I’m watching Back To The Future 2 again. It’s the only one I’ve got on VHS – my DVD player’s now at the actors’ house. Damn it. Still, it is the best one.

The second half of the multistorey car park scene formed the bulk of last night’s shooting. Anneka Thurgood, Sarah Fletcher and Lisa [arggh, can’t remember your surname, sorry] arrived to play victimised clubber girls to Tom’s demon. Anneka and Sarah both had to do a lot of lying on the cold skanky car park floor in skimpy clubber gear, but they seemed to enjoy it. Becky, our new make-up artist, did some sterling work on cuts and grazes.

We finished that up at about half two and nipped over the road to Rural Media to reshoot another of the scenes from Joe’s flat. It took no time at all and we wrapped an hour early. “Hey you, get your damn hands off of her…” Sorry, concentration slip. “Marty, the entire future depends on you finding Biff and getting that book back.”

We lost yet ANOTHER day’s shooting on Sunday, this time due to our sound recordist dropping out at the last moment. We can pick it up before the end of the month, but it’s going to result in an insanely intense few days in the middle of a fortnight without a day off. But it’s got to be done.

The one blessing of all these dropped days is the time it’s given me to edit. Having seen it start to come together I feel so much better about the whole thing. By the way, for those of you eagerly awaiting a trailer I actually got round to starting on it yesterday, but it may be a while before it’s finished. Plus it has the music from Speed on it at the moment, so it probably won’t make it on to this site for copyright reasons.

Last night we shot another demon fight at the Leftbank Village. It was quite a laid back evening – it was never a scene that was going to take a whole night to shoot, so we scheduled in a reshoot of one of the scene’s in Joe’s flat for afterwards. The fight, however, came to an abrupt end a few shots in when martial artist/stuntman Shane Styens, in his first day on the shoot, gouged a chunk out of his arm after falling backwards onto some concrete steps. We were appalled to find that neither Hereford nor Worcester’s A&E departments were open (what the fuck?) so he had to wait until this morning to see a doctor. I guess he’ll need it stiched up. Poor guy – he was so enthusiastic as well.

We grabbed a quick shot with Ray to close the scene (which we won’t be coming back to finish off) and moved on to my flat, which was scaling new heights of skankpitness. All the furniture had been piled into the bedroom so we could film in the living room. The scene was quick and easy to shoot (we wrapped nearly three hours ahead of schedule) and looked infinitely better than the version we shot a week ago when we were all completely knackered.

The last batch of props also turned up last night. Whilst some of them, notably Luca’s rifle, were fantastic, others had to be quickly handed over to production designer Ian Tomlinson for some modification/rebuilding ahead of their onscreen debuts this Thursday.

Right, gotta go – call time’s a-coming.

Tonight we shot in a multistorey car park. There was a lot of waiting around at the start as Alie and Ian made valiant attempts to complete the demon make-up, which finally wound up looking pretty good. The overall demon look is still not quite right though, but I think we got away with it for tonight’s stuff. I don’t want the demons looking dodgy to be that one thing that ruins the whole film.

I knew it was going to be a fairly short night, but even I was suprised when we wrapped an hour and a half early, plus we did a fair bit of stuff that could have been left unti the next day we’re at the car park. The fight seemed a bit short though, so maybe we can shoot some more combinations when we’re back there.

The camera threw yet another fit, proving well and truly that it still has not been fixed. I shall struggle on with it until the end of the shoot, then it’s going straight in the bin.

I’ve spent the last couple of days editing like a mad man. I’ve been working late into the nights and I’ve somehow managed to rough cut pretty much everything we’ve shot so far. It’s forty minutes long. I can’t believe half the film now exists.

Right now I’m kneeling at my computer because Edd’s nicked my chair to sit on as Alie, the script supervisor, practices demon make-up on him. It’s looking pretty good at the moment.

Last night we shot the training sequence at Westons Cider. I had Eye of the Tiger in my head all night. We were filming amongst a big cluster of vats which looked very cool. Chris Jones came down with friends Tom and Andy who doubled for Ray doing some crazy shit. We wrapped a little late but it all went really well.

There was an amusing incident the other night when I dreamt I was filming in my flat and started talking in my sleep.

Me: Where’s Colin?

Edd (waking up): What?

Me (not waking up): Where’s the crew?

Edd: They’re probably at home in bed.

Me: But Ray’s here, right?

Edd: No.

Me (finally waking up): Shit, I dreamt all that?

We’ve got a couple of days off now since there’s nothing we can shoot with the available cast and crew. I’m going to spend the time editing (although sleeping has been more of a priority thusfar).

The scheduling problems mean we’ve had to take a major sequence out and hold it back until January. This at least means that the rest of this month will stay pretty much as planned.

My sincerest apologies to David Dukes. I received an e-mail from him last night which he sent several days ago, explaining that his phone was broken and he was unable to contact us. Also, due to the postal strikes, the money I’d sent to finance the props had not arrived, meaning he didn’t have the working capital to complete everything. Thanks to Scott Lamplugh for his e-mail defending David. My intention has never been to disrepect David’s work and certainly his level of commitment and dedication (and resultant lack of sleep) cannot be denied. David, if you’re reading this please get in touch as the pictures you sent of Luca’s weapons look fantastic and we’re all looking forward to using them.

Apologies also to James, who it seems is not dropping out after all. No, I don’t understand either, but I’m sure all will be explained in the fullness of time.

