Big Adventures: Vamping it up in Cops and Monsters was supernaturally special

From the moment we first say yes when the truth is clearly no, we’re taught the very bare bones of honesty – it’s always wrong to lie. Of course, our young frontal lobes are quite happy to cling to that firm, unyielding skeleton, and use it to hang our fontanelle on, but the flesh and blood of the matter is that honesty is a much squidgier issue than all that.

In my case, social anxiety became the fuel for a particularly devious fire. In short, when your head is so mangled that you find even the most basic interactions, frankly, terrifying, you have to learn to be a little economical with the truth – and this girl was an accountant. Wheedling my way out of social occasions rather than explaining the embarrassing truth became second nature; and my first nature was genuinely horrified by the proficiency I developed.

Nowadays, I no longer have the need to stoke that blaze, finding instead that admitting to my inadequacies provides a lot more warmth. But I’ve always wondered if my skill in the art of pretence could be put to good use, and recently took the opportunity to put it to the test, as I joined the supporting cast of Cops and Monsters for a day.

Cops and Monsters is an independent supernatural web series, created by Fraser Coull and piloted online in 2014. Filmed and produced in Glasgow, the sci-fi show, based around the efforts of the Paranormal Investigation Team Scotland (PITS) to rid the country of a jumped-up werewolf, is now on its fourth episode, and has built a cult following of which L Ron Hubbard would be envious. Written by upcoming screenwriters and featuring actors whose credits include Doctor Who, River City and Braveheart, there’s no doubt that the series has attracted a real bank of talent to its shores, and its action has already been screened at Comic Con and sci-fi events across the UK. But while its creative core has firm roots in Scotland’s fertile soil, Cops and Monsters owes its cash flow to a less established seedling.

Since its original pilot the show has been entirely financed, through crowd-funding campaigns, by its fans and friends, making Cops and Monsters, by all accounts, a cooperative production. Not only can donators bag themselves signed scripts and exclusive memorabilia for their invested buck, they’re regularly invited behind the curtain to visit the sets or provide voiceovers, and for the latest episode I sharpened my incisors, shunned my reflection and took up the mantle of a vampire extra.

Zombies, werewolves, and the odd lucky human gathered in the bar’s upstairs seating area, booked for the day’s filming

The Curler’s Rest on Glasgow’s Byres Road is an instantly recognisable name in the city’s drinking sphere. Fine, it’s more often than not shortened to just Curler’s but The Rest is implied. At a hefty 600 years old, the west end pub has probably seen its fair share of quirky clientele, but for one day only it was host to the undead, the unruly and the unprepared. And soon the rest of my fellow extras joined me. Zombies, werewolves, and the odd lucky human gathered in the bar’s upstairs seating area, booked for the day’s filming. Obviously, it didn’t take long before the reservation was ignored and the usual lunch crowd added themselves to our motley number, but that probably said more about them than it did us.

Claire McGuire, the series producer, had notified me beforehand of my character – a high-class vampire – and I’d been asked to dress appropriately. Now, I read Anne Rice in the 1990s like every other self-disrespecting sleeve-chewer, but I’ll be damned if I remember her protagonists’ Spring/Summer collections. Spending more time on the decision than I’m sure Lestat ever did, I finally settled on a high-necked black lace dress and cardigan because sang-froid can be chilly, you know. Never having been an extra before – I’m barely myself most days, never mind anything more – I could anticipate nothing, which was probably just as well since for the first few hours nothing is exactly what happened. The truth is that for that few minutes of reflected glory on screen, there’s a whole lot of window gazing to be done.

I can’t say that spending a lazy Sunday afternoon in the pub was much of a hardship though, and it gave me a chance to find out the gruesome tales of the other monsters in my midst – or at least why they had put themselves forward to be extras. Noel Wallace, my new zombie friend, has a history in film, and several of our younger collaborators hope to have a future in it. For the rest, it was all about the fandom; being a part of your favourite show akin in status to playing at half-time. One by one the extras were called to hair and make-up, to have their look updated from natural to supernatural, and the effects were as impressive as that prefix suggests.

After what seemed like an afterlife – but was probably about half an hour – in the chair, I arose, pale of face and black of eye, to join the underworld as a queen of the night… okay, to shuffle meekly back towards the crowd, looking slightly more sickly than usual. While the artists had been working wonders with this poor genetic make-up, the crew had been turning Curler’s into the inter-species hangout of the decade – well, behind Clatty Pat’s, I guess. Lighting rigs and cameras aplenty surrounded a space in which barely a nest of tables would fill the shot, and actors Ellen Patterson, Karen Bartke and Chris Bain began to mark out their performances.

The set-up was a cafe scene in which main character Maya would be having an awkward meeting with her aunt while the strange mix of monstrous customers supped and dined quietly all around. For my part, a table in the corner with teenage vampire Abbey and a large glass of Vimto – I mean, blood – was to be home for the next few hours. Our direction was basically to chat without actually chatting and take regular sips of our fortifying beverage. Easy, right? Soon everyone was in place and the ever-present Fraser quietened the hubbub before the thud of clapperboard and call of "Action!" went up.

I tried my best not to stare at the glaring focal point in the room, where the spotlights shone and the conversation flowed

The actors moved into shot, the cameras following their progress, and soon the scene was in full pendulous swing. At some point during filming, Noel shuffled past, collecting empties like the professional zombie waiter he seemed to be. And I just tried my best not to stare at the glaring focal point in the room, where the spotlights shone and the conversation flowed, which was a lot more difficult than I imagined. I can’t say it felt normal, mouthing pretend syllables to a complete stranger across a plastic tumbler of ginger. In fact, I struggled to think up things not to say. But after the third take, and the fourth, and indeed the seventh, the situation normalised somewhat and Abbey and I were faux-gossiping like old, blood-hungry friends.

The rest of the day went fairly quickly after that, with all the different angles covered and another scene filmed straight afterwards, adding to my expanding IMDb entry. I was genuinely disappointed when the lights were finally shut off and the magic of cinema laid down its top hat and cane

I hope you’ll agree that my first foray into the world of acting was extra special – and there’s no pretence needed for that one.

You can support the independent filming of Cops and Monsters by joining their Kickstarter campaign at bit.ly/copsandmonsters