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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!

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.

Interviews and a Message from the Universe

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Last week was fairly relaxed. We’d wrapped a shoot on the previous Friday, and with three more shoot days looming, it was time to catch up and do some maintenance. I’d wanted to get the outdoor scenes shot during the summer, but time is running out, so I spent most of last week juggling schedules. I have a tentative plan for four more shoot days, although I’m still chasing up confirmations for locations and from actors.

On Monday, Julie conducted interviews with two of the cast, Gillian and Stewart. These went well, and we’re editing them now with a plan to post sound bites on Instagram and a fuller version of the interview online – YouTube or whatever else people use these days.

Thursday evening was supposed to be a rehearsal session. Lamb couldn’t make it, so Pat kindly offered to read in for Myra. Lucky she did, because Simon couldn’t make it either which meant Pat ended up covering for both Myra and Bob. To her credit, she pulled it off with gusto. Lots of vim and vigour for both.

One of the great joys about indie filmmaking is the sheer range of random jobs you end up doing. Sunday had me combing Brighton’s charity shops for T-shirts for Bob. I didn’t find what I wanted, but I can confirm that Brighton’s unwanted clothing stockpile includes a plethora of Hard Rock Cafe and Mickey Mouse T-shirts. I was seriously flagging by the time I reached London Road, when the Universe sent me a pep talk via a shop window: “You must be patient and persistent. Even if you meet difficulties and setbacks, you must overcome them”. Yes, indeed.

Later on Sunday, we had a good rehearsal with Lamb and Keaton. The scenes were fairly fresh, and one in particular, a crucial one, fell flat. We all agreed that it didn’t work, so I spent Sunday evening reworking the script. Hopefully I’ve nailed it – we’ll find out soon enough.

That’s it for now. The coming week’s shaping up to be quite hectic: three shoot days all in the same flat, which has to stand in for three different flats on screen. We really think it’s doable, but undoubtedly we’ll be very busy.

New Morgan and Extras

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No filming this week but the hunt was on for a new actor to play Morgan. When we first cast Morgan, we had maybe two or three applications at most. This time round, we’ve got 15 names in the mix – and 11 have expressed interest. This week, Angela and I held Zoom auditions with five of them. All five are solid contenders, so now comes the tricky part: choosing the one who fits best.

On Wednesday, I went to an open day of sorts at a green screen studio called Masterwork, based in Hove. I’ve been to green screen setups before, but this one is pretty special. The team there has really paid attention to detail and has some fantastic kit. Essentially, they can drop anyone standing against the green screen into a background generated by Unreal Engine. The environment they’d set up was a Roman street, and the illusion was perfect. What really impressed me was how the system synced the depth of field from the virtual camera in Unreal Engine with the aperture on the physical camera, ensuring that the virtual and real matched seamlessly. Very clever stuff.

Once again, a large part of the week was swallowed up by organisation. We’ve got the Call Centre scenes coming up later this month, so I’ve been scheduling rehearsals as well as organising props and extras. We’ve also got four scenes that are essentially Zoom calls, and I’d hoped to get those sorted before we temporarily lose Kat de Leiroos to another production. This proved awkward, but we did at least manage to lock in Kat’s scene; the other three will have to wait.

On Friday, the DOP & sound guy sent over the media from the previous shots. I’ve had a quick scan through it on my old creaking laptop and it looks fine so far, but I can’t really spend time on it until the new machine is up and running. Currently, it’s lying in bits on my dining room table, including the 8 TB internal drive I ordered last week. Bill popped round on Friday to start assembling it. Started, but didn’t finish as the internal power cables are too short! As I think I mentioned before, one of the constant themes of filmmaking seems to be pettifogging, nitpicking, fucking frustrations – and that was just the latest in a long line.

Not much happening next week as I have a few days off. Probably for the best.

First Office Shoot and Cast Change

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On Saturday, we had access to some offices in Brighton and we planned to shoot several scenes over a few “film days”. Angela was busy sorting out the wardrobe stuff, while I made sure all the props were ready.

Scheduling’s been a bit of a headache – there are so many actors involved, and most have other commitments. Then on Thursday, Jonathan Hansler, who was set to play Morgan, told us he wouldn’t be able to make the shoot when we needed him. This is a great shame, especially since he was perfect for the part in rehearsals. We were supposed to start filming his scenes on Saturday, so at least he let us know in advance. But that meant I had to scramble around to find someone else at short notice. Thankfully, loads of people got in touch – huge thanks to everyone. If I haven’t replied yet, I’ll get back to you next week and start scheduling auditions.

On Thursday night, I thought about bringing in a replacement for Saturday but after sleeping on it, I realised this was unrealistic and I’d have to rejig the schedule. Luckily, Oliver Sebastian was free and agreed to cover a couple of scenes at short notice.