Get ready, cos this is a long one.

First of all, apologies for the lack of updates. My computer was used as a prop a few days back and has only just found its way back to my flat.

On Friday we headed out to Rotherwas Industrial Estate with Ray and Jonny to film a four page dialogue scene which I had cleverly decided should be one continuous steadicam shot as they walked down the street. It took a fair while to light. And as for actually shooting it… man. 24 takes. Aside from line fluffs, screw-ups also occurred frequently in the camera department with lights getting in shot and so forth. Plus we were recording sound onto minidisc recorders in the actors’ pockets linked to lapel mics. When, on about take 18, we finally made it to the end of the scene without any screw-ups, we were slightly annoyed (to say the least) to see BLANK DISC flashing up on the display on Jonny’s recorder. Six more takes later and we finally had a technically useable scene, but by that time the actors were so cold and fed up of saying the same lines over and over again that the performances were not up to scratch. Can you say reshoot?

We then moved to a house to shoot the scenes in Joe’s living room. This required Ray to look tired. He did not find this challenging. One of the scenes involved Ray playing air guitar. By this time it was 7am and daylight was starting to filter in. Most of the crew had deserted us, including Edd – though not through choice – he had to stay at my flat because we’d lost the key and couldn’t lock up. This may also go on the reshoot list. (Arrggh.)

Colin and I then had to walk home since everyone with cars had buggered off. Edd was fast asleep when I got in. I described the night’s events to him deliriously. For some reason it seemed extremely funny. I got to bed at 9:30am.

Saturday’s work was just as long but even more unpleasant due to the fact that we were outdoors all night. And it rained. All night. We began with a scene outside James’ house – a very simple scene, but it was complicated by losing costumes, the vast numbers of fireworks going off in the vacinity, and the rain (which at first we tried to sit out, until we realised we’d never finish this movie if we did).

This done we moved to Technical Rubber Products on Rotherwas Industrial Estate to shoot scenes that we dropped on the first week from the High Town schedule. This involved Ray kicking a bit of demon ass and doing a lot of running. It also involved a very cool practical effect which you’ll see when I cut the trailer next week. The rain kept pouring down, accompanied by a pretty cold wind. Our lights were all stood out in the monsoon and somehow managed to keep working despite everything physics teachers have been telling us for decades.

Come three o’clock I was feeling extremely wretched and miserable thanks to the weather (and I’m sure everyone else was too) and the temptation to cancel the night’s final scene was great. However we couldn’t afford to drop another scene, so on we went to Hereford Crematorium, dragging Kat out of bed for her graveside scene. As we were setting up the rain intensified and the more sensible crew members amongst us started to murmur about death by electric shock and such things. We derigged and stood under the crematorium porch, hoping it would ease up enough for us to get the shots and go home to bed. Finally it cleared a little and we got back out there. Poor Kat probably froze her ass off but the weather was extremely atmospheric and really added to the scene.

Sunday we were indoors all night, thank god. We were filming at the place where everyone knows our name (that’s Doodies, if you’ve been living in a cave for the last 18 months). There’d been a screw-up with the key so we were a bit late getting started, and extremely late finishing. Ian did a great job of dressing the location and it really looked like the cosy, friendly place I wanted on camera. It was Chris Hatherall’s first night of shooting as Gary and much hilarity ensued as he and Ray perused the copy of Loaded that had been brought in as a prop. Kat fell asleep in the corner; we finally got to her bits at about 4am. Ray had taught her how to make cappucinos for the scene. With the end in sight, the appearance of a noisy garbage truck outside was not very welcome, but it soon went away and we finally wrapped as it started to get light. After a lot of washing up and furniture moving, I returned home, tired but extremely happy with the day’s work. It was also the most fun day so far. Plus it was indoors.

For all the good footage we’d been getting lately, things were starting to go decidedly pear-shaped in other areas. Due to non-arrival of certain props our schedule has been thrown in disarray meaning we won’t wrap at the end of November as planned.

Whilst in Doodies, Edd dropped another bombshell. But enough about his ass. He told me that James didn’t want to be the producer any more.

Anyway, Edd’s been promoted in his place and immediately proved his mettle by buying us a nice big lasagne for lunch last night (Monday). The night’s work began at Manhattan’s, where we shot an exterior scene on their fire escape. Sound was a bit of an issue, what with passing cars, music from inside the club, whirring air conditioning units and church bells chiming.

Then it happened.

Cueing the tape up to make sure I didn’t record over the previous night’s footage, my eyes were greeted by the horrifying sight of the Doodies material largely obscured by big grey and green pixels. It was all I could do to stop myself from crying. Or throwing the camera across the car park.

But there was nothing I could do about it, so I cleaned the heads, put in a fresh tape and started shooting the fire escape scene. We then headed back to my flat for food (the aforementioned lasagne) and a production meeting. We checked the fire escape scene back – it was fully in tact, complete with fantastic sound (that Ian Preece is a genius). A quick review of the Doodies footage revealed that it was mostly fine; we had only lost the last hour or so’s work.

After the meeting, at which we announced James’ departure, Edd’s promotion and Vicky’s promotion to 1st AD.

We then set up outside for two fairly simple scenes outside my flat. This was fairly uneventful, save for a visit from a drunken man who staggered worringly close to the camera, and a fair amount of pissing about involving renditions of songs from The Labyrinth. We wrapped at the relatively reasonable time of 3am.