Nissan Bluebird | Kickstarter Raised £2,799 - £ 4,701 to go

I had a fantastic experience going down to Polegate yesterday on my "Ohna and Perry go large" adventure.

Making short films is such a funny thing. It's all-consuming because you have to eke out from within you everything you possibly can to get them made - and of course get it made WELL otherwise there is no point doing it at all. A real labour of love and passion. But you find yourself doing crazy things. Like asking total strangers for money and asking for favours from people you barely know - expecting people to go well out of their way to help you buy a car for instance!

I booked two return train tickets to Polegate (right next to Lewes) and prepared a picnic - for me and my neighbour's dad Perry, who good naturedly said he'd help me! A charming Northern Irish man from Belfast who has been in the motor trade pretty much his entire life - and therefore - a car expert! He mostly dealt with Porsche cars (he's retired now) but seemed to know pretty much all and anything you need to know about most brands of cars. Having met him at my neighbour's Christmas parties over the years, he was the one person I could think of who might help me in my quest to find and buy an old car that would serve us well for the short film and ideally next year for the feature film too (in any case ideally not turn out to be a money pit).

And so we went, with a little ad I found on Gumtree and some advice given to me by Dimitri, the action vehicles man. Having primed the seller we were coming, and arranging for him to meet us at the station to take us back to his to test drive and check the car, I of course knew that my negotiation powers were much reduced because the seller knew I had taken out a big chunk of my Saturday to go see the car, and that I needed it NOW. So we poked, and we drove the car, and we pointed out all the flaws (including a flat battery and leaking oil) - which isn't too difficult in a car which is 27 years old - but after a lot of discussion, shrugging, gesturing and being driven back to the station for fault of coming to an agreement' - we did eventually buy the car!!!

I was so grateful to have Perry by my side for the negotiations and the journey back - he had to do all the driving as I have no driving insurance of my own (having crashed my last car on the French motorway, and leaving it in all its bits and pieces behind me never to be replaced). Until now! I got the car taxed and Perry had to drive it the 70 or so miles back to London - we even got banged into along the way (tailgate accident) and what matters most I guess is the car drove us flawlessly, smoothly, purringly back to London and is now parked outside my house ready to go on Friday. 

And I fell in love with her - a little old-fashioned Red Nissan Bluebird!! According to the expert, Nissans are actually very reliable cars that rarely go wrong. Now I have to just cross my fingers and hope he is right... 5 days to go.

Such a huge ask of someone I only really know from occasional parties, got plenty going on without my demands, including two lively grandchildren, and him having to drive for more than 3/4 hours back in the darkness of the open countryside, the motorways and then crazy congested London... With crazy people all dressed up for Halloween popping up everywhere. I loved hearing all his stories. Thank God he's a lovely man, a generous spirit and a tireless raconteur - a bit like another dad I know!!  Doing these crazy things can bring you closer to people too.

Find out more

We're in production and development so things are always changing. Ohna will be keeping the news page and Twitter feed up to date. But if you want to know more please do get in touch!