By Friday afternoon, after the dust settled, I drove over to Worthing to pick up some kit and felt a bit down about losing Jonathan. When I originally wrote the part, Morgan was just a character in my head, but after working with Jonathan, I started to picture Morgan as him – or maybe the other way round. It’s strange, now that Jonathan’s gone, Morgan feels a bit blurred again, but I’m sure this will change once we cast someone new. I’ll just press on anyway, because one thing I’ve learned from making films is that things rarely go to plan: flexibility is key. 

I sent out updated call sheets on Friday, and on Saturday morning, we all met up at the Brighton offices to start shooting. We kicked off with scenes featuring Stewart James Barham and Gillian Fischer, both giving such spookily realistic performances that I felt that I really was back in the corporate world. Then we moved on to scenes with Stewart and Keaton, with Morgan doing some fantastic camera work, Jimmy King pulling focus, and me doing a splendid job of tapping Jimmy’s shoulder to signal focus pulls ….. a simple routine that seemed to work well.

By 5pm, we were ready for the last two scenes with Keaton and Oliver. These were the ones they hadn’t fully prepared for, and the dialogue was dense and technical. They’d spent Friday “smashing their lines”, which apparently means repeating them over and over again till they stick. They both did a fine job, drying only occasionally. Considering the complexity of the text, this was brilliant work, which became even better as we progressed. We kept the camera and sound rolling, prompting the lines, or going back a line or two, then carrying on. The scenes had a lot of back-and-forth, so with plenty of takes and good coverage, I’m confident we’ll piece it all together.

Huge thanks to everyone for a fantastic day and especially Mark Tournoff for providing access to the offices and Andrew Cawdery, who did a sterling job on “digital props”, IT support and setting up and restoring the rooms after we finished.

Our next shoot is scheduled for 27th July, though I’m still trying to fit in more scenes. Next week’s big task? Finding a new Morgan.

Director of photogrpahy (DoP) Engaged

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I have a script, I have some actors, I have some locations… hmm…. I’m ready to make a film… I just have this niggling feeling that I have forgotten something… something important….. script… actors…. DoP!!!! Of course. Someone to shoot it! Someone to handle the camera and the lights. Someone to twist the knobs, press the buttons and talk about depth of field. Someone to film the bloody thing!

In previous films I’ve worked with Bill Mittman, an old friend from Brighton Film School (now MetFilm), but this year he  has had the temerity to get married right in the middle of my project. Of course I wish him well and he will be helping out but, after various enquiries, I have now engaged Morgan Andrews as Director of Photography (DoP) for my new feature Automatic.

Morgan is a Worthing based cinematographer and has been making videos since he was a teenager. These days it’s his business. He has worked on films such as The Cellar directed by Jamie Langlands and Betrayed directed by Ewan Gorman and Dagmar Scheibenreif and I’m very happy to be workign with him on Automatic.

I am now stepping up efforts to find the final few locations and hoping to start shooting sometime from June onward.

Automatic – Main location found

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I thought I’d write a script. How hard can it be? How long can it take? It turns out very hard and a very long time. It’s been over a year and something of a learning curve. I recommend Screenwriting by Syd Field and the fantastic YouTube podcast of Glen Gers.

The result is “Automatic”. A tech-fiction story challenging the depersonalisation and disempowerment of post-industrial culture. Not in some Science Fiction dystopian future, but in the lives of so many people in the here and now – Bloody hell!

I’m still tweaking the script but as one friend said, “a script is never finished”, so now I’ve started work on pre-production, looking for locations and actors. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve carried out online auditions and found some excellent actors. I’m learning all the time and one thing I’ve learned about casting is that the question is not just: Is he or she right for the part? It’s more are they the best fit? But also, would they fit another part better? It’s a question of shuffling actors and parts to get the right balance. I’m lining up a few more auditions and hope to have some major parts cast by the end of January.

Locations have proved more difficult. I’ve had offers of flats and these are much appreciated but the main location is an office and this was a problem. A friend suggested an open plan office that he knows and it looked good but only fitted one location. However, yesterday myself and Bill Mittman, the camera guy, went to check it out and it’s perfect. Not just for the open plan office scenes but also for meeting rooms and the board room scenes. – Eureka! That’s one very large problem dealth with.

I am still after a truck though I have a few leads. Ideally I want a container truck but and a container yard/port but I may have to settle for what I can get. Fallback plans are in the works in case the truck falls through.

Other locations I’m still looking for include: A tatty old living room, 2 flats ideally overlooking blocks of flats, a messy painter’s studio. If you want to get involved then please contact me via the contact page. You can see more about the film here.

Automatic