“Good morning, this is your wake up call.”

4.00am?! Like all crew, I’m used to early starts, but 4am, must be a mistake. I head for reception. “Good morning Sir, how may I help you?” “My wake up call, it’s 8am, not 4am.” “Oh I’m sorry”, we'll fix that right away” but before I can say, “how?”, Mr Enthusiastic announces, “You're all set. That’s 8am for room 803, you have a great day!”  

Welcome to New York, the City that never sleeps!

No matter how tired, how busy, or how jaded you may be the Big Apple is always exciting. Not to mention being with the home team @ Annex Films shooting for Shots brand of the year Samsung, and a new friendship with the very nice people at JAM.

Wandering the streets at 4am I remember just how great this City is. I mean hell, they even have there own timescale – The New York minute. It's a time frame known only to New Yorkers. Or as Johnny Carson once said, it's the interval between a Manhattan traffic light turning green and the guy behind you honking his horn. Actually It appears to have originated in Texas around 1967 and is a reference to the frenzied and hectic pace of New Yorkers' lives.

And believe me, when the production scehdule arrived, as Maverick once said, “I felt the need, the need for speed” - 7 films in 6 days, by anyone's standards, that’s going some. Makes you realise that, like New York, the film business has it’s own clock. It’s like someone put a secret flux capacitor into the Alexa - once you hit turnover, film speed kicks in and time speeds up. Pause and you're behind. Stop to think, and you're behind. Look at your storyboard and the 1st assistant director is shouting "that's lunch everyone!" So what can a director do to keep ahead? Here’s my 5 top tips:

RULE NO 1:  Accept everything resist nothing.

Doubt, anxiety and prevarication will slow you down faster than a meatball sandwich. Forward movement is the only way. The trick is to remain positive but stay relaxed, which is why the directors chair was invented: the soft fabric evokes a state of calm allowing you to observe without anxiety – see point 5

RULE NO 2:  Choose your crew wisely.

Luckily Hans + Becky had recently introduced me to the wonderful Dan Holland who’d just shot some gorgeous work with the same team Luke, Drew and Christian for Samsung. Dan is one of those DOP’s who’s mastered the kit. Fast and flexible he shoots great looking images in a user freindly way, proving that it's all about...

RULE 3:  Low fi hi fi

As you know from previous blogs I’ve always championed new technology but sometimes digital still travels with a truck load of crew. Kit like the easy rig proves a DOP can be free to move fast and still produce results. 

RULE NO 4: Ignore your crew and love your actors.

You may love your crew but always remember, the people in front of the camera can kill your schedule. Remember that great Jack Rosenthal film “Ready When you Are Mr McGill”? A forerunner to Extras it’s the story of one little man who kills the whole shoot. Now I’m not saying for one moment that my cast were anything other than professional but our script was full of technical jargon, rhyming algorithms and phases to tongue tie Brian Cox – the greatest joy was looking over my shoulder to see Hans nodding because an actor was word perfect.

RULE 5: Forget the chair and lead from the front.

I long for the chair. There’s nothing I’d love more than to sit facing a monitor and study my scene, but sadly contemporary commercials don’t run that way. My style is more… best foot forward, lead from the front, and go, go GO! In short – S.H.E.Z.A.M.  Smile, don’t Hesitate, Encourage And Move (The Z is just a reference to my name, and the fact that I like saying Shezam when things go well)

And so, with a lot of help from my friends we avoided the Delorean time bomb, finished ahead of schedule and produced some great looking films. In fact numbers for the  #SMARTMOVE series have topped a million views. Well worth getting up at 4am.

We want it to look like the Mediterranean... Could be the South of France but no palm trees, the client doesn’t like Palm trees. Southern Italy works, but not Sicily. Why? I ask, as a Sicilian.  The people are 'too dark'. Physically or emotionally? The question is ignored, the briefing goes on… Basically it’s Rome, but by the sea, without old buildings.  No old buildings? No, we like old buildings, just not that old. 

You’ve all seen the TVC featuring the location scout, it’s pretty close to the truth. Except these days, location scouts are history. If you’re making X-MEN and your budget is the size of Romania’s GBP, location managers aren’t a problem, but back in the credit crunched real world location managers have been replaced by the guy in the office currently checking his social media status. PA’s are the location scouts of the future, hell the 5S even has panorama, how hard could it be?   

Let me tell you something about finding locations, finding locations has nothing to do with locations. A location is only as good as the person who gets you permission to film. And the permission is only as good as the bargaining power of your location manager. This is the person who will keep your show on the road when the old lady in the upstairs apartment is suddenly not happy you’re filming under her beloved balcony. No spotty guy with an iphone is going to get you out of that corner.

