How These Filmmakers Made a Micro-Budget Feature Without Film School

Written by Bertie Speirs and Samantha Speirs

Following a limited theatrical run in the US, our debut feature film Midnight Taxi is now available worldwide on video on demand.

The film is a murder-mystery thriller set almost entirely at night that follows a sleepwalking-afflicted London cab driver. When the cab driver wakes up from a night shift nap to find a dead body ahead of his cab, he does the logical thing and contacts the police. Soon, however, disturbing images enter his mind and he worries that he may have been involved in her death. Desperate to clear his conscience, he embarks on an amateur investigation across London to find out what happened…if he killed her and if he can trust his own mind.

A third of the film takes place in a cab that our lead actor drove—for real—on London streets, and another third was filmed at real London locations and iconic landmarks… but on a shoestring budget and with just four daily crew members— including the two of us! Most of our money went on paying everyone involved (we strongly disagree with asking people to work for free) and we took advantage of the COVID locked-down London to shoot all over the city.

We spent less than $1,000 on all locations.

After a 23-day shoot and about a year and a half of post-production, we premiered our film in a central London cinema for cast and crew—but the journey wasn’t over! For the next several months, we navigated the unchartered waters of distribution. We eventually secured a deal that included a limited US theatrical run and worldwide VOD.

Now that the film is going out into the world, we want to share how we—a pair of filmmakers who didn’t go to film school—made an entire film and got it distributed for less than the cost of a new London taxi cab.

Before we get into all of it, though, here is a trailer to introduce you to the world of Midnight Taxi:

MIDNIGHT TAXI (2024) – Trailer

www.youtube.com

Who Are We?

We’re a British-American filmmaking duo currently living and working in London. We have spent over a decade working across the industry in Los Angeles and London. Originally starting with homemade short films and corporate video work, Bertie worked in post-production for Fox and ABC television shows and was the script coordinator for Chloe Zhao on Marvel’s Eternals. Samantha worked at United Talent Agency in LA, and as the director’s assistant to Jon Watts on Spider-Man: Far From Home and Tom Hooper on Cats.

For many years, we had talked about pulling the trigger on our own feature film but it wasn’t until the pandemic abruptly shut the industry down that a fire was properly lit beneath our feet. In the summer of 2020, the first idea of Midnight Taxi was born as a very loose concept of a murder mystery in London involving a cab driver. For several months, we wrote and wrote (and then rewrote and rewrote) until we had a version of the story that we were happy with and thought we could shoot for extremely little money.

The ‘Midnight Taxi’ filmmakers, Bertie Speirs and Samantha SpeirsCourtesy of Little Nipper Productions

The Budget

In addition to our own savings, we knocked on the doors of our supportive and generous friends and family with a slick pitch deck, mood reel and camera tests to demonstrate our dream and pragmatism to make our first feature. We had a “minimum go” number to start prep, which miraculously came together and then there was no looking back. We had to make it!

We knew from the beginning that this was going to be a nearly no-budget endeavor and our biggest budgetary goal was ensuring that we could pay everyone. Both of us have had the displeasure of working for “meal+copy+credit” and firmly believe that paying people for work (creative or otherwise) is an obligation, not a luxury. So we structured a “favored nations” agreement that meant every single person who worked on the film was paid the same amount (above London living wage, as well) plus any relevant kit fees and meals, of course.

The rest of the money for production went largely toward equipment. Through years of work and short films, we had accumulated a fair amount of our own equipment (lenses, slider, gimbal etc.), as well as one Sony a7s iii camera – so we rented three more Sony cameras for our multicam days, purchased some rigging equipment and other bits. We even made the props ourselves for next to nothing. We were feeling pretty on top of everything!

All we needed was a London cab…

Easier said than done.

The Cab

Electric Black Cab in Piccadilly CircusCourtesy of Little Nipper Productions

We had two main options for the cab: diesel or electric. Diesel cabs were aplenty but had some massive downsides. One, sound and camera shake would be significant problems. Two, working around diesel fumes for nights on end didn’t seem pleasant or healthy. Three, in 2021 diesel cabs were already on the way out so it would date our film. Four, the electric cab has a large glass sunroof, allowing much more light to get into the passenger area. Basically, we knew almost immediately that we didn’t want a diesel cab.

The problem with the new electric version was that it was very new. As in, we could not rent one anywhere. We had a contact at Pinewood Studios who put us in touch with the one person in the UK who might have helped but the logistics and costs were astronomical. But we really wanted the electric, so what could we do?

Turns out, you can just buy a cab. Sort of. Bertie first floated the idea of just outright buying a cab but brand new cabs were way out of price range even if the plan was to immediately sell it. By sheer luck, we found a cabbie outside of London who wanted to sell their barely used electric cab for a fraction of the cost. So we—somewhat recklessly—took out a loan and bought it. Insuring it was another nightmare but our film production insurance came in like heroes to help us in the end.

After we finished the film, we did end up successfully selling it… and for more than we paid! Perhaps we should’ve gotten into the car-flipping business.

Filming in the Cab (Multi-Cam!)

