I never work on my birthday. I always have the day off. I either book it off, swap shifts or (cough) call in sick. I hate to work on my birthday. But this year I was working down in Eastbourne on the Stephen Southouse feature. I decided to agree to do it as I need the money for my own feature.

I had to get up early and rush down to Victoria station to catch a train to Eastbourne. I meet Liz Knight, the actress in the film, at the platform and we travelled down together. She tried to catch a nap, but our carriage was so noisy that it was hard to sleep.

Stephen was there to greet us at the station and off we went back to his house. Andrew Flux was already there, and when we were all ready, we drove off to the first location. It was a car park, where Liz had to dance bare foot on concrete. Not a very good surface to be dancing on. It also didn’t help that next to the car park was the local estate, where we drew in a crowd, all to watch Liz dance. Poor thing. I really felt for her, especially when she had to do it again and again. Though she did get a round of applause from our audience.

Then it was off to next location and then the next and then the next. It was a whirlwind tour of 5 locations and shooting 8 scenes. It was going well until we got to a wood on the outskirts of town. We had to climb over barbed wire to get to the spot we were going to film. I don’t how Stephen found this spot. When I see barb wire, I have a tendency not to trespass. But that’s Stephen for you. He will find a location, then we turn up to shoot there without permission or any prior notice. We haven’t had anybody stop us yet, but that’s because he doesn’t film in London. I tried and just got away with not being stopped from filming. It happened to me when I was shooting “Goodbye” on the South Bank. We were saved by speaking the magic words, “We’re students”. Can get you out of anything.

The day had been warm, but once we got into that wood the temperature just dropped. I was wearing just a T-shirt and I was so cold. And of course we had a bit to film there. I was so glad when we were finished and I could get back to the car. Though there was more barbed wire to cross.

Finally we went to another wood. This one had public access - I wasn’t in the mood to tempt fate with more barb wire. This wood was more a spooky wood then the other. Tall trees reached up into the sky and blotted the sun out. Thankfully the sun was low in the sky and the way the light broke through trees was very cinematic. I wasn’t too impressed with stuff we had filmed so far, but once we got to this scene, it was really good. The location, the light and the actors really made this scene for me. It’s when the two characters meet for the first time and it worked.

This day sums up what it is like working with Stephen Southouse. You will go from really frustrated, because Stephen doesn’t tell you what he wants, to really ecstatic, because shoot something really great. It would be like that every day. Also you don’t get a sense of how the scenes are going to look as Stephen always shoot with multiple cameras. I would know what I was shooting, but I wouldn’t know what was being shot on the other two cameras. You don’t know if what you have shot will end up in the film.

Sunday was the final day of shooting on the feature. They had filmed more in between the time I was there, which is annoying as I was promised more work that I actually got. I guess Stephen couldn’t afford me. At least I got paid.

Stephen did tell me that the film should be finished by Christmas, so I will be interested to see what the film is like. There was talk about another feature next year, but nothing was said to me. When it comes time for Stephen to film his next feature, I might not be available. Who knows?