Day 2

Today was the second day of the shoot. In the morning, we shot Adam Napier driving around Weston. Simple stuff, but actually very difficult to keep the camera steady. We shot the service station scene at Sedgmeoor Services (Northbound, in case any of you are location fetishists!), and then drove onto the M5. Mein Gott! Talk about an urgent neeed to resurface that part of motorway! Rich (our brilliant DOP) had the camera on the Fig Rig, but even so, it was a tad tricky. Once we got into Weston, we drove past the beach bike races, and passed the longest traffic jam I've ever seen in the town (going all the way from the Beach Lawns to the Anchor at Bleadon - a distance of several miles).

The afternoon saw us shooting the first dialogue scene of the film, where Cleo hitches a lift from Paul, the sad and lonely tie salesman. (Come to think of if, ALL the characters are sad and lonely... but I don't want to give away too much of the plot!) We shot it on the A38 just outside Weare, where there's a good layby. Unfortunately, the weather was rather inclement, and there was a lot of traffic (beach race-related?). It was one of those scenes where you really need walkie-talkies - even two yoghurt pots connected by a bit of thread would have helped - but we didn't have any, so I had to do a lot of running back and forth across the road. The car scenes themselves - framed a la Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry - were good, although the mic was in shot for nearly all of Sally's shots. I think we can fix it in post, so no worries.

Tonight was the first night the actors and Rich could stay at the hotel, the rather marvellous Queenswood (www.queenswoodhotel.com). Rich has been on my floor for the last two nights, while Adam has been in Wells, Sally with friends in Redhill. Onwards and upwards!