Running through Soho with a stitch and an empty belly. Side-step puddles offering up slippery neon reflections and then a sharp intake of breath…long legged totty in heels parade their wares…testosterone. Lurch to the right to avoid a taxi sloshing over the wet tarmac and again to the right and down a tiny alley out into Wardour Street. Halting suddenly at a blind corner as a couple leave an inviting restaurant with disapproving frowns, then left around a corner. Stone slabs underfoot declare war with cumbersome feet and crevices seek to bring down this ‘runner’.

Stop. Fumble inside the blue canvas shoulder bag. Pull out three large taped-up aluminium cans of exposed 35mm motion picture negative film, and stuff them one by one into a wide letterbox sending the cans down some form of chute to the basement of the film laboratory below. Swooooosh…clatter and an ominous THUD!

Nervous silence. The runner hesitates — had the cans opened on their journey down into the deep? Had he arrived too late? Had the film cans broken open on the floor destroying all the exposed negative which might catastrophically mean a re-shoot, the vengeance of the production manager and indeed the end of his job? Well there was very little he could do about it now so…he thought ‘sod it’ and turned away. Only when the film had been processed and transferred to video tape as ‘rushes’ the following morning would he know what had really transpired down that dark mysterious tunnel.

The ‘runner’ mused to himself, ‘Millions of dosh spent on everything from logistics, crew, hotels, over-paid actors and extravagant sets, all for what is contained here on these rolls of hi-tech plastic. Odd to think that before the film ends up on some big screens around the world it has for a short time enjoyed a short vacation sat on the floor of his beaten up old 1986 red Ford Fiesta.’

In a strange way he felt quite smug about this but it was most definitely something that ought to be consigned to the ‘best not spoken off’ experiences…especially if he was at some party where he usually would have to try and pretend he was much better off than he actually was.

The ‘runner’ darted across the road and onto the next street to a sound studio to deliver the tiny digital cassettes. As he stood facing the large window he noticed the giant letters, ‘Digital Sound Post-production’ sprawled across in big blue letters. The office was all closed up and at first glance he saw no delivery point for tapes. A moment of panic. His eyes skirted around the façade until they arrived at a tiny letterbox at the very bottom of the glass door. He pushed the four tapes through the hole and tried to flick them in vain further away from the entrance with his fingers. They were only about seven centimetres away and he had a horrifying vision of someone in their early morning vagueness, opening up and then stepping on the tapes. Horror! Was there another delivery point? Had he missed it entirely? He looked over the façade again…nothing. He glanced down at the tapes as they lay on the wooden flooring.

He considered an odd juxtaposition….’acclaimed star arrives at film studio with chauffeur — head held aloft, crew milling about working busily on the set, executives debating the massive marketing budget and arguing over its strategy, interviews with grinning stars on chat shows, glossy magazine reviews dribbling over iconic celebrities and…four solitary sound tapes lying dangerously exposed on the floor.’ There was something rather humbling about how they lay there like discarded trash beyond the large glass window, almost like an exhibit that happened to be lit by the iridescent pinkish glow of the street lighting.

Hugo, was twenty-ish, there was something…about his red spiky hair, glued in place with lashings of wet-look gel, that made him look like he was really from a Manga comic book. His pretentious black rimmed rectangular spectacles sat heavily on his nose giving him an intellectual edge, a style that must have been borrowed from an MTV presenter; and then of course he had a sort of cropped goatee gone slightly wrong. There was no doubt about it; Hugo was as vain as they came. On arriving at his car he leaned down to look in the wing mirror, he licked his finger and pasted a rebel hair caught wandering over his forehead back in place.

“Sharp,” he muttered, resigned to the fact that he must at least look ‘shit-hot’ even if he did drive a shite car and was in effect the tea boy. Someone someday would miraculously discover him he thought, hadn't he read about the impoverished ‘early years’ of some of the great film-makers? Hadn't a producer once said to him that success in the film business was all about perseverance? He got in his shite car and drove back to his fairly shite flat in Tottenham, in north London.

