Needless to say, it’s my car
Steven Finch and Tricia Hitchcock
Keith loves dolly shots
Actually there was more than one person inside the scarecrow costume
A young boy leaves his bickering parents and wanders off into the fields, where he makes a startling discovery...
 
UK, 2004. Pathétique Films/Pathway Films.
Written and Produced by David McGillivray
Based on the play by Gavin Smith
Directed by Keith Claxton
ph: Ray Marlow. sd rec: Godfrey Kirby. ed: Chuck Cartmel. music: Dominic Glynn. make-up: Ian Brown, Hannah Eccleston. costume designer: Isabelle Fraser. prod designer: Ernesto Pitts. on-line ed: Bryan Farrar. prod asst: Joseph Brett.
cast: Steven Finch (Father), Tricia Hitchcock (Mother), David Brett (Scarecrow), Eddie Walter (Boy).
Colour. 10 mins
Shot in Cromer and Nuthampstead, Herts.,
September 25-26, 2004.
 
“In 2001 I went to see a graduation show put on by students at the Desmond Jones School of Mime. I thought one of the pieces, called The Scarecrow, would make a good short film; but at the time I didn't have the resources. In 2004, after I'd put the idea to Keith, I tried to find out who'd written this thing. It was a guy called Gavin Smith; but to my dismay he'd died a few months earlier. He was only 27. As you can imagine, his mother was in a bit of a state; but rather touchingly she gave us her blessing to use it. I fleshed it out and added the dialogue, and then Keith added some more stuff, including the sex scene.

We went location hunting near Royston, Herts., where Godfrey Kirby and I had produced The Errand in 1980. I couldn't find the fields we'd used then, but we found something just as good; and then, as we were driving home, we passed a windmill and decided to use that as well. The actors who were supposed to play the parents backed out at the last minute. I replaced them with Steve and Tricia. I'd worked with Steve at the New End Theatre, in a farrago based on one of Michael Armstrong's unfilmed screenplays, The Curse of Tittikhamon, and Tricia a couple of times, once at Southwold. Eddie is her son in real life. I thought it was very good of David Brett to play the scarecrow, considering his face is never seen.

The first day's shooting was a disaster. We got thrown out of the field we'd chosen (I hadn't asked permission) and ended up on the remains of a US Air Force landing strip! It drizzled almost continuously. Andrew Cartmel was going to do the catering, but I think he was going through some kind of trauma, and he disappeared. So there was hardly any food at all. The next day, at the windmill, it was sunny and we worked faster, but partly because the cameraman said he had to leave at 4 o'clock. I was warned that he wouldn't work with me again and indeed he didn't.

Child Number Four is my Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film - four people in a field. I still think it's a creepy little story. But obviously it's not going to appeal to gorehounds. It's never been shown anywhere.”
Eddie Walter