Please help us fund Death of a Gentleman

Jarrod writes…

When Sam first mentioned making a film, I went quiet, looked in another direction and hoped he’d forget about it.

At that stage we were at The Oval, the end of a seven Test run over which I had spent 16 hours a day working on our Two Chucks show, and the thought of adding a documentary to that kind of workload was too much to think about.

Sam often says things like that. Let’s build a space mobile. Let’s go to the moon. Let’s…. That is Sam. It is the best and worst thing about him.

A few weeks later, after an instantly forgettable T20 in Manchester, we decided to drive back rather to London rather than stay in the hotel we had paid for. Perhaps it was to get distance between us and a T20 game, maybe we just wanted our own beds. It was a stupid drive. I can still taste the sick food we bought from somewhere called Captain Cooks. As that food slowly rotted our insides, we decided to make the film.

Sam had probably already assumed I was going to make the film (he tends to do that). But I really didn’t want to. Then something just changed in me – potentially gastroenteritis – and with the aftertaste of wet pizza and boring T20 in my mouth, I thought “bugger it’. Why not?” I like Test Cricket and I want to make a documentary, why not combine the two.

From there the film has grown and grown. The original idea of running around with a borrowed semi-pro camera has become a five-person crew complete with three cameras, fly cam and mobile lighting rigs. Six months later we’re still understaffed, learning on the job and making mistakes, but we’re talking to big names, finding out amazing stuff and getting some ridiculous access. We’ve shot a Test series in Australia, and are now getting ready to film in England, Sri Lanka and India over the next few months.

And I got to touch Rahul Dravid. Which was awesome.

Of course, being a small production still has its downsides. Anthony (aka Manthony, A-kor & TK-Maxx), our lactose intolerant cheese-loving cinematographer who knew nothing about cricket before this film, had to share a towel with me for a while (we lovingly described it as our towel). Our living arrangements in Australia were often bizarre. They included a ghost, third party vomit, a sheet of glass that kept moving, and a missing air conditioner remote control. And plenty of backyard cricket with a large empty bottle.

There were days in Australia when watching the cricket uninterrupted seemed like a luxury, and other days when we spent most of our time running between lion suits, Indian legends and trying to make it back to the press box in time for the party pies to still be warm. People were often skeptical of this rag tag group of guys hurtling around madly while the cricket is on, and it’s always easier to get someone to agree to be in the film than it to actually lock them down for a time when they can be in it. But somehow we managed it.

Everyday we learn something about cricket administration we didn’t know. By the end I may go head to head with Gideon Haigh in a specialized, and dull, cricket admin pub quiz. Sometimes it can be depressing, but there are also great stories in and around cricket, and talking to people who love this sport so much does make you feel that no matter how bad it is run, and believe me it’s run badly, cricket will survive and prosper until at least the 23rd century.

I know cricket is a great game, and I didn’t need to talk to these amazing people to be told about it, but watching Anthony fall in love with the game as the Australia-India series progressed has given me even more hope. By the end of the series Manthony was disappointed when he had to film while the Test was being played. He carried his radio everywhere he went, had an iphone app for the scores, developed a mutual bromance with Eddie Cowan and his facebook status updates told the story of someone falling for cricket. Manthony reminded me just how quickly this game can get under your skin. He went from nothing to fanatic in days, because Test cricket is a special kind of sickness that you just need to be virally exposed to before it infects you for life.

I always knew this film had to be made, but watching Manthony transform didn’t just justify the hard work, it made it fun.

Ten quid gets you a hug from Sam, so help fund Death of a Gentleman.