Pre Production

This was certainly my passion project and an idea I had since I was a teenager. It was always intended to be a feature film where the idea to do a short, proof of concept came later. Out of all the scripts I have written, Inside the Machine took the most drafts. About twenty in total. It being a science fiction (my first) was the key factor in this. But in the end I arrived at a story I was certainly satisfied with, a cohesive story.

It is about five school friends where making it as drum and bass emcees is their dream. Set in the “golden era” of drum and bass being late 90s to early 00s. During that time was when pirate radio was “the thing” and was how up and coming drum and bass emcees and DJs made it. That was the foundation to the story even before the inclusion of the sci-fi element later. Aesthetically it will give the project a retro feel as well.

Drum and bass music became my passion at around 11 years of age. I was introduced to it by my brother via an old One Nation cassette. When I heard the tape with DJs like Shy FX and emcees Skibadee and Shabba D, I was hooked. I remember the exact moment.

Drum and bass also inspired me to become a DJ and gratefully my dad got me a basic pair of turntables and mixer. The turntables to have were always the Techniques 1210s, the gold standard. Unfortunately my dad couldn’t afford those for me, but what I had was enough to get started. I never intended to become a professional DJ, it was just a love for the music. Then I started collected vinyls from Wax City record shop in Croydon or Blackmarket Records in Soho. My friends emceed and they would come round to mine for sets. We got pretty good.

Inside the Machine was part based on this experience. It was now finding a way to turn it into a proper story with a plot. I got massively inspired by the movie Enter the Void by one of my favourite film directors Gaspar Noé. I fell in love with this film and its unique first person perspective cinematography and its trippy visual effects. I thought about placing drum and bass music into an ultimate rave experience. The ideas were developing, but still no plot.

During the time of writing more drafts, artificial intelligence had started becoming very popular, as well as the conspiracies around human cloning, MK Ultra and transhumanism. Whether or not one believed in the conspiracies (I believe there is truth to them) these dark secrets were no longer a secret. I thought this could work as the main conflict for my characters and that they would pursue their dreams in exchange for advancing a sinister worldly agenda. That was their price.

Once the script was done, the project sat on the shelf for a bit. I did send it out and the reaction was mostly good. The turning point came when I entered a pitching session at the London Sundance Film Festival 2024 (see a previous blog post) where it got a special mention award. It was my first pitching session and to get that reaction gave me a lot of confidence. After that event, I came up with the idea to shoot a teaser of the film as a proof of concept to help its chances find funding. A filmmaker friend of mine did the same thing. Teasers are trendy to win commissions. Plus, this wasn’t to be self produced, it needed a proper producer.

One of the judges was from a well known production company (I won’t name) and requested a reading of the script. I sent it to him. However the company stated a producer would need to be attached to the project, so this is something I am working on.

When I entered pre production, I was concerned how I was going find actors that could convincingly emcee to drum and bass. But I kept being drawn to actual drum and bass artists to play the characters. Because this was such a passion project, the authenticity to the music superseded the acting part, it was about the music. One person I always had in mind was aN emcee called ACMC. I saw him perform years prior at the Notting Hill Carnival. There was something about his energy I really liked. Every time I thought of the lead character Maximilian, I saw ACMC. 

The other emcees I found by hitting the pavement. I did research on their agents, found emails and telephone numbers, got calling and emailing. Being an unfunded project, “no unpaid work” was the common objection, which was totally understandable. But because this project was always destined to be a lead to something bigger this made the offer a more attractive proposition. I managed to secure an emcee called Tiny-K first who gave his approval to his agent. Through Tiny-K I secured an emcee called Y-Zer. Finally completing the cast I secured emcees Spooka and Kombo through Instagram. Today, Instagram is a very effective tool for networking.

Now the cast was set: ACMC playing Maximilian aka Master Player, Y-Zer playing Anastasia aka Spinning Bird Kick (homage to Street Fighter’s Chung-Li), Spooka playing Alfie aka Alpha D, Kombo playing Ray aka Ray Gun and Tiny-K playing Ozzie aka Diagram. Originally the characters were written as teenagers. The cast were not teenagers, and it wasn’t easy finding drum and bass emcees of that age. Generally drum and bass is a niche genre in music so I was entirely grateful to have secured these established artists, therefore I had no hesitation rejigging the script to make the characters adults. This happens in productions, goal posts change and adjustments need to be made.

