Also on Video presents

Flying Rabbits: 2

Lorna and Kerry: established...

JMM:     [Beginning to take note of Pete's chilled replies] Okay, Pete, you are named as director. What is the state of the production at that moment? I'd presume a script is at some degree of readiness. What about casting? Are the models already under contract, or do you participate in the casting?

Pete:     Okay. Well, we knew what we wanted in the way of models. They had to be British — or European — based. We didn't have the resources to find talent of our own so they needed to be established professional models. We had our eye on three models at first: Kerry Marie, Linsey Dawn McKenzie and one other we can't name now because she was forced to pull out almost without notice and had to be replaced at the last minute. All this took place back in October 2001, at which time we set up a date in London to shoot a preliminary sequence in which a couple of models are recruited by a model agency for a job in Amsterdam.

Chaz:  once more into the breach...

JMM:     That doesn't sound familiar. In fact, there's no such scene in the video.

Pete:     [Warming to the task. He loves to discuss his work] That's because we couldn't use it. Chaz stepped into the breach literally on the day of the shoot, but "her" part as the model agent had been written for somebody else and it wasn't right for her. Too many words. We ended up using none at all of the material we shot in October 2001, although some of it will appear in the DVD version later.

JMM:     Right. Remind me to ask you about the DVD later. Al, the models used in this film, Chaz, Lorna Morgan, and Kerry Marie, all were first brought to the public's eye by The SCORE GROUP. Were there any hurdles you had to jump over to sign these girls for Double Dutch?

Al:     We didn't have Lorna originally. Kerry and Chaz didn't come with any baggage in the way of contract stuff, although they have restrictions on what they will do for the camera. Linsey discussed her contract with The SCORE GROUP/John Graham and it was agreed that she could take part in a "topless" video. In other words, no front bottoms. Our long-suffering Production Manager knew and had already worked with Linsey and Kerry, so he negotiated fees and looked after the paperwork.

Lorna: asking Henk if all his stupid questions are really important. To him, they are, yes...

JMM:      So how did you end up with Lorna Morgan instead of Linsey?

Al:     I still shudder to think of it. Only a week before we were due to start shooting, Linsey called from New York to say she was in hospital! She'd picked up some bug or other, but she hoped she'd be fit in time to work with us on the Monday of the following week. Panic! Her mum was flying to New York to bring her back, and if there was one thing for sure, mum wasn't going to let her girl go off to Amsterdam in a week's time.
     We were all ready to postpone the shoot for two months when it was pointed out that the hotel in Amsterdam was all booked and paid for up front, so Martin would lose a heap of money. That's when Linsey suggested trying Lorna. Kerry had worked with Lorna before so there was no problem there. The only snag was we couldn't get in touch with her. Believe it or not, we were still officially cancelled as late as the Friday night. Then we managed to get in touch with Lorna on the Saturday and made the travel arrangements on the Sunday!

JMM:     Wouldn't I have loved to visit Linsey in her hospital! But Lorna is very good. I've loved her in everything I've seen her in. I had no idea that the movie was so last-minute-ish. Waiting two more months would have been expensive, but there would have been a lot more leaves on the trees.

Al:     Very expensive. Maybe even prohibitively. And by June or July we'd have been into the tourist season, which would have given us problems finding an hotel close to the location with room for the cast and crew.

JMM:     So someone was watching Solo's Dutch Guilders. Or his Euros, at least. Okay! Everything is in place. We have cast and crew. We have a Director. We have financing. What about the local Amsterdam laws? Did you need permits? Or did you just go about your business? Any interference or issues with the Dutch film production unions?

Al:     Permits? The only Dutchmen who have the right to bear arms...

JMM:     [Interrupting] Not gun permits. Permits to set up film equipment on the street.

Al:     ...are the police and the military. I knew what you meant, but still, the Netherlands is very much a free country. We were a compact crew, we arrived on a particular location, we shot, and we left.

Pete:     In April, when we shot Double Dutch, it wasn't exactly heaving with tourists and for the girls' walk around parts of the city and in the Jordaan it was pretty quiet. We didn't even draw a crowd. People looked, saw what we were doing, and carried on with their business.

