The aim of the film was to capture daily life in the seaside Borough of Hastings (Hastings and St. Leonards). The area has for many years been a particularly impoverished area of the country, known for high levels of unemployment, alcohol addiction and drug use.
However over the last decade, the town has evolved into a hub for arts, music and culture. Because of this, and the low housing costs, recently there has been an influx of London 'hipsters' move into the town. Colloquially known as D.F.L.'s (Down from Londoners), the Guardian subsequently published an article in 2018 referring to them as F.I.L.T.H. (Failed in London, Try Hastings). The title of the film is a play on this: Failed in London, Thrive in Hastings.
There is now a large financial disparity in the town between the extremely wealthy and the poor, though the hundreds of festivals and events held in Hastings each year has provided integration for anyone and everyone who calls the town their home. Thus this disparity goes mostly unnoticed and there is a thriving community spirit.
Because festivals are so important in the town I wanted to include footage of one in my film. . The Only festival that took place during filming was Fat Tuesday (the Hastings equivalent of Mardi Gras) which usually lasts for a week, consisting of art events, performances, and umbrella parade, and on the Tuesday a Live Music showcase throughout the pubs in the town (essentially a giant pub crawl). The umbrella parade, possibly my favourite event of the festival, which takes place on along the promenade, was cancelled this year due to heavy rain and high winds (the irony of which is not lost on me) and therefor I didn't get to film this.
I had considered using past footage of events in y final cut however I did not feel the quality was high enough; photos and videos from past events can be found in the Gallery section of the website
During the day life in Hastings and St. Leonards is fairly slow paced. Hastings Old Town was voted by the Ramblers as Britain's Best Walking Neighbourhood 2018, this, coupled with the number of cafes, bars and boutiques in the town, set against the cliffs and seafront, it is an ideal setting for people-watching. Thus when filming the daytime scenes I tried to emulate the style and approach used by MacDougall in SchoolScapes (2007). As the evening draws in the scenes become more lively, then gradually slow again as the night draws to an end. For this reason I chose to use two scenes of the sea for my title and end scenes, emphasising this ebb and flow idea.
When I began filming I was apprehensive about approaching people to invite them to participate in the film, however I gained confidence in this reasonably quickly.
the biggest technical issue I encountered was getting the camera to focus at events with flashing/colour changing lights. Also, the audio was missing or unusable on some of my footage and so when editing I had to cut in audio from other clips which I found difficult to execute well, though I do not think these problems have effected the overall quality of the production.