Riding this wave of my win at Swansea Film festival I was invited at the end of 2005 to collaborate with my cousin’s band (The StopMotion Men) who were interested in combining their music with my visuals. I liked the idea but stressed I had little interest in simply creating the standard gig videos that play on screen to add spice to band’s live shows and instead decided on making full blown short films that would, from my perspective, have a live musical score when screened with the band’s performances. Choosing what I felt to be one the most interesting of a collection of exciting and unusual songs I began work on a treatment that would become It’s All Gonna Catch Up With You.

To my relief my cousin, Geraint Connors, immediately liked the idea (I was fearful he’d be wary as I’d taken a different course to the literal lyrical content) and so production began a few weeks later (February 2006). Having absolutely no budget and little resources I called on my friends to help me out and they pulled their weight brilliantly. My classmate from uni, Saqib Aziz, took on the heavy weight role of producer while my fiancé, Rachel Logan, managed the production. Whilst I secured friend Gareth Ward to help with the photography Aziz went through a pile of resumes of willing actresses and ambitious actors. Finding a girl to work for free yet be perfect for the part was no small order but he found just that in young starlet-to-be Rachel Barker. Alas our choice for the male role wasn’t destined to be quite so successful.

Biting the bullet I bought a dv camera on a credit card (something I’d swore never to do) and production dates were locked down. We’d shoot all the interior shots first in a blacked out house in the day time (Saqib’s brother’s house), hoping to pull off the illusion of night time and then, when night fell and the house owner’s returned from work, we’d go out into the city and shoot the car scenes and the exteriors. Rachel Barker was superb from moment one. She asked questions, made intelligent suggestions and listened to her direction perfectly. She shared my ‘work til it’s done’ attitude and never paused for a moment when caught in a storm on the top of a multi-storey car-park (one of my favourite scenes I’ve ever shot) or when chased for an hour relentlessly by a man with a camera or a crazed producer in a BMW. However trouble arose when the actor for the male character turned up early at the closed interior set… then not at all later.

Rachel Barker was being filmed in her underwear so I didn’t want anyone there that didn’t have to be. This meant I was forced to ask the actor, whose name I’ve totally forgotten, to come back an hour later for his scenes. He seemed fine about this at the time and so I thought all was well. It wasn’t.

After an hour of not answering his call we realised he’d taken the huff and we were in serious trouble. Rachel had travelled from Buckinghamshire to get to the shoot so there was absolutely no way we could possibly ask her to return on another day after we’d found a replacement (there really is only so much anyone can ask someone to do for free). Making it up on the spot I decided to shoot the car interior scenes as two shots (the standard Hollywood conversation scene consisting of a medium close up of each character individually then editing them together to look like they happened simultaneously) so not to waste time with Rachel Barker and so my fantastic crew worked on, completing the actresses’ scenes dutifully whilst I secretly had a crisis of confidence.

The last shots of production were the closing ones from the film itself. Deciding to shoot guerilla style (i.e. not asking permission) we sneaked into a multi storey car park as a storm fell on the neon lit city. Not believing my luck with the elements (I’d written in the rainfall in my screenplay) my confidence leapt. Now working with just Gareth and Rachel Barker so not to attract too much attention we completed shot after shot, each working out fantastically as we dashed about the deserted concrete tomb. Capturing the closing scene I let my exhausted but brilliant actress finally go home before wrapping the production after shooting some cut away and POV car shots for the chase.

After editing a rough version together I decided to remove the entire male character from the story and instead simply focus on Rachel’s brilliant performance. In hindsight I feel the momentum slightly lull where this part should fall (the second chorus) but I stand by the fact my crew simply shone in an extremely difficult situation. Saqib Aziz, Gareth Ward, Rachel Logan and Rachel Barker – the award I won for this video is as much yours as mine. Thank you.