Lee Kemp

It’s been a long week. We had scheduling fun all week, particularly trying to fit a photoshoot into an already packed film shoot, but the results always looked good on the monitor. Sufficient preparation allowed us to accommodate a constantly changing schedule, mainly due to the vagaries of shooting in the Dorset countryside in December.

Armoured Land Rover has a wading depth of 4ft

I have some more tips for myself, next time round:

If you’re doing a car film, there is much better stuff around for cleaning it than the first stuff that comes to mind.

Sometimes its ok to step back. If you’ve got two very experienced specialist car photographers (David Shepherd and Nick Dimbleby) and a DP with a gift for lighting putting magic together in front of your eyes, you don’t need to stamp your mark on it. Incidentally Ed put together a great team with Phil Wood as camera assistant and Michelle Arbon, fresh from her MA Screenwriting as pretty much every other job.

A British Army identity card is sufficient permission for filming at Canary Wharf.

If you leave ‘wiggle room’ for soldiers to interpret instructions in a way that is fun and interesting for them. They will. I already knew this. That is not the lesson. Here is the lesson, make sure EVERYONE else knows that.

Write down the relevant name and address of every location you like. You never know when you’ll need them again.

A 5 point harness when shooting vehicle to vehicle doesn’t really solve any safety problems, but it keeps the police happy.

Preparation is absolutely King.

The most common question you will be asked is “what’s next?” Always having the answer only comes from being prepared (spotting a theme yet?)

Everyone has good ideas. If you’re the director, it is apparently ok to steal them. You won’t get to have personal conversations with everyone that watches the film and explain who specifically did what, so people will eventually think it was your idea. That’s really cool for you but sucks for everyone else!

I’m stealing this one from Nick Booth. It doesn’t matter how beautiful it is, if it doesn’t cut together it’s a waste of time.

As Roy Batty was feeling in Bladerunner. Time is very, very precious.

Our Jimmy Jib

Armoured Range Rover

So I’m preparing and planning like crazy.

We’ve got a big shoot starting next week. My producer Rachel has been sorting all the dull logistical kind of stuff. Shooting in London is strangely much harder than shooting in Dorset. Between the Metropolitan Police Film Unit, Transport for London, borough Film services, hotels, convoys, restrictions of ten hour days and the sudden requirement to double our public liabililty insurance  it seems there’s a lot to do with this film stuff. We’ve got assistance from the British Army providing soldiers and equipment (and repeatedly offering to get weapons). Finally, because of our great relationship with Phil Baxter of Creative Video we’re being given the use of a  Sony PDW-700 XDCam to test out for the shoot. Phil Wood is coming along to assist our DP Ed Moore so we’ll have two Canon XL-H1s to play with as well. I don’t think coverage is going to be an issue.

We’ve even got a great pro car photographer called David Shepherd coming along to capture the Armoured Land Rover Discovery in all its 3.5 tonne, 110mph glory. I used to do a job where we had two vehicles to cut about in, one was a Discovery and the other was, somewhat strangely, a Montego. They had the respective nicknames of the Beast and the Skip. This new Discovery definitely deserves the name, and then some.

Mainly i’ve been planning the shot list; working out how to get the most out of our extremely limited time. I wrote the script, planned the shot list and drafted the schedule so I should know it all inside out by now but I’m still convinced there’s more I could be doing. That means I probably won’t be great company this weekend but I plan to be very prepared. Piss poor performance does no-one any favours.

I’m really excited but also a little bit nervous. I think i’ve done everything I need to do to make an adequate film, but whoever got up in the morning and said “I want to be adequate”. More yet!

Elsewhere, two Royal Marines got the good news in Afghanistan today and Indian hotels are still burning. Spare a thought for the families. My best mate Nick flew to Iraq last week leaving behind his new born son Matthew. So if you have some thoughts and prayers to spare, send some his way too.

I think its time for a beer.