The music was one of the most important elements to the project as it had to be specific to that era of drum and bass. Trying to gain access to these tunes took a lot of researching and travelling down dead avenues and unanswered messages. Some of the tunes’ record labels had gone out of business. But I managed to find the correct companies with distribution rights via YouTube description credits. I looked them up and got on the phone. Unfortunately in order the license the tunes the price was out of my budget and I couldn’t afford the terms. This was a shame because I had gotten so close to obtaining the actual tunes from the past. So I had to let the opportunity go… for now.  

I decided I had to find a way to source tunes without going through distribution companies. That’s when I remembered one of my favourite drum and bass producers growing up: Twisted Individual, he had his own independent record label Grid Recordings. I emailed him through his website and got a response 🙂 I pitched the project to him and the fact I already had named drum and bass talent attached to the project gave it clout. I could hardly believe I had a phone conversation with TI. He was very open to the project and supportive, giving us tracks to use. I made a promise to him to one day shoot a cameo of his famous gimp mask 😉

Now the music was agreed and the wav files delivered, rounding up the crew and production logistics was all that was left to do. My long term collaborators were approached. Unfortunately my editor Timi wasn’t able to board due to her becoming a first time mother. My composer Rupert wasn’t required this time due to the film only needing songs and no score. My cinematographer Ariel was on board as was my sound recordist Blai. My right hand Oliver boarded as my 1st AD. And everyone else was new. The film industry has changed quite a lot over the years and it was exciting to meet new talent coming out of film school.

The crew boarded the project under the same conditions as the cast. All expenses and equipment use was to be paid for in full, that was non negotiable. This was all covered by the money I personally put into the project as well as money I raised from private investors. Not easy work executive producing. It was good to know that everyone was happy with the offer, something everyone could be invested in. The budget also went into hiring a set of lenses I specifically wanted for the shoot: Orion anamorphic; the real widescreen kit. These fit Ariel’s Black magic camera which was a solid choice for independent productions and shoots 6k footage. A nice step up in production value.

More of the budget went on hiring three locations: a radio station, a club and a green screen studio. The radio station was shot at Novacane Studios in Forest Hill, an organisation I have worked with for many years. The studio was in Charlton for all the VFX stuff. And the club was initially meant to be at the world famous Ministry of Sound, but right at the last minute another booking complicated the plan. So we had to secure another location literally the week of the shoot, which was done just in time. It was no MOS, but enough to serve the story of the teaser.

Production

It was a 2 day shoot. Originally it was meant to be 3 but the budget couldn’t stretch to that. There would have been too many location changes and the shooting time would have become unrealistic. So I dropped a couple of scenes in order to serve a nice and achievable 2 day shoot. 

Day 1 was at the green screen studio and then the club. Luckily the two weren’t too far from each other: a forty minute drive along the inner circle of South London. The studio went smoothly. It was great to finally meet the emcees in person due to all of our meetings and rehearsals done virtually. It was also great to be reunited with my regular crew and to meet the new guys.

Ariel was able to bring along his jib which was similar to a crane, only smaller. My first time working with one. Not only did it capture sweeping shots (awesome for production value) it was complimentary to the schedule as we could shoot every scene at the location on it without having to dismantle it for a different setup. Very good. The scenes were all short takes because there was hardly any dialogue, mostly action shots for special effects cuts. The longest scene was the last one: a dance sequence with the professional dancer Kristina. She came all the way from Southampton for the shoot, super dedicated. She choreographed the dance sequence herself and executed it fantastically. 

Set change to the club for an early evening start. In-between I had to pick up dinner at the Dominoes pizza on Old Kent Road. At the club we were a little light on background artists which wasn’t ideal but we made do with the resources we had. I was very grateful to everyone that gave up their time to be apart of it. Directing a club scene was to be one of my biggest tests as a director as I had never done it before. I had been on club scene sets as a runner but helming it is a different thing. As always with my previous films, I take the leap of faith, throw myself into it and see if I can swim. At one point it was an “I can’t believe this is happening” moment, because visions from youth was actually happening for real.

