It’s ten to four in the morning and I’m trying to finish the trailer, but I can’t because I can’t think of a tag line. So it’s competition time, folks. Come up with a tag line for Soul Searcher and win two tickets to the premiere, plus a signed copy of The Beacon. For real.

I finished the rough cut a couple of hours ago. It clocks in at around 107 minutes, which is more than I expected, especially given that we have a good 15 minutes still to shoot. It’s great because it means I can cut it really tight if I want without having to worry about it getting too short to be marketable.

Mya’s started work on some concept art for the special effects. We’re now officially on the look-out for matte painters, model makers, puppeteers, stop motion animators, cell animators, CG artists and visual effects DOPs. Woah, that was weird. As I wrote “puppeteers” I looked over at a photo of Ray and suddenly imagined he was a puppet. Woah, now Kermit the Frog’s popped into my head. Er, better quash this thought train quick…

The big question now is do I (a) start laying temp music, (b) finish the trailer, (c) watch Flight of the Navigator or (d) go to bed. I think a bit of (b), followed by (a) and then a big dollop of (d). Tomorrow I plan to see some real people.

I just bought Flight of the Navigator on DVD. How good is that? “David Freeman is eight years late for dinner and his family want to know why. But David’s got an absolutely fantastic excuse…”

I sent my camera off for repair AGAIN, this time to Canon UK’s headquarters in Elstree. Presumably there to be looked at by Finnesbury Park, their chief scientist. Let’s hope they can ACTUALLY FIX IT this time, rather than just keeping it for a few weeks and then sending it back unchanged. Worringly, whatever’s screwing my poor XL1-S over seems to be contagious, since my deck is now complaining of head clogs. I’m duplicating the rushes as we speak, just in case it turns out to be some sinister nano-virus intent on destroying Soul Searcher forever.

My bank statements are becoming interesting reading. We still haven’t been invoiced for any of the locations we used, so it’ll be fun when those come through.

Oh dear. I’ve just noticed that on the Navigator cover art one of the aliens appears to be… well, if you’ve got a copy of it, check out the kid’s facial expression and you’ll get the picture.

Watching the rushes from the first weeks of production is like stepping into some weird parallel dimension. All that stuff in High Town, and with the Companions of the Crew (sic) seems like years ago.

Anyway, I finished capturing the footage late Sunday night and started editing. Last night I edited until 6am, reaching scene 25. I also cut most of the teaser.

Somehow I’ve slipped back into a nocturnal cycle, getting up at 3pm, working until 4 or 5am then going to bed. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever see daylight again. At the moment I’m still capturing the footage into the computer. At the time of writing I’ve got four tapes left to go, so I should be done tonight and ready to start editing tomorrow.

I’ve recently been getting paranoid about my flat burning down and the film in its entirety being destroyed. As soon as I’m done capturing I’m going to start duping the tapes and then take them to my parents’ house for safe keeping.

Coming soon: new and improved website, with teaser trailer and much, much more. As they say.

Slept for 14 hours. Started clearing up the flat – a mammoth task. Met up with James to sort out the budget. Once all the expenses cheques have cleared my Soul Searcher account will be just shy of its overdraft limit. I have no idea how we’re going to pay for the January part of the shoot. That’s not something James will have to worry about though, as his role as producer is now most definitely at an end. He was aware that he was not up to the job and in fact had considered pulling out before the shoot but couldn’t bring himself to let me down. Fair enough, since if he’d done that the shoot would never have happened.

Still, that’s all in the past now. “You mean the future.”

Did I mention that on Sunday night I couldn’t sleep so I got up and started writing the sequels? No? Well, I have now. I didn’t get very far. Some dodgy 70s movie called The Beast Must Die was on TV and I kinda found myself watching it. Curse you, Peter Cushing.

My alarm went off at 7:35am and my immediate reaction was: “It won’t be dark enough to shoot for hours yet… must go back to sleep…” Then I remembered the shoot was over. I sleep-walked through the morning’s work, struggling to keep my eyes open, and was extremely grateful when it turned out to be a short day and I could bugger off home just after 1pm. I went to bed for three hours.

It’s pretty odd not shooting any more. We didn’t shoot yesterday, incidentally, partly because Chris Hatherall’s car broke down but mainly because of heavy rain. We sat in Rowden Mill Station for a couple of hours eating mini-muffins and stoking the fire before giving up and going home. A fitting end to the shoot, really. How fecking depressing.

Right, got to start editing. Bye.

I’m depressed. It’s all over (for now) apart from a few hours’ filming this evening at Rowden Mill. Most of the actors have gone home, the crew is dispersing and I’ve got to go to work at 9 in the morning. Once again the suckiness of freelance work hits home. We’ve all made a lot of friends on this shoot and it’s going to be weird not having them around for the next month or so.

Since my last entry, we filmed at Westons on Thursday night, which proved to be the coldest night of the shoot so far. It really was fecking nasty. Lara, Chris and Ray had spent the day terrorising staff and customers at Tesco, with Ray still in his scar make-up from the sunrise scene. After Westons we had a couple of scenes to do in town outside Doodies. It was one of those nights where we had a lot to get through and there was no time to really stop and think about it, but I was pleased with the results nonetheless.

Friday night’s shooting was on the rooftop of the Courtyard Arts Centre. I had expected this to be the most unpleasant night of the shoot, exposed to arctic winds and freezing rain. Fortunately it was a relatively mild, calm and dry night. We hauled all the gear up there, including a massive HOTEL sign, and starting turning over, only to discover that my Canon XL1S’ intermittent fault had become a constant one and it was now unable to record anything. We switched to the XM1 and shot the first scene, a dialogue one.

