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!).