We had another shoot last Tuesday. We met around 3pm and loaded up Andrew’s car with me, the sound guy, the camera guy and an actor. Then Andrew drove us around Brighton, dropping us off so we could film for a while, and picking us up when we called to move to the next location. The plan was to get walking and running shots in both daylight and at night.

One trend I’ve noticed in modern Britain is the privatisation of public space. You see it in places like shopping centres, and the downside is that the owners can impose rules that prevent filming. Actually, that might be understandable in a shopping centre, but these days it’s often spaces that feel like any other public area. We started filming in one such place when a bureaucrat approached us. We explained that the filming was innocuous, but, of course, she claimed it was out of her control – it was “policy”. This is interesting because it ties into the theme of Automatic – trivial decisions dictated by pen pushers in offices thousands of miles away, and the person supposedly in charge on-site has no real autonomy. 

We packed up and moved to another location. It gets dark early at this time of year, so most of what we shot was at night. At around 6:30pm, we headed to Hove to meet up with Jamie Langlands for a scene. We’d got about 80% of it done, when a shop’s burglar alarm went off, so we had to stop. We hung around for about 20 minutes, and I was just about to go ahead and shoot anyway, hoping we could fix the sound later or do ADR, when the alarm finally stopped.

After that, we piled back into the car and drove to Lewes Road to get a few more shots. Looking through the footage later in the week, those shots look very strong and should add some real drama and excitement to the film.

On Wednesday evening, I spoke with Angela, who plays Esther, and we decided where we’d shoot a couple of scenes in Esther’s flat. I’ve found a pretty good location with a stunning view over the city. I’ve also contacted the truck owner and scheduled a brief shot in the truck yard.

We now have three more days scheduled for 23^rd, 24^th and 25^th November, which should wrap the “principal photography”. Phew. We started at the end of June, so it’s been five months of shooting. That’s two months longer than I’d planned, but we’re nearly there, and I’ve learned a huge amount along the way.