Setup at the club was challenging because the camera was going to be attached to a gimbal and this took time. Plus the Orion lenses were deceptively heavier than they look, they weighed like bricks, so Ariel had his work cut out for him. I had no concerns. Ariel always above and beyond for the project. I’d imagine in the world of a cinematographer it is those difficult camera setups that require them to step up, physically as well as creatively.

To begin, we started with the exterior following the main characters leading up to the club. Not the crucial section regarding action, but important. ACMC was kind enough to offer his car as Maximilian’s car. It was a nice touch as it was a car from the story’s era. When we arrived inside there nowhere to hide, time to deliver. I had rehearsed the sequence so many times in my head and had my storyboard so I was prepared. There were a few rocky bumps along the way, but nothing major. We finished on time, however wasn’t out of the building for another hour, so technically we ran over an hour. The owner of the club didn’t give us a hard time, so that was cool. I got home day at 2:30am. 

Day 2. On paper it read as the easier day out of the two, but you never want to jinx a set because it is ripe for Murphy’s Law. It was all at one location so that took weight the schedule’s shoulders, at Novacane Studios to shoot the radio scene, record label scene and car scene outside. The owner of the studio I knew well and he was very helpful to allow us full use of the location as a base. 

When we got started, the opening scene was first. There was a real energy about the scene, the emcees were on fire. I half achieved the shots I wanted because the space was a little smaller than I expected so we couldn’t fit the camera in certain positions, but we worked around it. The emcees were dynamite to work with, always game. They came up with their raps to the briefs I gave them for all three tracks. I let the masters work in their speciality where I guided them in mine. 

It was handy being at a music studio because we were able to kill two birds with one stone and record ADR for all 3 tracks should we need any dubbing in post production. We were going to have clean sound no matter what, perfect. This took a little time and required some stamina. It was a first for me, for a brief moment I was a music producer.

To finish off the shoot, we were outside to film the car scene. What seemed a straight forward scene ended up being one of the most challenging maybe of the entire shoot. The camera required being fixed to the bonnet of the car and we had to adjust its position which set the schedule back. I think everyone was more tired at that point. It had started raining. Plus the scene required a green sheet to cover the outside of the car for VFX. In the end we ditched it because it just wasn’t working. A few tensions were rising, but it’s those moments one must stay calm, work through the storm and come up with viable solutions, which we did.

This scene had a lot of production value to it. Predominantly that the car does move and it looked great on screen. I was very very pleased about that. One could have made compromises and took the easy decisions when things got too tough. Ariel added a lovely little DOPs touch with a flare effect via a simple little torch, gorgeous. I knew he knew the Orion lenses could maximise this effect because that’s one of the things those lenses are know for.

Ironically the very end of the shoot kept dragging just reinforcing that the game wasn’t over until it’s over. But we had made it to wrap 🙂 Everything was in the can and we hadn’t missed anything. I was grateful for everyone in front and behind the camera for believing in the project and being apart of it. I thank my friends Ross and Ndongo for giving up their afternoons to play supporting characters on both days. Also I thank the investors that helped out with some financial support. It was a cold late night on wrap, not as late as 2:30am, pushing more towards 12am. We got a team photo at the end as you do.

As of writing this post the film has reached the last leg of post production. I didn’t expect the edit to take as long as it did. Originally the planned release was December 2024, it is now May 2025. This being my first science fiction project with heavy visual effects, the process was completely new territory for me and required new tasks such as a visual effects breakdown sheet. There were 102 visual effects shots in total. This being a very specialised role it wasn’t easy recruiting someone that was available and could work at the budget I could offer them. We did have a highly skilled person on board all set to deliver towards December’s plan, but due to some very unfortunate circumstances he went through, he had to understandably abort the project. This set everything back.

The situation affected the other post production team member’s schedules, so this project had to understandably fit around their other project commitments because we had missed the original deadline. Either way I was still a grateful director to have them onboard and still believing in the project even if months turned into more months and so on. They hadn’t aborted. After more tough setbacks, I had managed to get the visual effects position filled this time with a team to split the work. So I had to up the budget for the department, but most importantly we were back on track. The editor, sound designer and new VFX team were rocks during this difficult stage of the film. I thank them all for their perseverance and excellent work.

As the director, you’re carrying the pressure of everything. Yes you’ve got the creative vision but that comes with the pressure to deliver. The process takes a lot of time and patience and it is about delivering the film to the best it can be, not lowering the standards and delivering a rushed job.