The Diary of a Nimble Film Chick

Take a peek behind the lens and discover what goes down on a location shoot

Recently we had the opportunity to film down in Devon for a client, showcasing the mind- bogglingly amazing capabilities of the new Land Rover Defender.

Here’s what went down when Katie travelled to Devon for this action-packed location shoot, from arranging the schedule to shouting “Action!”

A few weeks before the shoot

While a lot of the work takes place on the shoot itself, a hell of a lot of the graft goes into preparing everything beforehand, including briefing calls, research, scripting, scheduling, and location scouting. 

All this and more goes into that most hallowed of documents: the call sheet. This contains every single detail of the shoot, from who’s going to be where, and when, to the running order, the shots we need to capture, the schedule, contact details, and equipment checklists.

Planning a shoot properly is especially important when you’re filming a bloomin’ marvellous Defender clambering up and down the rolling Devonian countryside, as I was lucky enough to be doing.

The day before

The success of any shoot depends on how well you’ve prepared the previous day. Extremely boring and not at all badass of me, but it’s true.

Apart from packing my beloved call sheet, I’m making sure every piece of kit with a battery life is fully charged and in the bag, including all cameras, laptops, lens, batteries, and hard-drives, alongside my overnight bag.

Armed with enough batteries, memory cards and hard drives to sink the Titanic, all that’s left to do is hit the road with crew member Steve and enjoy the sunset during our 200-odd mile jaunt down the M5!

I arrive at the Purple Palace after a service station lockdown dinner (how glam!), and because I did 15,000 sanity checks on the kit and call sheet before I left, it’s time to switch on the hotel TV and fall into the loving, purple embrace of my Premier Inn bed.

Lights, camera, action!

Steve picks me and my plethora of gear up at 08:15 and we set off for the nearby Land Rover Experience Centre to meet our host, Will.

After the most nerve-tingling site recce ever, we begin shooting bang on schedule at 9:30 a.m. alongside our incredible drone team. I’m not gonna lie, capturing those incredible machines scaling hillsides and surging through waterways is the universe’s way of paying back all those times I was stuck in refrigerated warehouses, making case studies about barcode printers, in my early career.

In fact, we got so into the action scenes that we actually ran over by about an hour or so but, thankfully, we’ve got a great team who are happy to flex with the inevitable shifting schedule. I know we would’ve kicked ourselves later if we’d missed out on that awesome first-person view footage!

Now for the serious stuff

After lunch we get started with the second part of the shoot; showcasing the vehicles with some stately static shots, and creating the narrative of the film with dialogue. 

We’re working with the fabulous former Welsh rubgy international Scott Quinnell again who – despite the loosely scripted narrative – is fab at adding his own twist to the content!

We’re making good time and after a little on-site brainstorm we’re ready to shoot the last, rugged campfire scene. Set against the gorgeous Devonshire countryside as the sun enters that glorious time of day we film makers refer to as ‘magic hour’, we capture the opening scene last.

At this point, Will asks if I’d like to take one of the Defenders back down to the centre, and despite being convinced I’d just end up rolling the thing I decided it was worth the risk.

As I climb into that Defender I’m very aware that days like this don’t happen very often in a corporate video production career, and it’s taken a staggering amount of graft for me to get here. So as we wrap the shoot and I get behind the wheel of that truly astonishing machine for my very own ‘Fast & Furious: Devon Drift’ moment, I’m feeling incredibly grateful for opportunities like this.

That's a wrap!

After a brilliant and exhilaratingly ‘pinch-me-is-this-real’ day of shooting, we prepare to head back north. I make sure to off-load all media captured today onto an external hard drive, which I then prepare to guard with my life.

I make it home for about 10:15 p.m., utterly shattered but over the moon with the day’s results. Editing begins tomorrow, so after a couple of slices of leftover pizza that hubby kindly left out for me, I head to bed to catch some well-earned ZZZ.

Stay tuned to see the final result!