LOUIS NEETHLING (Director)
DAVID HORBURY (Producer)
ALISON LYNCH (Production Manager)
At last, after weeks of planning, working with writers, booking crew, finding locations, auditioning actors, we're finally on our way to Suffolk, in a variety of cars and vans, to begin five days of filming for Rebecca Atkinson's Coming Home drama...
Worrying about traffic. We had a disastrous recce day last week. Louis drove me, the cameraman, Alex, and an interpreter to see the Suffolk locations. It took FIVE hours to drive from London and almost as long to get back. I never knew East London had traffic jams at one o'clock in the morning...!
Finding somewhere for sixteen crew and actors to eat and sleep has been a logistical nightmare. There are no hotels or guesthouses within easy reach so I've placed them in tiny B&Bs, holiday cottages and in the spare rooms of nice local people. I keep worrying I've forgotten someone - and they'll have to sleep in a hedge...!
Just wrapped - at 8pm. It's been a tough first day as we had to start filming as soon as we arrived. Matt and Sophie amazing but everyone is totally wiped out as we've been on the go for over fourteen hours. Didn't complete a couple of scheduled short scenes and they'll have to be picked up on another day. Annoying but things are always slower on the first day before we establish a rhythm, a way of working...
To add to our communication complexities - this part of Suffolk has terrible mobile phone coverage. When we wrapped, everyone - despite being totally whacked - was wondering around in small circles or standing on chairs trying to get a phone signal!