2.45pm: Arrive Elstree studios. Find room Mike has booked for my use. Great. Go back to station to pick up Michael. Get subjected to stop and search policy at gate. Which is laughable because I’m driving a large estate car which is clearly completely empty except for me and my bag. I laugh. The security man laughs. I leave.

3pm: Arrive Elstree station. Check train times. Michael should be on next train. Suddenly remember that Michael is coming at 4pm and Charlie at 3pm, so Charlie will now be at the studios asking for me and they won’t know who I am. Drive back to studios. Charlie has been and they sent him to the film studios because they didn’t know who I was. I call him and get him back.

3.10pm: First audition. Charlie is affable, a nice guy. We get straight into doing a scene with me reading the part of the police sargeant. Charlie is okay. He asks how I want him to play the character. “I’d like to see your interpretation,” I say. Charlie does the scene again, while I watch from the side. He seems pretty good.

We chat for a bit about the film, what other things he’s done and his availability. He asks about the shooting style and whether I’ll edit it in a straightforward way or with different interpretations in different takes. I remember an idea for duelling pens over the police station counter and talk about that. Charlie can’t do Saturday afternoon, which might be a pain.

3.45pm: First audition ends. I drive to the station to pick up Michael, who is waiting on the grass smoking a cigarette when I arrive. Mike gets in the car and we chat about the incongruity of directors turning up at Elstree railway station, finding the first person they see and taking them to the studios. I suggest this is probably how the BBC casts soaps.

4pm: Second audition. I tell Mike the same as Charlie: I want him to do the scene twice, once facing me and once with me watching from the side. In two lines it’s really clear he’s a considerably better actor than Charlie. He has confidence, feels the role and he projects. It’s like I’m suddently talking to a different person. He didn’t ask how to interpret the role or the scene, just got on with it.

When Mike repeats the scene, I pay attention to his hand gestures. They’re identical to the ones he did the first time around and on the same lines. This might be a little thing he’s practised but it works. It’s what I need for shooting a single camera drama. I’m blown away. The contrast between Charlie and Michael is enormous. The former is good but the latter has presence and a good measure of confidence.

Mike and I sit and chat about the film and the role for a bit. We talk about how it’s the story of an out of towner coming into a sleepy village and becoming trapped there. How it becomes a tale of the irresistable force meeting the immovable object. Mike says something about Charlie (the character, not the actor) being a fast-moving person who is forced to slow down by the village and by the policeman. This fits perfectly with my ideas for using slow-motion effects.

We talk about giving Charlie a character arc, the idea of using overlapping but different action for a duel of pens in the police station (an idea inspired by one of the cutting patterns in American Beauty). Lots of really good creative ideas come out of this meeting. We go on to talk about films in general. Mike is totally committed. He’s skipped off work for the afternoon to get here. We talk about some of the films I’ve been discussing recently, Insomnia and the Jack Ryan films.

Mike’s just been doing a horror comedy film, a walk-on part I’m guessing. Maybe it won’t ever see the light of day. Nevertheless, our ideas mesh and I offer him the part. It’s a result. It’s 5.30pm. I leave a couple of videos for Mike (the TV training chap), drop Mike the actor at the station, drive home, ring Fiona Farley and then pass out.

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.

Recasting and recceing. Those aren’t real words are they? Whatever. There’s now two actors confirmed coming for an audition tomorrow, thanks to Fiona Farley at Acting Associates and my friend Sarah, who’s in the film and has a friend who might fit the now vacant lead role. Fiona may also be sending a third actor too, which would be good.

Now, can anyone spot the obvious extra problems which need to be solved? Anyone… anyone… Bueller? Something ‘v-e-n’ place to audition. Venue for audition. No way to organise that at the weekend so add it to the list of things to do tomorrow morning along with informing the actors of same, actually getting to the place and running the audition. Oh, and booking a camera and booking a DP.

Today there’s only just enough time to go on a recce. Stills photographer Pete takes me for a drive around various villages. The backstreets of Chorleywood are first.

Chorleywood. A village pretending to be a town. A place so pretentious that the village post office has been turned into a house. There are no normal shops. No newsagents. No place to buy groceries, milk, a few necessary items. No. There are three shops selling decorative stencils. There’s a hairdressers, a cafe and a shop selling bricks and tiles. It’s too weird. Earthenware-eating aliens with fabulous hair clearly live here. There’s nowhere to park and no reason to. We drive on.

