10am: phone. Phone phone phone.

Phone cheap film workshop and book camera. Check lenses and find that zoom is not a T1.3 (which did sound too good to be true) but a T3. That means it transmits about a quarter of the amount of light that a T1.3 lens would–ie. you can’t use it in really low light levels unless you use fast (and therefore grainy) film stock. Also the zoom is 10-110mm, not 10-200mm. For 16mm, that’s equivalent to about 18-200mm on a 35mm camera. So, it’s not as long. Book kit anyway.

Phone second hire company which camera assistant has spoken about. Mention camera assistant’s name as person who will look after kit. Wow. Respect. Equipment could be a freebie with only a set-up charge (£200) to pay. And equipment would include proper dolly, filters, etc etc. “Get your DP to put together a wish list.” No guarantees, as company may have kit booked out at last minute, but book it anyway too.

Two sets of equipment tentatively booked, phone Fiona (agent). Tell her you’re working on venue for audition. Call Polish Centre in Kensington which is only place you know with function rooms. Last time they charged £20 for a day’s use of their bar. This time, £50 for a conference room. Fifty pounds? You almost fall off your chair. I don’t want bed and breakfast, just use of a freaking room for about an hour. Negotiate them down to £25. Still too much.

Phone Sarah (actress). Confirm rehearsal place and time. Ask if she knows of any rooms possible for audition. She suggests the Actors Centre–“Ask for Rosie.” Call Actors Centre. Rosie is in a meeting, finishes in about twenty minutes. Call back in thirty.

Phone Janos, DP you want to work with. He has been out of country and hasn’t read script yet. Can he chat to you later in the week? No. I’ll be out of the country. Agree to exchange emails with our thoughts.

Phone Whatever Pictures. “Er, well the thing is, we don’t want to use our insurance on projects we’re not actually producing. Because if anything went wrong blah blah blah.” Fine. So it’s an Ascalon Films project. Fine. They give me name of insurance company. I phone and get quote–£165 to cover equipment value to £100K with £500 excess. This brings cost of borrowing kit from second place up to £365 plus tax, versus cost of direct hire from first place, £500 plus tax.

Call Actors Centre again. Rosie still in meeting. Explain predicament. Get quote for £25–what the freakk is it with these people? I don’t want to live in it or even sleep in it. I just want it for an hour. “But you can only have that if you’re a member of the Actors Centre.” “Oh, but would you not be able to help out with a one-off favour?” “No. Sorry, no.” Dead end. It’s now twenty past midday.

12:20pm. Pause for a few minutes to stare at contacts book. Remember Mike from TV Training. Ring him up. Miraculously get through. Catch up on what you’ve both been doing in past year since you spoke. He’s just had second kid with Karoline, other really great person and also technical instructor with BBC. Pause to reflect on fairytale wonderfulness of this. Then tell of audition predicament. Mike says give him five minutes, calls back and has booked training room at BBC Elstree studios for me. For free. Yeehah!

Phone Fiona and set audition time for 3pm. Phone Charlie, other actor, and confirm audition also for 3pm. Realise both will arrive at same time, which is daft. Phone Fiona again and she gives you Michael’s phone number. Phone Michael and change his time to 4pm. Arrange to meet him at Elstree station. Charlie is driving.

It’s now about 1pm and there’s two hours before the audition. Elstree is only about 20 minutes drive, so time to sort out other things. Phone actors and check they can make rehearsal on 21st. Jack can’t so change it to 22nd. Phone school where rehearsal will be to check it’s okay, which it is. Phone Doreen, who is playing the Old Lady. Tell her of idea for script change which will involve her driving sports car. “Oh, I don’t drive,” she says, “I don’t have a licence.” Plan to put her in car and push it past camera.

Phone car owner and check how tall he is. Five nine. Same height as Charlie and Michael. Perfect. Check he’s definitely okay with filming dates and he is. Breath sigh of relief and read the morning post.

Hey, morning post contains letter from Wilmington Independent Film Festival. They don’t want the 35mm print which is all ready and sitting on the coffee table in a can. No, no. No no no no no. Far too easy. Let’s complicate it. They want a BetacamSP tape. Which I have. But only in PAL (UK format) not NTSC (American format). Now have 24 hours to arrange to get tape dubbed from one pro format to another.

Phone Simon the editor and exchange anecdotes, stories of films we’ve seen recently and other stuff. Yes, of course he’ll edit The Car, as if I have to ask. Tell him of plan to shoot on 16mm at 25fps and finish on video with possible 16mm print for festivals. He says okay but festivals will run film at 24fps. This means the sound will come out at a slightly lower pitch. Four percent lower to be exact. Simon recommends checking with sound people on ease of doing this.

Phone Pete Hodges, rerecording mixer and sound editor. Tell him of 25fps shooting/24fps projection thing. “Yes, that’s fine,” he says, “we can do that. Although you know that you can only do a mono mix on a 16mm optical soundtrack? So no surround.” No, of course, I didn’t know this. Well, no problem. The Car doesn’t necessarily need surround although stereo is nice. But not essential. And certainly not worth the extra expense.

Good. Sorted.

2.15pm: Print out copies of script for The Car and leave for Elstree TV studios.