This week is insane. My landlord’s informed me I’ve got to move out because his girlfriend’s moving in, I’ve got to redo two days’ work on a paying editing job because the hard drive went down (fortunately not on my suite – phew, someone else is to blame), and a million people have rung me or e-mailed me about The Beacon. Not that I’m asking you to stop, it’s just that I always assumed that it would only be on the shoot itself that I’d run out of free time at nights in which to sleep. And – hey! – the auditions are on Saturday, today’s Wednesday, it’s 8:20pm and I’ve yet to post any script pages or audition times to anyone. Still, this guy with muchos nun chucks experience wants to be in the film. Sweet…..

A ridiculously complicated day of trying to juggle a corporate editing job with responding to the barrage of calls and e-mails that followed an article in the Worcester Evening News about my cinematic endeavours, and attempting to work out the logistics of closing off Malvern highstreet for a morning to film part of the mountain board chase. The latter was going very well, until one of the many people I had to call thought to ask what exactly the scene involved. I was forced to admit that it was basically two people chasing each other down the steep road on mountain boards. And that was the end of that. Oh well, I guess the chase will have to take place entirely on the hills and commons. Still, other locations are looking promising (though I’ve yet to get a definite “yes” on any of them). I spent last Sunday hauling my ass all over Malvern doing a recce. Miraculously, an air ambulance flew around the Beacon, and I was able to get it on video. That’ll be a tad handy for the “air ambulance flies around the Beacon” scene in the script. I’ve got a nice range of CVs coming in, from Equity actors with TV experience through to college drama students. People interested in being extras, or even just coming along to watch, have also been in touch. I’ve also got a professional make-up artist on board, and a friend of a friend who used to be in the TA has agreed to supply replica weapons and help the actors playing soldiers to get into the military mindset. It’s that scary time in pre-production when you realise that you ain’t never gonna stop that snowball now. But man, when it gets to the bottom of the hill… (The Beacon: it’s all downhill from here.)

Woohoo! The hills have been reopened, at least the ones I was planning to film on anyway. David Abbott, action vehicles co-ordinator, came round yesterday to discuss the climactic thrill ride that is to be The Beacon’s car chase. It’s gonna be the most fun bit to shoot, and to watch. It comes to something when you’re shooting a microbudget film and the car chase is the easiest bit to do…