Gone With The Movies recently caught up with first-time writer and director Simon Baker to discuss his new movie, Night Bus. Which has its world premiere at this year's BFI London Film Festival on Sunday 12th October, 2014.

Night Bus is entirely set on a double-decker bus during one Friday night in urban (rainy) London. Populated by unknown actors - but all very capable - the characters are stereotypes of those that you would expect to see; late workers, drunks, tired, active, old and young. Plus a driver who has to put up with it all.

Capturing the intimacy of public transport and the mixed diversity of London, there is a plethora of different narratives taking place between the passengers. Relationships end, some begin and others thrive. It is just like you are a passenger on the bus too and overhearing everything.

Click here to see our review of Night Bus -

My first inspiration for the film was the belief that ordinary conversations and ordinary people can sometimes be incredibly fascinating. I have always loved dialogue led, character based films as well as the simplicity of films set within a single location. My favourite film growing up was 12 Angry Men, and I love the work of David Mamet; Mike Leigh and Jim Jarmusch. Being a Londoner I have spent a fair amount of time on the Night Bus and know how eventful they can be.

Well the simple truth is, this was a self-financed, fully independent movie and we didn't have the largest budget in the world, as you can imagine. In order to have any hope of competing a well-crafted film such a limited budget, my philosophy was to keep it simple and contained, to focus on performance and character rather than trying to overstretch ourselves with unrealistic elements. It is one thing I've learned in my years of directing is that if you keep your objectives realistic you can produce great work that belies the budget.

The dialogue in the film certainly is improvised. But great deal of thought and preparation went into each character and each scene. Once the film was initially cast, I met with each and every actor and between us we developed characters and stories, we worked on motivations and what the major plot points of each conversation were. So that the only thing we didn't do was write a screenplay - but every other element of each scene was well rehearsed - we knew where the conversation started and where it would go.

In the very early stages I held open casting sessions, I posted the link to the project on casting websites, and asked actors to come along with monologues or character ideas. My belief was that if I could fill the bus with charismatic people, people I could listen to, I would be a long way towards my goal. Once I had cast the initial actors, I looked for actors that could complete the right mix of age and ethnicities and create dramatic balance. I’ve always believed that casting is the cornerstone of any production and if you get that right, you’re halfway there.

Yes. It was shot over seven nights.  It needed military precision to get everything shot in those nights. We had a tiny crew of about 10 - we have two cameras on the go, and we shot and shot and shot… One advantage of having worked in the business the 10 years is I was able to pull many favours on crew kit and post.

Simply, having reached the stage in my career I had - I just needed and wanted to get something made. Night Bus isn't a particularly commercial idea – and coupled with the unknown cast and the lack of script, certainly doesn't feel to me like a great investment opportunity. And if that's how I felt, I'm pretty sure that's how people with money would feel too. I really didn't feel like taking the idea around town in order to be told it wasn't worth doing. I’ve played that game before and its soul destroying. I figured with digital cameras, with favours and with a realistic plan it was something I could perhaps do on my own - so that’s what I did.

I had to make night bus while still keeping my day job. It was a juggling act - it took me a year to get to first cut. It was hard work, it was a lot of money, and I’m not rich by any stretch of the imagination. It was something I knew I had to do.

I'm incredibly excited, yet simultaneously incredibly nervous. Night Bus is an incredible labour of love for me, it's incredibly personal. Up until now, it had a great response within limited audiences - next week it goes out into the world for everybody to take it as they will. They don't care how long it took me to make, how much money I spent and quite rightly people will judge it for what it is. I'm going to have to take the good and the bad on the chin. I truly hope people enjoy it, it's not for everyone, that's for sure. But I hope the kind of people that appreciate this type of film will recognise that a great deal of love has gone into this, and considering how we made it, we feel we made a pretty decent job.

I have many, many ideas, I'm waiting to see what happens next few months, to see where,  if anywhere, the night bus journey takes me - when the dust settles we’ll take a look round and decide which idea we will go for next .