THE DAY
OF THE
JACKET
It cost £20m, it was co-produced by George Clooney and it is one of the biggest films ever to be shot on
Scottish soil. It is THE JACKET. Paul Dale speaks to some of the people who brought the project to life.
his long—anticipated moyie is abottt a military Veteran (Adrien Brody) who returns to his natiye Vermont. suffering from bottts of atnnesia. only to be arrested on a
tnttrder charge and pttt on a heayy course of
experimental drttgs which allow him to time trayel. Ilere. the key players inyolyed in the film talk abottt what it was like to recreate Vermont and Iraq across the central belt of Scotland.
The producer
Peter McAleese
McAleese has been producing feature films around the globe since 1995. and his credits include Bridget Jones's Diary. The Motorcycle Diaries and Touching the Void. "I‘he script for The .lut'kt't had been in deyelopment at Mandalay Pictures and Section 8. which is George (‘Iooney and Steyen Soderbergh‘s filtn production company. I was approached by Mandalay while I was in LA finishing off The .llorortyt‘lt' Diaries and at that stage they had decided they needed to finance
the film by means of the tax scheme for
filmmakers who shot in the L'K. That was in .-\priI/.\Iay 3003. l pttt location scouts on in Scotland. with the brief to see if they could come tip with a psychiatric hospital and three days later Lloret Dunn [locations manager] called me to say they had got it. We then flew John Maybury up with the production designer and
16 THE LIST .‘5 Air—73 lylay 2N5
Disused sections of the psychiatric hospital at Bangour were revitalised for the film
they agreed that we could make this work at this old mental hospital at Hangour between (ilasgow and Iidinburgh. We began to realise that it would be possible to do a lot of the I'K shoot in Scotland. stt we look the tlcclslttlt lo ltttsc the filth in (ilasgow. with a local crew. I didn't hayc any doubts about doing this because (ilasgow is where I Iiye and there are a lot of world—class technicians there. We were also fortunate that we were going into pie-production at the end of 2003 and shooting at the beginning of 2004 a qttiet time in the [K film industry access to the best people in Scotland. Once we knew we were going to do it in Scotland we contacted Scottish Screen and the (ilasgow l‘ilm Office and they immediately pledged their support and money to bring the film to (ilasgow. In fact there are other places we could‘ye taken it to make it cheaper. btit the location and the financial support tnade a conyineing argument for bringing it to Scotland.
~The beginning of the filtn is set in Iraq dttring the (1qu War. lior these scenes we mocked tip a quarry in I.anarkshire. Standing there at midnight. imagining you‘re in Iraq with bullets whining about yott is a weird sensation btit I defy anybody to guess that it was tnade in Scotland. I think this film will entice top producers to Scotland eyen if their mtwies are not of an intrinsically Scottish content.’
so we L'Ul
The extra
John Kelenfoldi
Kelenfoldi was a security guard at the Scottish Screen offices in Glasgow when McAleese chose him over a crowd of auditioning actors to play the small part of a psychiatric nurse. alongside his hero Fish from the rock band Marillion.
‘l'ye always been a security guard: it's all I'm good at. I was jttst doing my job. controlling the crowds that were coming through for the audition. Then I’eter McAleese. the producer. told me I was the type of person they were looking for.
‘I think my weight and size were basically just right. It came as a bit of a surprise. I played a psychiatric nurse. trying to restrain a deranged and yiolent patient. It was shot in just the one day. a full l2 hours at Bangour mental hospital. The director John Maybury was very good: he made everybody feel relaxed.
I” not forget that day for one reason: Fish. He was my deranged patient. He’s actually been my