Cab full of equipmentCourtesy of Little Nipper Productions

Owning the cab gave us extra perks. First, we weren’t beholden to rental contracts. That meant we could spend many nights practicing rigging and camera testing. This ended up being an enormous benefit to planning the production.

We knew early on that we wanted our lead to drive the cab for real, not on a low-loader or with rear-projection. This is because we wanted to capture a naturalistic and real look at London and ensure all those micro-movements people have while driving were captured. We wanted all the lights and shadows of passing vehicles and streetlights to be realistic. We also wanted to avoid a Cash Cab— style look and keep it feeling cinematic so used fast lenses and a variety of focal lengths, depending on the needs of each scene. These decisions really emphasized the naturalistic vibe we aspired to.

To capture all this on a tight schedule we decided to shoot Multicam. As mentioned, we had rented three additional Sony a7s iii cameras to work with. In prep, we practiced rigging and positioning the cameras so that they were a) safe and secure and b) not in one another’s shot. This meant doing the same setups with multiple lenses and keeping a visual guide for reference that ended up including over 280 potential setups!

Framing and Lens TestsCourtesy of Little Nipper Productions

Whilst thinking ourselves very well organized with this framing planning, we forgot about the shadows of the camera and equipment itself. We could not control where one camera’s shadow might move when a street light or different vehicle traced past. Shadows were constantly drifting in and out of the frames. Luckily, we had enough coverage to hide the vast majority of these distracting shadows in post, but if you watch the film closely you might catch one or two. Thankfully, most viewers think these are the grab handles or some other part of the cab interior, so they don’t notice our mistake at all.

The cameras were mounted using a combination of suction cups and high-strength magnets. In testing, we realized the rubber suction cups provided a very small degree of cushioning, whereas the magnets were rock solid and might introduce more dramatic shakes when moving over potholes. We used this for dramatic effect—in quieter dialogue scenes we used the suction cups, and in arguments or stressful moments, we used the magnets.

Bertie workingCourtesy of Little Nipper Productions

As we couldn’t be in the cab with the actors, we needed to figure out a way to see what was going on from another vehicle. We used a cheap HDMI CCTV feed box to put four camera feeds into a single HD signal, and then send that into a Hollyland Mars 300Pro wireless transmitter to broadcast the four shots at once to the other vehicle. In the lead vehicle – driven by a real London cabbie – we could monitor the footage on video monitors and our iPhones. We also synced audio into the feed, so we could hear dialogue.

Car-to-Cab Filming

Crew and Actor Cabs on ‘Midnight Taxi’ setCourtesy of Little Nipper Productions

How to film the cab from another vehicle legally, safely, and with just the two of us was another challenge. After a lot of research, we settled on a magnetic RigWheels Cloud Mount system that we mounted atop of personal vehicle and further tied down like a roof rack. We were able to attach the gimbal to the mount and then operate the gimbal (and camera) with an Xbox controller. So, one of us would drive, the other would operate that, and Ladi followed us through London!

RigWheels Cloud Mount on Ford FiestaCourtesy of Little Nipper Productions

Crossing Tower BridgeCourtesy of Little Nipper Productions

What About Sound?

We had eight microphones recording all the time in the cab. Four microphones were rigged into the cab itself (another perk of owning it!) and each actor was wearing two lavaliers. This seemed excessive at the time but the redundancy definitely saved us from requiring ADR in the edit.

Permits, Please

There are three locations in the whole film that we pre-booked: the therapist’s office, the parking garage, and the lead character’s apartment. We hustled to find the lowest cost good option for each. For example, Bertie was undergoing treatment after suffering from Ramsay Hunt Syndrome (facial paralysis), and after meeting with an acupuncturist weekly, was given a favor by their office to use their space for a low cost. Did we exploit his trauma for a lower location fee? You’ve got to find every angle you can. Every other location is stolen and shot at guerilla-style.

St. Paul’s? Stolen. Abbey Road? Stolen. Hoxton Square? Stolen for three nights! The police approached us once on night two to ask if we were making a film, to which we answered honestly, and they wished us the best of luck before driving on.

Filming on the streets of LondonCourtesy of Little Nipper Productions

Of course, with it being London and all, we still dealt with some odd occurrences. From boombox-blaring tourist tuk-tuks (even in the lockdown) to random fireworks set off by bored teenagers to massive crowds at one location because of Ramadan to encountering quite a few drug dealers, there was a story for every night.

Casting

We are so proud of and grateful for our incredible cast. We had 16 cast members, not including our non-professional cab passengers (aka our friends and family). Because we had to cast during the pandemic, all of our casting sessions were done over video.

Lead cast members (left to right – Eddie Eyre, Ladi Emeruwa, Charlotte Price, Nathan Turner)Courtesy of Little Nipper Productions

We put out some open casting calls and were overwhelmed by the level of response. We spent many days going through every single submission and making shortlists, being sure to update all actors on the progress out of respect. Eventually, we did live virtual auditions for each role and selected our cast.

