Writing

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!).

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.

Paper-Based Project Management

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I was feeling a bit knackered last week after the previous week’s three-day shoot, which started on 26 September. I spent most of last Monday paying the pile of invoices that had built up. I’d damaged an illuminated sign during the cafe shoot on Friday, so that also needed sorting.

The week before, Julie had interviewed Keaton and Lamb, so I edited a short version of this based on the film’s theme last week. I think it’s worked quite well.

We’ve realised that the scenes need breaking up a bit, so I spent a day walking around Brighton gathering various B-roll shots. I also worked on posters and a press release. Tom focused on the design for the visuals, whilst Julie polished the text. Hopefully, we’ll send something out this week, then we can get the film onto IMDb.

I’ve also spent some time going through all my notes – which may be of interest. In the past I’ve managed all my projects using spreadsheets, with separate worksheets for different aspects. When I started working on Automatic months (years?) ago, I had worksheets for actors, finance and locations. Over time I spun some of these off into separate sheets and placed them in folders dedicated to their topic – one for actors’ info, one for props etc, but I’ve developed a new paper-based system that seems to be an improvement.

I group scenes into “shoot days” based on location – so all the cafe scenes get one sheet, all the boardroom scenes get another and so on. I keep an A4 pad on my desk and tear off pages to create one sheet per shoot day or subject, such as Cafe, Media or Promotion. I note props, clothing, transport requirements and anything else relevant to that day or subject on these sheets.

I also keep a separate A4 sheet of “To Do” items. Recently I needed a bit more focus, so I added a “Today” page where I write down things that must get done today. Admittedly, I don’t always quite manage it and end up reusing yesterday’s “Today” sheet, but it generally helps me stay on track. I progress by crossing things off and periodically creating new “To Do” sheets or new shoot day sheets, as needed.

This system seems to be working fairly well. At the moment my “To Do” sheet includes:

  • Setup more social media
  • Film the final truck scene
  • Music
  • Create final video presentation with voice-over
  • Press release
  • Interviews
  • Schedule remaining scenes
  • Film transition scenes & B-roll
  • Media release forms

And on my “Today” sheet:

  • Write a blog post
  • Press release
  • Schedule
  • Talk to Angela
  • Pay invoices

Actually, that’s a lie, I’m writing this update in a hurry and haven’t created today’s sheet yet!

Set Dressing, Blocking and a New Toy

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This filmmaking lark is becoming a blur. What did we get done last week? Right – Wednesday! Angela and I visited the House to mull over blocking and how best to dress the rooms. By “dress”, I mean “try to make it look like real people live there and not like a film crew’s invaded”.

We also met our 16-year-old Esther and ran through the short flashback scene with her. She’s brilliant and has a great grasp of the script, which is very reassuring.

Two rounds of online rehearsals took place this week, which I have to say went incredibly well. It’s almost surreal watching the script that I’ve laboured over for more than a year starting to come to life.

On the tech front, there’s the editing set-up saga. When I first got into this, I was editing on an Alienware R3 laptop using Adobe Premier. Then I picked up a Blackmagic camera, ditched Premier and moved to the excellent Davinci Resolve. Although that worked well, my Alienware struggles to handle anything fancy, and Microsoft has now declared that my machine is officially obsolete. The battery’s been dead for years, and since it couldn’t cope with the newer version of Resolve, I’ve bitten the bullet and started building a new PC. With expert guidance from Bill, I’ve ordered numerous parts, and boxes are arriving. I can’t wait to get it all set up and hopefully running Resolve like a dream, compared to the old brick I was using before.

I’ve also solved the logistics puzzle of shooting scenes with Zoom or Teams calls in them. It turns out the solution was quite simple: actors working from home, like everyone else! I did a quick shoot on Saturday to get some “prop” shots that we’ll use in the real shoots. I’m nearly ready to schedule the Zoom scenes properly now.

Oh – and I’ve successfully faked a Zoom call using the new Google Veo AI Flow or FlowState or whatever it’s bloody called, which is clever. I’ve also co-designed and ordered a couple of fake posters with the help of my arty friend, TomCatTatt.

Only one week now until our first shoot!

Locations / Relationships

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Filmmaking is a strange occupation. When I was writing the script, some weeks I’d write only a few paragraphs, yet I felt like I’d made real progress. Other times, I’d write pages and feel stuck. Now I’m in pre-production and it’s much the same. Last week I felt busy, but did I actually move forward? It’s hard to say.

I’ve been meeting with actors to talk through their characters and how they connect with each other. Some meetings are one-to-one, others are in small groups, especially when the relationships matter to the story. For example, the IT Director and Finance Manager have worked together for a while so have a longstanding friendship. But the new CEO? No one’s quite sure where he fits in yet. He’s a dark horse, so that’s still a bit of a mystery.

I’ve also been out and about location hunting. While wandering around Moulsecoomb, I found a great public space that screams plain, structured conformity, which may be perfect for the tone I want to set. I’ll go back at night to see how it feels in the dark. I also tracked down some good office spaces, a fantastic corporate café, and what seemed like an almost perfect flat. But the cafe isn’t available until later in the year, and the flat, great in some ways, has a huge window looking over a beautiful harbour with expensive sailing boats. Not exactly soul-crushing monotony. GREEN SCREEN? Yes, yes, yes! I’m exploring this as a solution.

I have also engaged someone to help with social media. Julie Russell has a background in clinical microbiology and now runs a tattoo studio in Muswell Hill, so is ideally placed to shape my scattered thoughts into something presentable to the general public. (NOTE: she’s barely started yet!!)

So, writing all this out, I actually feel a bit better. It seems I did get more done last week than I thought.

This week’s to-do list: Agree the flat, confirm the truck, secure the café, and find a petrol station.

That agenda should keep me busy for the week.