Tuesday 22 June - Four Days of Filming at BHP
First of all BHP stands for Broken Hill Pty. It is the Steelworks here in Newcastle where I have worked for the past 17 years as a Fitter & Machinist. The steelworks is closing down on 30th September this year, so as you can well imagine the opportunity for us to participate in the filming on Bootmen was a terrific morale builder. I've always had a fascination with movies, so this was like a dream come true.

Six of us were approached on Tuesday morning to see if we would like to take part in a scene where we make fun of the characters Gary and Sean (Adam), by doing a very tacky "Swan Lake" routine as they arrive at work. Naturally we said yes, not having a clue as to what we were in for.

You will never believe it when you see the film, but we actually had a choreographer to show us the moves. This two minute scene took about four hours to film. There were two real actors in the dancing group with us who had lines to say, we just had to make fools of ourselves in front of all our workmates and the crew!

Over the next four days we were used in another four scenes, all of which took many hours to film. I was thrilled to learn that one of the scenes I was in was actually the opening of the movie. Another scene involved some special effects (which made for LOTS of retakes when things didn't go exactly to plan).

All of the actors and the crew were very nice to us. I spoke with Adam about his role in "Saturday Night Fever" in London, and asked if he was going to reprise it here in Australia. He said that one year doing the same show was enough for him at this stage and he was happy to try something different (being Bootmen).

The female love interest is played by Sophie Lee, who originally lived within walking distance of my home here in Dudley, so it's a real "hometown" production as Dein Perry is also a former Newcastle resident.

Now all the crew has left our plant, it seems like it was all some kind of dream. It was quite a let-down to have to perform our normal duties today (Monday 28 June). Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely and I for one will never forget the experience. We are all eagerly anticipating the release next year...maybe we'll get to go to the Newcastle premiere...they do say that everyone has their fifteen minutes of fame, don't they......