Cheers for the comments Zeno (even if I'm not simple
)
As far as the drummers go, it was just an unfortunate choice of frame to render, there are shadows on them, they're just not noticable as the random generator for the fire light hit a low value.
Will hopefully pick up the rest of the frames for the 1st 30 secs this morning and then that gives me 11 days to animate and render the second scene, add the audio (and make the audio), come up with the title sequence and finish my production file.
Bugger!