De deshk of Henk, famoush glemmor photographer — and wanker...

JMM:     Crowd control could have been difficult, so you were fortunate. Pete, the production opens with a pre-credits sequence. We meet Chaz the look-out, we hear about Jonas Greyhound and Snipper the Shark, and we meet the photographer who has engaged the models for a photo-shoot, Henk Van Rentals. We can't help but notice a jar of CUM on Henk's desk as you show it to us twice. What's the deal on that? And, since we never do meet Jonas, was this intentional, a deliberate plot-line to substantiate Chaz's undercover work, or a casting issue, or just a cost-cutting maneuver?

Pete:     We were never going to show Jonas Greyhound, he's a shadowy threat in the background. We could have used Henk for that part as well, so it wouldn't have cost a eurocent. Greyhound wouldn't have contributed anything.

Al:     The jar of cum on the desk is a symbol to indicate that this is the desk of a wanker...

JMM:     That's a huge jar, so you must mean a seriously obsessed, anal-retentive wanker! Yes. Moving on Al, Snipper the Shark appears several times throughout the film. Since there are no sharks plying their trade in the canals of Amsterdam, we will assume craftsmanship was employed. Tell us about Snipper.

Snipper: a conversation piece wherever he goes...

Al:     He's made of glass reinforced polyester, and he sits on top of a radio-controlled boat body with an electric motor. The shark was purpose-built and controlled by our special effects man, who is based in Amsterdam. He now has the shark in his apartment, which provided one of the locations. Snipper's a conversation piece, as he always was when he traveled anywhere by taxi.

JMM:     I can just see the local constable shooing the crowd along...

Pete:     [In his best Cockney accent] H'all right, nah then! Wossall this? It's h'only ay taxi h'and ay large shark fin. Move along!

Al:     The police did cruise past at one point while we were shooting Snipper. You could practically see their brains whirring round, trying to think what offence was being committed here!

JMM:     [Laughs] Chaz is in the opening sequence as well as the closing frames of the film, also other spots in the script always with the same costume, a black top over a huge white bra, shorts, new wave sports shoes, an (empty) back-pack and crash pads. Did you go over-budget on this bit of costuming?

Pete:     It's no big deal. Cost wasn't an issue. We were only concerned with showing some of her vast cleavage. She wears the back-pack and stuff when she's on surveillance work. In her last scene she is paying a visit to Henk. It needn't even be the same day as the rest of the film. And her bras are huge, they need to be.

JMM:     [Chuckles] Cleavage vs cost? Right. Not a big deal, a definite no-brainer. After the credits we see the stars, Lorna and Kerry, emerge from Amsterdam's Centraal Station, and they go on a walking mini-tour of Amsterdam. We see the girls waving to a passing tour boat gliding by on a canal. Then we hear this distinct voice-over comment, purportedly from a passerby, "Will you look at those beautiful breasts..." or something along those lines. It's not like we needed to be told about the tits. Tell us about that...

Pete:     That was Dancing Feather, the street "musician" from the previous scene. While the girls were waving to the boat from the bridge, he went past on a bike, on his way to spend the small gratuity we gave him in a coffee shop.

JMM:    Actually, Dancing Feather appears after this scene, not before, but it's not a big deal. But as long as we have him in our sights — he wasn't much of a singer, no wonder he worked for a tip. So why was he left in the video?

Pete:     That's why we left him in! He was so Goddamned awful that if we'd taken him out of the video nobody would ever have believed how bad he really was. We wanted a street musician. We couldn't find a street organ, the Dam Square bagpiper wasn't around, Mr Feather was the only one to be had.

Al:     Our shoot was the week before the Queen's Birthday, which is a public holiday in Holland. This also accounted for Dam Square being occupied by a funfair [a carnival] and the funfair probably frightened away the usual musicians who play there. Dancing Feather told us he was a Canadian, and he was performing in the street while waiting for a cheque to clear, then he'd be able to fly home. Yeah, right!

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