he did set it up so my password was 'pussyslayer'), so I'm eternally grateful to him for giving me a medium with which to laugh at unsuspecting net-surfers as I bore them to tears with endless details about the make of Retro's hat.
Matt, Graham Tippett and all the Lush NA web crew have done such a brilliant job of making the site go above and beyond being just the films, and making visuals that blend recognisably Lush graphical work with true Film Noir style. No easy task!

With the launch of Lush Town internationally came more factors to consider. For the first time, we had to worry about one of our films being subtitled or translated for a non-English speaking audience. For the French-Canadian version of the film, a problem that reared its head that I hadn't even considered, was that the French names of the products do not directly translate - each product had its own name to tie in more with the appropriate French expressions, so not only would all references (and so the competition) be lost in a straight translation, all my crap puns would stop making sense as well! That Episodes One and Two were able to exist in a French iteration is down to the efforts of David Casavant in the Montréal wing of Lush. Not only did David re-write the scripts to cater for French product references, he even managed to re-write 'The Bubbles Have Gone' so that it worked with French Lush and still rhymed! (And let's face it, "toutes les femmes que je voyais etaient Ginger!" just sounds so much... well, cooler). With Lush Town hopefully set to enter Europe and Japan soon, I hope all its translators will be able to tackle the convoluted scripts with the ingenuity that he has. (Ok, I'll come clean, I just hope to one day see a full-on Simpsons-style 'Mr Sparkle' Japanese version...)



With the finishing touches being put onto the edit, the final major task for us was the creation of the Lush Town poster. After researching into classic Film Noir movie posters, myself and Jack agreed that the best thing for Lush Town would be an old-school, painted, true 50s style poster. Stepping up to the plate to paint it and proving once and for all that she's an insane masochist, Pixie took the task head-on, and painted us the poster that would be going up in all Lush shops all across the UK, US and Canada (no pressure or anything there). After painting day and night for days in a locked room, I finally caved and gave her the key and some food, and she emerged with the finished poster - not only a brilliant work of art, but an excuse for us all to feel like we'd made a 'proper movie'. God, we'll be having a premiere and everything next...








The initial design layout
for the Lush Town poster

Pixie hard at work on the Lush Town poster

The Final Poster

Well, that's about it. It's now just days before the release of Episode Two, with a simultaneous release across Lush UK and Lush North America, as well as a whole lot of fun and games being cooked up for in the stores. I really hope that you enjoy the film, good luck in the competition, and as ever, stay tuned for Episode Three, as there's definitely some surprises in store...