The Perils of no-budget film making and how all policemen are not wankers
Back in my youth, I, along with a group of mates, had aspirations of becoming of a film director.
One of our group had already made a couple of amateur shorts and I decided I wanted to do one too.
I had the perfect location for my 'deal gone bad' masterpiece: underneath an flyover was a car park, with a suitably dishevelled appearance, which also had a path leading to the local train station and a grotty footbridge.

So we spend the day filming, chasing each other with toy guns. One of the guns however was a probably illegal blank firing Baretta replica that a freibd ahd acquired. We didn't have any ammo for it, for it certainly looked (and felt) the part.

As we were shooting the final scene in the footbridge over the train station, we were approached by a very pleasant policeman.

"Afternoon boys. What you guys up to then?"
"Oh, we're making a film ... for my college project"
"In the summer holidays?"
"Yeah, I wanted to get a head start"
"OK..."

At this point I could feel my bowels loosening. Not only were we in posession of a dangerous weapon. Not only that but in a suitcase we had what could pass to the casual eye as a semtex bomb, complete with cheap alarm clock timer.

"well, we've had several reports about young men matching your description chasing each other around the car park with guns. You know anything about that?"
"Yeah, that would be us. They're only toys though."

Out of the corneer of my eye, I noticed my friend had done a good job of shoving the baretta down the back of his trousers and was now leaning against the wall to conceal it.
I showed the policeman the shabby looking toy gun I had in my hand and he seemed satisfied.

"It's just that... welll... we've got an armed response unit sitting down there waiting to bust you lot. I clocked the camera and asked to come and talk to you lot first. Good job I did really."

At this point the train station manager had made an appearance. An appearance very much like Blakey from On the Buses, but with glasses as an added bonus.

PC: "Look fellas, if you're going to do something like this, it's probably a good idea to let us know first. Y'know, just in case"

He wished us luck and walked back to his car.

As he did, a nearby coach pulled away revealing TWO unmarked white vans, with several tooled up SO19 officers (I counted six, but there could have been more).

The policeman couldn't have been nicer or more helpful. The train station manager was a complete cunt and threatened to prosecute us for trespassing (despite the fact we were on a public footbridge, and a cop had just had a word and done nothing).

I amnaged to wrangle some kind of cut from the footage we had, but sadly the tape has been lost to the ravages of a damp flat.
( Joe Scaramanga with a G-double-O-D vibration, Fri 6 May 2011, 8:32, 3 replies)

This is an awesome story
But your typing is terrible.

8.5/10 GOOD WORK!

Click.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 6 May 2011, 10:40, closed)

We did something like that once
We were using a Church in the middle of renovations to film a scene that involved an armed team rushing in, and we had proper replica weapons, shotguns, MP5s, even an M4a1 rifle and a couple of pistols thrown into the mix.
First thing he did was tell the police we were filming with weapons, even though we were indoors there was a chance that someone outside might grab a peak of some guys wearing all-black and carrying automatic weapons. Indeed, one of the extras thought it'd be nice to grab some fresh air and forgot he had a rather large rifle slung over his shoulder. Luckilly we pulled him back in before anyone saw him :D

If my mate ever finishes editing it I'll post it on /links
(Canazza is mostly listening to Yes, Fri 6 May 2011, 11:02, closed)

HAHA I have a story almost exactly like this! Except for the boring details , of course.

I'd post it except that this reply is about the best I can manage in my current state.

There must be many such stories...
(spaffwrap indulged his power socket fetish on, Sat 7 May 2011, 18:21, closed)