Late in 2013, as the warm glow of summer headed South, my “Mediterranean feeling” job was confirmed, but the location was not.  Positivity on, I dial local contacts - it's the Mediterranean, but no historical buildings, no foliage, especially palm trees and we need sun.  I know just the place, says my guy in Rome - Sicily!

Rome is out, Croatia’s in, and then Croatia’s out and Lisbon is in. Pretty soon, as Ken Kesey’s infamous bus sign read we were going “nowhere” fast. In a way locations weren’t wholly to blame. Yet again this was a typically modern production with a “challenging” budget - apart from quasi-Mediterranean requirements we also needed to create a high speed chase through a busy market with stunt doubles on Vespa’s and fruit flying everywhere – think Knight and Day crossed with an Italian comedy from the late Sixties. Bit of an ask.

Then, in true modern European style, the outside man, or should I say woman came to the rescue - Greece.

Now I have nothing against Greece, in fact, as a Sicilian, Greece is the Sicily of my dreams. Believe me I’ve watched Medeiteraneo many times. You tell me we’re shooting in Greece and I’m doing a deal just to get there, but Greece to look like Italy, really? Isn’t it the place to go if you want white on white with a bit of azure?

Then again, as an old producer of mine once said, choose the wrong lens and everywhere looks like Peckham.

Turns out I was totally wrong. Seems that back in the day the Greeks were in love with Italian architecture and build their first City Italianate style. Nafplio is not only the perfect Mediterean backdrop it’s charming and has a couple of streets that would bring a tear to even the toughest Venetian. Of course they have been somewhat ravaged by modern tourism and the place lacks some of the necessary “charm”, but all of that can be fixed with a good location art director and some time.

Enter Avion films, with the enviable task of transforming Nafplio into a non specific Medetearn location through which a couple of crazed Romanian stunt doubles can narrowly avoid local extras without disturbing the perfectly placed fruit stalls integral to the plot. And you know what, these guy not only have location managers but they have location managers who can manage.

Within days thanks to the team and Simos Korex, a very old friend of mine, (director in his own right), we were in business. The street was dressed, the sun was shining and there wasn’t a plam tree to be seen. But just as the crane was about to swoop in across the shot the shutters on an upstairs balcony opened and an old woman appeared. She pointed at me with her walking stick and yelled in Greek what I only presumed was – hey sonny, what you doing on my street you little punk!

I can’t even begin to tell you what our location manger had to do to calm her down...

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Let’s set the record straight, I was not on holiday.

Just because I took a break from the blog doesn't mean I was taking it easy. No beach side point break for me. Directors don’t do holidays. Holidays are for teachers, government officials and the big man in the red jacket: what a gig, one day a year and the rest, an endless summer… yo ho ho baby!

But as they say, a change is as good as a rest.

I've left Moon and have a lovely new home at Annex and and I’ve just got back from New York shooting for Shots brand of the year Samsung. But more of that in the months to come. First…

It’s back to Santa’s homeland, Turkey. Yes, you heard me right, St Nick came from the South and has his own Christmas Island, or was that Dean Martin. Returning to Istanbul for a second OMO campaign, thanks to my friend at Lowe and Atlantik Film (great company if anyone wants to shoot in this part of the World), I’m interested to see City life now the summer’s infamous scenes in Gezi park have Twittered away.

Istanbul was unrecognisable. No more tear gas, no more water cannons and no more fasting - last time Ramadan was testing people’s spirituality and Taxi drivers were failing miserably. If you’ve never seen the City's infamous gridlock on an empty stomach think Grand Theft auto, for real.

But it seems most people in this incredible City have nerves of steel. OMO scripts call for dirt. In OMO land, dirt is good. Leaking pens, filthy playgrounds and exploding food are often the order of the day. On my last shoot the man in charge of pyro-burgers was known as “The Doctor” and he was very very professional. You have to respect a fasting man sitting in front of fifty hamburger for twelve hours a day, with only the will of God to keep him going. That's service. Allahu Akbar!

Despite the tricky nature of shooting with children, stain management, and empty stomachs the result was charming - see below.

But that was then and this is now, I'm back at the same school in Istanbul on OMO part 2 faced with two twins who are expected to deliver Emmy award winning performances. Direction done I shout "action" and hold my breath. One little girl looks at the camera and says, "I need toilet". Looks like it's going to be a long day...

But Turkish crews are used to the hours. That could all change in the New Year when they sign a deal with local production companies limiting the working day. Personally I think it’s the way ahead. Anything that manages expectations in an achievable way has to be a good thing.

So in the spirit of change, as the year draws to a close, please check out Annex and Gusto's new table top connection with Grinder in Cape Town – can’t be a bad call shooting in Cape town as the winter freeze sets in.

To one and all I’d like to thank you for making 2013 so enjoyable and wish you a Happy Holidays! Or should I say…. do something new this Season, it’s good for the soul.