Hugo froze his nuts off as the sun rose over the traffic that was crawling along the North Circular bypass during the early hours of Thursday morning. He nonchalantly chewed on an egg and sausage sandwich and washed it down with fizzy orange juice that he had picked up from a service station. His eyes felt like they were bulging out of their sockets and his skin felt like a piece of cling film stretched over his face. Such were the early mornings during these long autumnal days working on film sets around London and he was in no doubt that he was the first of the crew to arrive and the last to leave each time. Who could possibly question his dedication? A car hooted violently from behind, he glanced in the mirror and saw an angry moustached face gesticulating towards the traffic lights which were…yes, green…oh dear. Gears, revving engines and off…only to be followed closely almost bumper to bumper by the smart-arse in the rusting white Astra behind with the giant snail curled up on his upper lip clearly wanting to piss him off. It was too early for Hugo to give a damn.

He shivered whilst he waited for the engine heater to start pumping out some warmth, he admitted to himself that he rather enjoyed driving during these early mornings to the studio. He wiped his misty side window and peered out at the other drivers hunched over their wheels going to what he assumed to be some dull 9 to 5 office job.

‘How many of them were going to work on a film today?’ He thought with a kind of aloof arrogance and a dash of naivety. ‘Probably none.’

Then a darker thought crept in as a metallic silver Audi TT sports car whizzed past and prompted an instant stabbing sensation in his gut as he compared it to his own rattling motorized carriage. Hugo seeking a remedy to his sudden mood change fumbled around for the radio controls whilst he navigated his way across a busy junction. All of a sudden, REM’s ‘Everybody Hurts’ blasted out it’s monotonous whine causing him to jump in his seat bumping his head on the low ceiling and swerve the car as he instinctively focused all his attention on turning this loud, wrist-slashing music — OFF!

Hugo arrived somewhat frazzled as he drove through the gates of the studio in this very picturesque green area. He gave the security guard a somewhat forced toothy grin as he handed over his pass.

‘You’re a bit late matey,’ said the guard. ‘Rachel is already in the production office and by the look on her face I don’t mind telling you that it looks as if a storms followed her in ‘ere.’

The grin fell from Hugo’s face and that cling film feeling seemed to stretch tighter over his face and over the back of his head and his throat became suddenly dry.

‘Wonderful,’ he croaked sarcastically, then cleared his throat. ‘Thanks for letting me know, gives me some time to think something up, have a good day.’

The security guard waved him through as he raised the barrier and Hugo drove through the gate.

Hugo turned events over in his mind about what he might not have done, he was certain he had done all the chores before leaving the office last night after everyone else had gone. He was only a couple of minutes late so that couldn’t be the issue. Anxiety sneaked in, he knew that she would be furious with him about something or would at least find some excuse to make him feel his place. Indeed it was the culture of the production office, if something went wrong it was easier to blame it on the ‘runner’ and as a result no one else’s ego need be forfeit. All in all, this kind of crap came with the job and was considered by most film people to be almost like a traditional initiation to the business, unless of course you happened to have the gene stamp.

In one’s mind’s-eye and with the help of glossy magazines, a film studio is the home of the modern aristocracy, dripping with glamour as artistes, film-makers and executives stroll about surrounded by wealth and waited on hand and foot, where buildings might even be edged with gold leaf like the Grand Palace in Bangkok. Well, this wasn’t Hollywood, this was London and this studio was much more like a maze of giant farm buildings with people buzzing about between studios on silent decrepit converted milk floats than posh supped-up golf mobiles. Yes, there was something refreshingly down to earth about this studio which Hugo liked, even the faint woft of cow manure from a nearby field was rather reassuring.

Nevertheless, these things were not enough to soothe Hugo’s anxiety as he put one foot in front of the other up the stairs towards the production office in the main building. Farm yard smells was one thing, handling ego’s the size of Jupiter was something else and if this studio wasn't brushed with gold then it definitely had enough ego crammed into it to make it as unpredictable as a barman predicting the next super-nova.