Chenies. Chenies is a quietly dozing village with a tiny village green and two pubs. The Village Shoppe again appears to be the name of a house (it’s on the gate) and the road is full of Sunday drivers demonstrating their tight formation car-pursuit skills around the narrow single-track lanes while looking for… well, even more isolated pubs is the only reason which springs to mind. Time and traffic have passed by sleepy Chenies and so shall we on our journey to…

Sarratt. Ahh, now this is more like it. Sarratt has a small general store which is also a post office right on the edge of a large village green. There are two decent pubs and a pond. More important, it’s picturesque and logistically possible to film away from the fast-moving traffic which is ubitquitous in home counties villages. There is plenty of space to park outside the shop and the road meanders up to it in graceful arcs, curling around a willow here, an oak tree there, and small pretty fences past the pond. Sarratt wins.

Opening shot

Getting out of the car for a better look and standing on the green, I begin plotting my opening shot. I want to follow the Westfield on a wide shot as it wends its way up the road towards us, moving into a close up as it stops outside the shop. Charlie (the main character) gets out and we follow him in mid-shot into the shop. Then pan down and pull focus to a sign in the foreground–a newspaper hoarding changed to show the film title. Pan up and pull focus back to Charlie exiting the shop.

So far so good but I want to continue, in the same shot, with a whip pan including a change of shooting speed, a la John Woo, to reveal the car has gone. At the end of the pan, change speed again to slow motion for Charlie’s reaction in the wide shot. I estimate that with my part-professional, part-inexperienced crew, this one shot will take the best part of a whole morning to rehearse and film. I’ll get coverage with extra shots but if it can be done all in one take, that would be perfect. Simon the editor doesn’t need to know yet.

There are five or six focus changes for the camera assistant to deal with including a long focus pull up the road to the shop. There are complex time cues and location marks for the actor to hit, which means his speed must be exactly the same each time he does it, and the whole film speed change thing means a second camera assistant to deal with it on specific cues from the operator. Plus we have to get the right lens at the right place on the village green for it all to work. Still, worry about that later, eh?

Pete and I estimate the light will be perfect at around sunrise as it will rise across the road, so the car will start by coming almost out of the sun and then, as we pan around with it, it will become more sidelit. That means an iris pull is needed too, just to add to the fun, unless it’s an overcast day, which wouldn’t be a bad thing. Another thing for the second camera assistant to take care of. The iris pull, not the weather.

[As I write this, I realise that if we end up shooting at midday and it’s not overcast, the camera will be pointing directly into the sun, which will–what’s the phrase?–suck majorly.]

Cracking at dawn

Shooting at sunrise would mean everyone getting to the location around 5am. In their own time. Without being paid. With the actors and a couple of others coming on public transport when the trains cost more than double the fare of off-peak journeys. The actors will want reimbursing for travel. Ugh.

Plus, we’ll need walkie talkies to be able to cue the car from out of shot. We’ll need to block the road, if possible, to prevent a long line of muppets lining up behind the Westfield then following it into shot. And we’ll need the cooperation of the shop owner to block their driveway with the car.

Still, those are problems for the producer, aren’t they? Yes. So that’s okay. Except, hold on a sec. I’m the producer, aren’t I. Uh oh. Time to delegate some more.

Tomorrow’s challenges: get camera and director of photography, arrange audition venue and inform actors, get up to London, hold auditions and select lead, inform lead of decision. Oh, and make sure the print of Fate & Fortune is sent off to Delaware. Plus work long hours in television studios on ‘day’ job.

Shame I’ve given up caffeine.

This script needs a police station lobby with a counter and ideally wood-panelling to look olde worlde. Back when I was writing for the local newspaper, I visited several schools and a couple of them had entrance halls which, now I think about it, would be absolutely perfect. Forget about the non-phone-call-returning Jane Beddell, I hit the internet and yellow pages for a list of local schools but it’s not quite what I need. What I need is a map.

You see, I seem to have this semi-eidetic recall. I can remember more or less where one of these schools is but without a map showing local schools, I can’t pinpoint it. And it goes without saying that I can’t remember the name. The visuals are in my head but not the words. Frustrated with the limitations of the internet, I get in the car and drive to the place I remember, a few minutes from home. And there it is. Verulam School. Wood panelled entrance lobby, complete with counter and cluttered office behind. Perfect.

It’s the holidays so there’s no one around but a whiteboard is up with the caretaker’s mobile number and a phone is on the counter. I call him and tell him who I am and what I want. Ron Fox comes down and, get this, he says, “No problem. You can do that. Certainly! Pleased to help.” Un-cuffing-believable. Me, a complete stranger wanting to make a low budget film on his premises (I tactfully didn’t mention money). Then would it be okay for us put some ‘wanted’ and ‘missing cat’ posters up? Sure, if we use blue-tack. What about the huge trophy cabinets? Can we dress them? “They’re on wheels. I can roll them out of the way.” Marvellous.

