Xander Phillips
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How The Bastard Sword Came To Be.
"What The Hell Is A Grande Warrior?" - Eveshka Ghost
We had just finished The Granary and Ghost and I were finishing off the “Knight scenes.”
The two of us were taking some pictures of the knight costume whilst we still had the opportunity.
Whilst Eveshka was lighting me up I took of my helmet and extended my arm like I was performing a dramatic Shakespearean play and I said in an old medieval accent
"Make me look like a grande warrior."
Ghost started laughing and he said "What The Hell Is a Grande Warrior?"
To which I responded "I don't know but make me look like one."
Ghost continued to chuckle whilst taking the photographs and he finally said "Is it original? You didn't steal it from anywhere did you?"
"I said no not at all It just came off the tongue I thought it fit".
Later on after the photoshoot Ghost and I kept giggling and he said "If it's definitely original I think I know where we can use that."
I said "Yeah?"
Ghost then said "The thing is I've had this idea for a script i'm writing called The Bastard Sword, it's going to be a medieval fantasy and there's going to be a bad guy called (he scruffs up his face) Mars" I remember him speaking with this twang like if it was said by someone like Alan Rickman.
We spoke a little about ways it could be used in it but none of my ideas really stuck, by the end of it I was throwing ideas at the wall to see what stuck Ghost said he'd figure something out over the coming weeks.
It must have been about a week later when Ghost and I met up again and he said "Have a look at this." He handed me a script.
What's this? I said.
"It's a film about a Grande Warrior and you're going to play one of the lead roles in it. I'm still working on it but I think i've worked out what the quote is going to be..."6 foot tall arms of tree trunks and hair of elemental fire, A Real Grande Warrior"
"And Grande Warrior will never be mentioned more than three times like when Darth Vader chokes his officers, when watching it you think he does it all the time but if you notice he only ever does it three times in Empire."
So this is how Grande Warrior happened. Just a joke that became the tagline of the film.
It just goes to show that inspiration can come from anywhere. - Xander
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The Campfire Pitch
When people pitch an idea you automatically think of the phrase “Elevator pitch”. In our case we had a "Campfire Pitch". It was a very casual meeting between us we all brought food and musical instruments. On these events we all cook food and jam songs, it's usually a highlight of the year. At this particular one both Seth and Martyn were there, i'd already met Martyn once during The Granary but we hadn't spoken much, I arrived a little before Martyn was leaving and we briefly spoke. He said he was going to be playing Mars, I remember thinking "But Mars is a bad guy and this Martyn guy seems too kind to be a bad guy." But when it finally came to the first day of shooting I don't think anyone else in the world could be a better Mars, he was just perfect.
Seth on the otherhand I’d seen him around Jam nights and he was just one of those guys who everybody knew. Ghost already had Seth in mind for the role and he was pitching the idea to Seth who was poking feathers in the ground and playing with twigs. Ghost would say things like “That’s exactly what Ulysses would do”. In many senses it was hard to know where Seth ended and Ulysses began. - Xander
One of the things that people say to us is "If you want to make a film you need to spend a lot of money at it". and funnily enough every single one of these people have never made a film before or even attempted it so you use what you've got and buy what's in your budget.
So when it came to The Bastard Sword, Ghost and I went down to Car boot sales and Antique fairs and used what we had already.
For example:
Remember Mars's sword? That's the "Knight Sword" from The Granary.
The Bastard Sword on the front cover? that's from the music video of "The bird that spoke to me".
Remember the grapes and bread? THAT WAS MY LUNCH!!!
The majority of Ulysses' Cabin Decoration was just stuff we picked up and said " Hey Xander look at these Gold cups? How much for these? MAN: You can have the whole box for £10?
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Filming
The Bastard Sword
Behind The Scenes Version...