Ladi Emeruwa, our lead, was the first cast member we hired and he absolutely crushed it. By coincidence, he lived quite near us and was able to borrow the cab (another perk of owning it) to rehearse his lines and get comfortable driving the vehicle. In addition to his stellar performance, having Ladi on set every single day was one of the best decisions—he was cool, calm and a total professional through everything.

The Crew

Leading actor Ladi Emeruwa in ‘Midnight Taxi’ Courtesy of Little Nipper Productions

Our crew consisted of the two of us, plus a sound recordist and a hair and makeup artist. On our driving days, we had a real London cabbie (Tom Hutley of the Tom the Taxi Driver YouTube Channel) who led the picture cab and carried the four crew around. That was it.

‘Midnight Taxi’ CrewCourtesy of Little Nipper Productions

All other crew positions—and we do mean all—were handled by the two of us. Samantha made the props and costumes, cooked all the meals before crew call and reheated them at meal time, washed the cab every day, made the schedule and driving routes, and more. Bertie was the entire camera department (for four cameras in the cab, nonetheless), half of the sound team, the rigging department, DIT at the end of the day, and more.

Post-production was, somehow, even less. Bertie was a one-man post-production house and our composer, Jake Bradford-Sharp, handled all of the music brilliantly.

While we got the film done, we know which positions we are prioritizing when crewing up the next one!

Speaking of Post Production…

We vastly underestimated how big of a mountain post is when you have no money. Immediately after shooting we did the assembly edit ourselves, swapping places at the computer for every other scene, intending to then hand it over to an editor… but the problem with our limited budget was that we only had enough money left for either an editor or a composer. Since we knew our musical limitations and Bertie had experience as an editor, our hand was forced.

Understandably, we took a short break between the assembly and cracking into the edit so that the experience and stress of production wouldn’t color our decisions. When work began, it was long and arduous. Because of the Multicam shooting, we had an astronomical 30TB plus of footage to go through. While we feel it was the right decision to shoot that way, we’d be lying if we said going through over a hundred hours’ worth of footage was enjoyable.

After about a year of post, we brought Jake Bradford-Sharp on board as our composer. At that point, it had just been the two of us working on the film for nearly a year so bringing in a fresh perspective was a huge boon. As Jake worked on the soundtrack, Bertie color graded and 5.1 sound mixed the entire film.

Still from ‘Midnight Taxi’Courtesy of Little Nipper Productions

Screening the Film

In March 2023, we had our first screening of Midnight Taxi for our cast, crew, and family in a London cinema. Thankfully, it went off without a hitch and we were able to celebrate with everyone late into the night.

Distribution

Our goal with Midnight Taxi was always distribution. As our film doesn’t feature a Hollywood star or cater to most festival tastes, we didn’t intend for it to be a festival film. We submitted it to a few and got into one (we chose not to premiere there for various reasons) but didn’t make a concerted festival push. Instead, we focused intensely on getting distribution.

In June 2023, we were selected for the Breakthrough Strand of the London Screenings, which is the UK’s main sales event. As only one of only six debut filmmakers selected for the event, we met with several sales agents and discussed the prospects for Midnight Taxi. Though we didn’t sign with anyone at the event, it helped create awareness about our film and educated us enormously on the world of film distribution.

Following the London Screenings and interest from our YouTube trailer, we were soon in discussions with four different distribution companies. One was from a cold submission we’d approached but the others found us independently. We negotiated very seriously with two of the four before signing with Slated at the start of 2024.

Slated secured a limited theatrical run in Los Angeles in May 2024 and coordinated a worldwide VOD release for July 23, 2024. Yes, that means that Midnight Taxi is officially released!

‘Midnight Taxi’ posterCourtesy of Little Nipper Productions

That’s How We Did It!

There you have it: the story of how Midnight Taxi grew from an idea in our flat to a globally released feature film… and for less than a single year’s tuition at NYU or USC!

Since finishing the film, we have approached people at the very top of the industry, and been granted sit-down meetings with them it has completely changed the way executives and producers view us. If you are ready to make a feature film – don’t make excuses and procrastinate! Whilst microbudget filmmaking can be exhausting, challenging and stressful at times, it has also been exciting, satisfying and rewarding.

In our opinion, once you have put in some industry work and time learning enough craft to be able to execute a feature, you should do so. So many highly skilled filmmakers are waiting for ‘the right time’ but the years are passing by quickly. If we can figure it out with barely any money during a global pandemic, you can figure it out too. Even if the film had not succeeded in finding any distribution, the sheer experience has taught us so many valuable lessons.

For us, after years of working in the industry, learning from some of the leading directors working today, and aspiring to reach those heights ourselves, we are incredibly proud of the amount of grit and tenacity it took to get Midnight Taxi into the world. As we have seen first-hand from working on blockbuster films, additional crew and budget might help reduce the number of different jobs you have to undertake but you are introduced to a whole new scale of challenges and responsibilities.

If you want to watch the film or learn more about us, head on over to our website and feel free to shoot us any questions. We can’t promise we’ll know the answer but we’re happy to help if we can!

The ‘Midnight Taxi’ core team – Bertie Speirs, Samantha Speirs, Ladi Emeruwa—and the cab!Courtesy of Little Nipper Productions