So I push my luck further because I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a very nice sports car parked outside. In fact, it was a beautiful sports car. “That is really perfect. I’m really pleased,” I say to Ron, enthusiastically. “The only thing we need now is a sports car and I’m there.” “My boss has a sports car,” says Ron casually, as if I haven’t seen it. “If you like, I can give him a call.” I like.

Chris Giles, the school finance manager, appears and says, even more unbelievably, yes, sure we can use his Westfield–a green and yellow copy of the Lotus 7–the car which appeared in the cult TV show The Prisoner. [Westfields look like , by the way.]

For those interested in the process of zero-budget film production (everyone else should skip this)…

Why production is a nightmare

Today starts with a visit to Trestle Theatre Company’s new premises, a converted church in St Albans. The objective: to get a rehearsal space for Saturday 21st September. Syd meets me and shows me around. It’s a really great space. We discuss things like running a short film festival right there, in the theatre. Ultra cool. Then we come to the price for a rehearsal room: £50. Umm… “I’ll get back to you,” I say.

Next stop: the Royal Mail sorting office to send off another batch of videos for various festivals and competitions. I always go to the sorting office because (a) they stay open late and (b) they sort out all the sticking stamps on my packages for me. Kind of like my private mail room/distribution department.

Packages sent, it’s off to Buckinghamshire, the neighbouring county to Hertfordshire (which is home to St Albans), to explore more villages for potential filming of The Car. An hour later, I arrive and driving around reveals… nothing. Well, a few nice tucked away corners but without a village shop, pub or police station which are all in the script. Scratch Buckinghamshire. I drive back through Tring.

On the way home, I stop to buy a new tyre (with a Y) for the car which eats up £50 immediately. No way that’s going on a rehearsal room, then. Down the road is the Pendley Court Theatre, which I thought had a great foyer area. We could easily dress it to look like a police station lobby. I stop to see if I can get permission to film there. I ask for the elusive facilities coordinator, one Jane Beddell. She remains elusive. No result.

Rehearsal rooms

Back home. Phone bashing, the heart and soul of film production, now eats up what’s left of the day. I call the Quakers who have a library they rent out for £13. Not on Saturday. “We’re cleaning,” they say. I call my friend Jo at the Maltings Arts Theatre. “You can’t go to Trestle,” she says, “They’re our competitors for this sort of thing.” I negotiate Jo down from £40 to £20. One drawback: she can only offer 28th September. Back to the phones.

None of the actors are around to confirm whether they can do the 28th. Of course. Answerphones at home. Answerphones on their mobile lines. Answerphones everywhere. I call Jane Beddell again. It’s an answerphone naturally. I leave a message. She doesn’t return the call but goes home which is incredibly irritating because she only works afternoons a few days a week.

Back to the phones. Ringing around I finally get through to the facilities manager for the school across the road from where I live. He can do me a room for three hours for £17 on the 21st. Result! I call Syd and tell him £50 is beyond my means, sorry, but I’ll work on a programme for a short film festival and get back to him. I also pass on details for the coordinating body for local film clubs and societies as he’s interested in setting one up.

Delegate, delegate, delegate

So far so good. Anela, the prospective production designer, hasn’t been in touch yet but I’ve got in touch with Fiona who did props and wardrobe for me on Fate & Fortune. She’s definitely interested in getting involved so I bump her status up to Co-Producer and send her a script with a short list of five things I really need sorting out:

- get an overview of what props and wardrobe are
needed and where she could get them from (overall
budget around £200-£250 max)
 
- think about styles for the above (although I'll
discuss with Anela too)
 
- draft call sheets and location directions (including
maps) and send them out (I'll provide a link to a good
map website, plus money for postage and envelopes)
 
- make a list of who and what are needed on each day
(you won't know this yet, of course).  Shooting dates
will be October 4th, 5th and 6th with a possible pick
up day for extra stuff in the week following.
 
- keep track of any money spent on the above (so she
can get it back off me--please don't spend too much!)

Simon the writer emails to say catering is in hand and to ask what equipment I want him to try borrowing for free from AFL Television. I bash out a list of lights, tracking, sound kit and cables. I hope he remembers to ask them if we can have their van too. Then, a lightbulb moment. A real brainwave–I call sound recordist Rob Miles, whose DAT machine I keep borrowing. Yes, he’s available, as far as he knows. Great. I have a sound man!

The shrinking window

Once you set dates and start telling people what they are, film production becomes like a snowball gathering momentum and you can only steer it a little one way or another by nudging it. It grows and has a life of its own until you get to postproduction where there’s a danger of it melting and disappearing before your eyes if you steered any of it the wrong way.

