filmbrighton

Location, Location, Location

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Quick update this week. Last week, I was chasing locations and had a brilliant flat lined up for two of the remaining big scenes we need to shoot, but communicating with the owner has been tricky. After a few rounds of back-and-forth, I wouldn’t say I’ve given up entirely, but I have started looking for alternatives. I posted ads on several Brighton Facebook groups and received five responses. Thanks to everyone who got back to me. I’ve since visited one of the flats and it looks very promising. If all goes to plan we should be shooting the final big scenes toward the end of November.

I’ve also been working on finding street locations. I had some ideas in mind and after spending a few days wandering the streets of Brighton, I found what I was looking for – soulless blocks and sinister backstreets around New England Street. Wikipedia tells us we have the “Urban and Economic Development Group” to thank for the master plan. I imagine they, along with Brighton Council, thought that a quirky, independent-minded city like Brighton, steeped in beautiful Regency architecture, needed acres and acres of faceless concrete and glass just to piss everyone off. Well, their plan backfired, because it’s perfect for us, and we’re filming the street scenes on Tuesday 11th November.

Meanwhile, I continued working on media prep (labelling and syncing video and audio) and have also been chatting with Chichester Filmmakers about giving a talk on the making of Automatic at their January bash. More details on that soon, so watch this space.

Saturday night found me lost in a rabbit hole of random YouTube videos, where I stumbled across an old interview with Aldous Huxley. I’d seen it before, but watched it again, and it feels very pertinent today. He asked the question: “In an age of accelerating over-population, of accelerating over-organisation and ever more efficient means of mass communication, how can we preserve the integrity and reassert the value of the human individual?” And that was in 1958. How indeed!

Shirts, Scheduling (AGAIN!!!) and a Drone

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Last week, I tried—and failed—to schedule the remaining shoot days. We’ve got one day for some street scenes, two days in a friend’s flat and one very quick scene with the truck. Scheduling might sound straightforward, but everyone communicates via different channels. Most people use WhatsApp and email, but I’m also contending with telephone calls, texts and yes, even snail mail. Pick the wrong channel and all you get is silence. I thought I’d sorted the truck scene, had all four actors on board, but alas, the truck wasn’t available. Hey ho.

On a more positive note, I’ve started being more systematic about prepping media. I’ve set up a spreadsheet with columns for audio received, video received, media filed, media synced and so on. Going through it made me realise I’m missing the video from the petrol station shoot, as well as audio for several days. A few panicked calls to the DOP and sound team quickly reassured me—they do have the media; I just need to collect it.

In other good news, a friend spotted an article about Automatic in the local paper, The Argus. Huge thanks to Julie Russell, who’s been doing PR for Automatic and sent a press release to The Argus some time ago.

I also finished the submission for the film on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and was delighted to see the entry go live within a day.

We did manage a very short shoot last week. I’d put out an advert for a flat in a block for a quick scene, and luckily, a friend replied. I scheduled it for Saturday. I also needed to capture one quick shot we’d missed on the original shoot day in my flat. So Saturday found me back in my spare room, repositioning lights, furniture and a couple of shirts to recreate the exact look of the earlier shoot. Stuart and I polished that shot off pretty quickly, then we picked up Alistair and headed over to Newhaven for another short scene, including a drone shot that Alistair handled admirably despite a stiff breeze.

This coming week, I’ll continue prepping media and getting the remaining shoot days scheduled (hopefully!).

Odds & Sods and Bolt Cutters

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We’ve wrapped up most of the main shoot days now, though there are still a couple left in the pipeline, and last week I was focusing on the odds and sods. The script for Automatic includes a few street scenes that I hadn’t really given much thought to, so last week I ended up cycling around Brighton with a GoPro, scouting for potential locations.

I needed a few quick shots from a flat in a tower block, so I put out some ads. Some kind friends came forward with suggestions, so I checked out a couple of those.

I’ve done some more editing, and after getting the extra B-roll the previous week, I think we’ve finally got the Downs scene under control, a relief since I was worried we might need to reshoot. I’ve also started going through all the media systematically, and realised I’m missing a couple of shoot days’ worth of audio and video, so I’ve been chasing that up with the DOP and sound guys.

Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to schedule the final truck scene for a day when all relevant actors, crew and locations are available. Tricky as ever, but it’s looking good and we may have two “Odd & Sods” shoot days pencilled in for the coming weekend. As always when a shoot day draws near, new ideas pop up and fresh problems appear. Today’s random task was putting out a request for anyone who can lend me a large pair of bolt cutters.

There’s still plenty to do, but I can finally see light at the end of the tunnel – as far as the filming goes.

Gimbal & Final Office Scenes

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I have become increasingly aware of an issue with one of the external scenes we shot back in July and have started planning some external B-roll to fix it. One obvious but hard-learnt lesson from making this film has been the importance of getting external scenes wrapped before the seasons change. In an effort to fix a problem I want to shoot some B-Roll consisting of a moving point-of-view (POV) shot at the same location as before. The trees look a little different now, but I think I’ll get away with it. The shot doesn’t need any actors but will involve a gimbal.

For those unfamiliar, a gimbal is a stabilisation device that lets you shoot handheld footage without the camera shaking. A better description might be: three absurd L-shaped chunks of metal, about a foot long, attached with hinges that, at the slightest touch, start to whirl around like an epileptic robot. I’ve rarely used mine since buying it a few years ago, and just working out how the various “plates” attach to the camera was tricky enough. Then there’s the problem of figuring out what all the bloody settings mean. So, Monday found me downloading the manual.

My other task, after a relatively quiet couple of weeks, was prepping for a shoot on Saturday back in the EC offices in Kemptown. It’s becoming a bit of a running joke that I tell people that the day should be simpler because of this, that and the other – but shooting days never seem to be simple.

One major responsibility on office shoot days is preparing the space, then restoring it to its previous condition for the office workers on Monday morning. I’ve been lucky to have Andrew’s help with this; he takes photos of the offices when we arrive, quietly and calmly moves stuff out of shot, then puts it all back again later.

Saturday’s scenes were in four different locations. In discussion with Angela, we decided to be more disciplined about timing, so I laid out a detailed plan, including the cast and crew moving through the various scenes, while Andrew prepped the offices in advance and then reset them as we shot.

We had four main scenes, one of which marked Christina Dembenezi‘s debut. I’d also added a short extra scene for her, which required another actor, and I wanted to capture various B-roll shots to help with scene transitions. By Thursday, one of the actors had told me they couldn’t make the shoot on Saturday, so by midweek I was sending out requests for replacements. We were lucky enough to get Meghan Adara, who stars in The Cellar by Jamie Langlands, as well as Hazel Stock.

All the cast delivered excellent performances, which was especially impressive since it was Christina, Meghan and Hazel’s first scenes for the film. We had a lot of fun and finished shooting on time. Once again, many thanks to Mark Tournoff and Gosia Stewart of EC Brighton.

Distracted by Editing

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Last week was relatively quiet. I admit it – after wrapping up those three days of filming, I took my foot off the pedal and started diving into the editing. Modern editing software is very powerful, but I’m realising that I understand only a fraction of what it can do.

We have been trying to use one lav mic per actor plus a boom mic, which results in multiple audio clips for every take. Syncing all of this is a task in itself. Ideally, Resolve would handle it automatically. It does have automated syncing for multiple takes and clips, but it seems to only sync one audio clip to one video clip. Last week, I started auto-syncing all audio clips for a single take with their corresponding video clip. That seemed to work, though it ends up pulling all the audio into the original video clip.

I could go on, but I’ve probably lost most readers by now, except for the real nerds. You get the idea: editing is complicated. I managed to get one scene 90% assembled and I have to say that I like it.

On a more creative note, Angela and I have been thinking about ways to break up the main scenes a bit, so we’ve been sketching out what we’re calling “transitions”.

Meanwhile, Julie got the press releases out, and we’ve already had some feedback. Sussex World has run an article, and Brighton and Hove Magazine are interested in a Q&A.

We’ve got another shoot coming up in the offices this Saturday. Many, many thanks to Mark Tournoff and Gosia Stewart of EC Brighton, who have kindly lent us their office space for filming.

Part of the reason last week felt quiet is, of course, that I started editing. It’s one of those tasks where you can easily slip into a steady state of flow, and hours just slip away. Some people edit as they go, but I’m finding that it distracts me from the remaining production tasks – so, my next priority has to be completing the filming.