The Beacon: October 10th 2001

Uuuuh, hurty head. And eyes. Doing 9 till 5, Monday to Friday (in itself a weird experience for me) on a paying edit, then coming home each night and working several hours on Beacon editing, does not do wonders for your general sense of well-being. I could totally afford to take a week off The Beacon, but I really don’t want to. Especially since I’m having some strong visions about the spectacular finale, and how I can make it look very very nice indeed. I won’t say any more because I don’t want to spoil the film’s ending for everyone. The other day I went to tackle an effect involving certain keys on the GEV rocket’s control panel. Again, I don’t want to spoil it, but it was a scene where some characters execute a cunning plan (nicked from an action film I nearly made 5 years ago, called The Prey) to find out the keycode to this rocket, but upon editing it I realised the plan could – and should – be simplified. I was about to do this with some fiddly complex effects on the keypad close-ups, but instead it occurred to me that I could just reshoot those shots. I had the rocket and other props downstairs, so I set up a redhead to bounce off my living room ceiling, and filmed a very tight close-up, waving a prop about with one hand and holding the camera with the other. Looking at the edited scene (which takes place outdoors, in broad daylight), you would never know such decadent trickery had been employed.

The Beacon: October 10th 2001