Windows of opportunity start shrinking because of other people’s schedules. For instance, I know two of the main actors won’t be around on the Saturday (October 5th) and I need them for the police station interior. That totally narrows down which day we can do that scene on and therefore I’m limited to only finding locations available on that day to film in. And more, I’m limited to locations which aren’t going to charge.

Christine, the make-up lady calls to let me know she’s keeping the three filming dates free and will be working (paid) the rest of the week, so my options shrink some more. A make up person is important for two reasons, by the way. One, she makes the actors look great (or dishevelled or whatever you need). And two, she makes the actors feel special, as well as keeping them happy between takes when lights are being reset.

Pull focus

Day over, I fall into the armchair with a selection of junk food and chocolates, toxifying my poor body while watching Man Bites Dog and The Mothman Prophecies. I recommend both, although the former isn’t for the faint hearted. The latter inspires me–obliquely because this isn’t something they use in a similar context–to use smoke for light diffusion and atmosphere in my police station scene.

Another day done. Another day of making it all happen.

…So it will be a Delaware premiere.

Scratch that

Dragon*Con 2002–“America’s largest annual convention for fans of science fiction, fantasy and horror, comics and art, games and computers, animation, science, music, television and films”–will be screening Fate & Fortune this Saturday (August 31st) in their independent short film festival. 7pm, kicking off the Sublime Fantasies section. So it’s an Atlanta, Georgia premiere.

The rest of the convention looks pretty awesome if you’re of a sci-fi/fantasy/comicbook etc mind (which I am).

Fate & Fortune has been accepted for the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival running from October 23 to November 10.

Still accepted, but meanwhile Wilmington’s first independent film festival in Delaware has emailed to say they want it too. So it will be a Delaware premiere. Fort Lauderdale are fine with that, so the film will be at both. I like this being in demand; my grin is even wider now.

Fate & Fortune has been accepted for the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival running from October 23 to November 10.

They said, “The festival director really really liked it.”

If my grin were any wider my jaw would fall off.

Noticing that the hire company is only open Monday to Thursday, the prudent filmmaker schedules the shoot for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. He then books the camera for Friday only, knowing that he won’t be able to return it until Monday. Thus a saving of largesumsofmoney is achieved (ie. £200 instead of £600).

This in turn helps with hiring a more expensive camera, the Arri 16SRIII, which can vary the film speed while shooting. This means motion can be speeded up or slowed down during a shot. This inspires the filmmaker to consider emulating the John Woo-style revelation technique for a couple of key scenes.

What? Yes. It means following action in a fixed shot size then whip-panning with a speed change while simultaneously widening the shot to reveal more to the audience. It will take a bit of rehearsal to coordinate the action and start/stop panning with the start/stop frame-rate slowdown, but should be doable.

Still no sign of the Porsche, though…

****

09:10am: Out-smugged! The filmmaker finds that he is available on the Friday in question to shoot The Car. What’s more, he’s around on the Thursday to pick the camera. Gleefully, he picks up the phone and calls the hire company–and gets an answer machine. The people with the camera have gone on holiday and closed their offices until September 2nd.

Smug comes before the wump.

Location location location

Pendley Court Theatre’s box office
looks set to appear as a police
station lobby in short film, The
Car after producers successfully
contacted the theatre company this
weekend.

Cast of thousands

Four talented and experienced actors
have agreed to appear in The Car
–but it’s not two in the front, two
in the back. That would be elephants
in a Mini.

Stage and screen veteran Blair Plant
will appear as Charlie, a driver who
takes the law into his own hands when
his prized Porsche disappears in a
sleepy village.

Multi-award winning Jack Wood is to
be the policeman who gives me more
grief than help, and they’re supported
by Doreen Steward as The Old Lady
and Sarah Strachan as Young Woman.

Ready for their close ups

Professional television make-up artist
Christine Nicklin will be on hand to
make sure everyone looks their best
in the latest Ascalon Films drama.

“I hope I’ll be able to do any blood
effects this time,” commented an
enthusiastic Christine, who was
disappointed when a last-minute
decision was made to scrap pointed
ears she’d prepared for a car salesperson
in a previous film.

Lights! Camera!

Negotiations are underway with AFL
Television to provide a van load of
shooting kit free of charge for The
Car. Producers are hopeful to
repeat the pattern of previous films
where AFL have provided both the
electrician and the electrics for
more than just a spark of creativity.
Pun hunters remain on high alert after
that last weak shock.

Who ate all the pies?

Large pie-holes could be shut around free
food if screenwriters from Goober Scripts
follow through on their promise to
provide catering for cast and crew
members during the three day shoot
for The Car. “Yeah, no problem,”
said one Simon, “we can do that.”
Magic eight balls says, “Wait and see.”