Up at the crack of dawn, or indeed before it. The crack in question was the small gap twixt impenetrable cloud cover and horizon. So much for my planned wide shot looking down on Malvern as it’s rendered in orange light and long shadows. But on the bright side, it matches with the smeggy weather we had for principle photography. Back to Holy Well, Castlemorton and Gullet Quarry for some sound effects, then to my parents’ house to film their piscine-nourishing cameos. Dave and I then killed the middle part of the day before driving up Leominster way, where road and rail run parallel, to film a tracking shot of a train, which I don’t think either of us thought for one minute would actually work, but work it did, once Dave’s turbo-impaired, lorry-preceded Xantia had caught up with the offending omnicarriaged vehicular item. My list of shots left to film is now down to seven, but I fully expect to discover more things I need. Everyone make a space in your diaries for the latter part of January, because I’m pretty close to some premiere date-naming.

More reshoots today, with LJ joining me in Hereford for some ADR, and inserts for the photocopier and train toilet cubicle scenes. Then we travelled to Malvern to extend the graveyard scene with a sequence of Sarah wandering through Great Malvern and into the cemetery. We finished at lunchtime, despite me expecting it to take all day, and I came back to Hereford to cut the new footage into the film, which proved tricky since LJ has lost weight and trimmed her hair, but what can you do? Anyway, I’m off back to Malvern again to prod Mike with a stick.

Beech Business Park: The Location That Would Not Die. Back to “Los Angeles” today, with John “Cameron” MacLachlan, Sarah “Bay” Harrison and Max “Make-up Dude” Van De Banks. For once it was not pissing down with rain, so we got straight to it by remounting John’s opening Trivial Pursuit line. Then we got the shots of the jeep and associated sound effects. The last slate was an extra shot for a scene on the summit of The Beacon, where the edit had revealed that Cameron appeared to be standing by and watching as the hostages escaped. So I devised a shot in which Cameron would lean over the recently murderlised Bay and grieve for a few seconds. The only background was sky, so we filmed this at the business park, with Sarah lying on the jeep’s bonnet so I could get a suitably low camera angle. Then we realised that John should have had his hat on for the Trivial Pursuit line, so we redid that. Finally it was back to my place with John to re-record a few Holy Well lines. Cue lots of satisfying crossing-off.

Well, I decided not to geek it up today, and stayed away from the Model Railway Swapmeet. As much fun as it would be to do some miniature photography, it would really require models of a scale that you just can’t buy, so you then get into making it, painting it, creating a background. It just isn’t worth it. I sent a press release to local rags, saying I’m looking for a composer and an orchestra to do the music. That’s about the most interesting stuff that’s happened, I’m afraid.

SCREW YOU, HAMILL! YOU GET NOTHING! NOTHING!!! For the Oseman lives. Well, turned out I had to work this morning, so I rearranged the microlite trip for the afternoon at 1pm. I was nearly a full two hours late, due to work running over. However, it all worked out for the best because as a result the sun was quite low and I got some pretty stunning shots of the South end of the hills. The Beacon itself was in shadow, but who the hell cares about light quality when you’re shooting from the sky? Woohoo! Seriously, I recommend it. I would suggest not taking a camera, though, as the necessity to film everything precludes the opportunity to experience the view with your own eyes. By the way, the conspiracy endeth here. I’ve found Malvern’s reservoir. All in all, a smegging good day’s work. Large section of “2nd unit photography” list crossed off. Mike, meanwhile, is working on the 3D FX on his old computer, whilst awaiting the arrival of his new Cyberdyne Systems supercomputer. Also: found a helicopter; looking for an airbase.

As part of my drive to actually get round to doing the remaining filming, I got back in touch with microlite pilot Dave Read, who promptly set up an arial excursion for tomorrow morning. So whilst every sane person is still lying in their beds, I shall be in a two-seater bit of cloth with an engine, trying desperately to hold my camera steady as we sail majestically over the Malvern Hills – or I might puke up and kill someone, like the dropping-an-AA-battery-from-the-top-of-the-Eiffel-Tower scenario. I leave everything I own to Mark Hamill. He needs it more than me. Especially dead me.

Everything seems very strange to me right now. The other night I got really into some BeaconFX I was doing and went on into the not-so-wee-any-more hours, the end result being that for the last couple of days I’ve been working through the night and sleeping during the day. But it ends here because I’ve run out of stuff to do. Yup, I’ve done all that I can do. I’m now waiting for Mike’s computer to arrive, so he can get started on the 3D FX. Once we’ve locked down the lengths of the 3D shots, I can lock the whole film, and get onto creating the soundtrack. (If you see a man with a big furry mic wandering about, recording strange things, that’ll be me). Then comes grading. Then it goes off to the BBFC. Then it’s done. Of course, there are still a few things left to shoot. I’m trying to schedule all those things for a couple of week’s time (strange – that coincides with Dave being back in the area – it’s almost like I need someone to drive me around) because I keep putting them off. By the way, anyone have a helicopter we can shoot a quick shot in?

Right, everyone buy Dreamwatch tomorrow because my main man JC wrote one of the articles in it. Simon Wyndham put me on to some very cheap software that does some pretty cool-looking muzzle flashes. I might get it, since the ones I did by hand look a little cartoony. I used the good old UFO lamp (responsible for the Kitchen logo) for some FX yesterday, but I’m not saying what. Laziness got the better of me and I decided to use Soul Searcher as the film they’re watching in the cinema scene, to save having to film something specially. It actually works better, because it’s nice and in-jokey, and shows that even though I’m taking the piss out of Hollywood cliches with The Beacon, I admit that I’ve succumbed to them myself in the past (and present).

I’ve put the fire FX on hold, having got them looking as good as I can for the time being. They probably need some smoke to complete the illusion. The last couple of days I’ve been doing the muzzle flashes, having studied those in Airforce One closely. They work best on the train stuff, since I can also brighten up the surrounding walls to make the whole carriage flash with light. Dave’s going to have a go at the office window compositing, though I don’t think either of hold out much hope for decent results. The big rubber Reshoot finger is pointing right at me. I’ve got to stop being so lazy, just sitting around doing these FX, when I should be arranging and shooting the remaining 2nd unit photography, primarily the arial stuff, the military landrover and the film-within-the-film.

If you’ve read the Guerilla Filmmaker’s Handbook, you’ll know the story of low budget production company Living Spirit’s bad luck with their second feature, White Angel. The film was about a serial killer, and had the extreme misfortune of being released just as the Fred West case hit the news – and they had been shooting right next to Cromwell Street. This resulted in a lot of bad press for the film, seen as tastelessly cashing in on the real life murders. The media of course will not care less about The Beacon’s release, despite its unwittingly topical plot elements of terrorist-laden-aircraft-crashing-into-building, government air strikes and biological weapons. But it’s still quite annoying. Progress on da Beak has been slow, with the paying edit’s weekend break being filled by the shooting of eponymous journal mentionee James Clarke’s European-style art film Friendship of the Seasons on Saturday, and a relaxing-but-ineffectually-so Sunday. I’m back to work on some fire FX tonight. On Friday I showed the current cut to some mates, with a largely positive response, and one of them, sound man Chris Mayall, has composed an excellent track for the score.