There were two other short scenes to do, one of which was a bit of an A-Team homage involving welding, which the multi-talented Ray was able to do himself. We used the jib to get some very cool shots revealing the city skyline. I swear if you look carefully you can see the Hudson.

It was Jonny’s last night so we spent half an hour outside my flat getting some publicity photos before bidding him farewell. Then it was inside to reshoot Ray’s air guitar scene, which had originally formed part of that horrible long night at Rotherwas/Rick’s house. At this point the XM1 started playing up, and there was a terrifying moment when we played back the night’s footage and the tape appeared to be blank. There was nothing we could do, so we pressed on and shot the scene, then I rescued my TV and deck from under all the junk that had been moved to dress the set and played back the tape again. Fortunately everything from the whole night was fully in tact.

Yesterday’s schedule involved a scene in which our heroes tool up with weapons from the boot of Luca’s car, and a sequence at Hereford Railway Station. Frustratingly, we couldn’t do either of these scenes due to unfinished props and an unsorted location. So that only left publicity photos and a piss-up. John Galloway and I burned several films shooting the leads out on the golf course at the back of the new actors’ house.

We all said a few words to the behind-the-scenes camera about how the shoot had gone. Certain names were cursed more than once. I had brought along some loaded BB guns and a blown-up photograph of a certain someone. The certain someone’s photograph did not survive very long. As blood alcohol levels increased the BB guns were brought back out and Edd, Ray and AJ started employing them against one another. Edd took to lifting up his shirt and inviting the guys to take pot shots at his belly button. He still has the scars. AJ then grabbed one of the guns and shot himself in the forehead at point blank range. Frankly guys, you’re a bunch of nobs. And that bastard Edd shot me in the arse.

We tried to shoot a whole bunch of pick-ups last night but we couldn’t get locations for some of them so it was a fairly short night. First we shot outside TGS bowling – a scene where Joe passes by lots of drunkards outside a club. These were all crew members. Production designer Ian Tomlinson got to shout an uncouth remark at Ray, and AJ got to have a sly second role as Hooded Smoking Man 1. Then we grabbed a few inserts, supposedly of the chained library, in the TGS car park, before piling into the van to go to the Green Dragon car park. On the way we had to stop off at Queensway, the road we filmed on this morning, in order to show Vicky where it was so she could knock on some doors and sort us out a power supply. After a good ten minutes of driving around, with Ray and AJ bouncing about in the back amongst all the gear… “That handle just went right up my arse…” / “That’s what your mum said last night…” / “Edd, if you slam the brakes on I’m going to (*&^UKP(*&@&….”, I finally remembered where Queensway was.

At the Green Dragon we got some inserts of the new and improved scanner in the Mustang, then used a very cool old window in the building for a shot we dropped weeks ago at the blacksmith’s. We then retired to our beds.

This morning we were up at 5:30am to shoot at Queensway, as we needed it to be almost but not quite night. After various delays, mostly caused by the Mustang not starting/running out of fuel/not starting/being really fecking annoying/not starting, we got a couple of takes of the shot, one of which I may be able to use. Then it was on with haste to Ledbury Road to film the movie’s closing scene, along with our newest crew member, Richard the Recovery Guy, whose flatbed lorry was carting the Mustang about for us. The damned car managed to work long enough for us to get a take of the wide shot.

Whilst the actors were turning the car round and bringing it back for another take, I was squinting into the camera when I heard a loud bang. I looked up to see a small red car with an L plate had rammed itself into the back of a van about twenty yards from us. A teenager and his dad staggered out, shocked but unhurt, as we gawped at the car’s new concertina-style bonnet. I later exchanged a few words with the father. “It’s all your fault,” he said. “We were both turning to see what you were doing and we didn’t see the van braking.” Yeah, try keeping your eyes on the road next time, mate. So we’ve now caused a road traffic accident. The ever-expanding disaster zone of Soul Searcher.

Anyway, the Mustang came back, then promptly conked out on a side road, so we had to push it into position to get the remaining angles for the scene. This done, me, Tom and Edd headed to Ascari’s for a hard-earned breakfast. That Mustang is now pretty much everybody’s least favourite thing on this movie. It may look great, but it’s cost us a packet and we’re all fed up of pushing it about.

I’m currently debating whether to go to bed for a few hours (we have a 7pm call tonight, and it’s gonna be a long night). Although I would probably be glad of the kip later on, it would mean going through that whole waking up, feeling like shit, wanting to go back to bed thing. Mmm, the jury’s still out…

The TGS exterior on Monday night was quick and painless. Some of the crew had gone straight to Campions to set up lights for Van Beuren’s last scene so we could get it done fast because Richard needed to get the 8pm train back to London. After shooting at TGS me, John Galloway and Richard had to hang around for about half an hour due to a miscommunication before Edd came and picked us up to go to Campions. There we found that Alie and Colin hadn’t got very far with the lighting set-up because there was a homeless person sleeping under the bridge and they were scared, Edd marched under the bridge with a torch, revealing the “scary homeless person” to be a bundle of clothes. We set up the lights then found ourselves waiting around for the other actors to come over from make-up. Once everyone was finally there we were all ready to shoot when we realised Edd had gone off with the keys to the Mustang. Eventually we got the shot, quickly changed set-up for Richard’s last angle and finished with him just in time for him to get the last train.

We were able to take more time with the scene’s remaining angles, and finished at a record 8:20pm. Edd, who had gone off to get coffees, was highly surprised to get a phone call saying we’d wrapped. It was another two hours before we got home though, as we had to push the Mustang onto the flatbed which picked it up (the battery was dead), then we had to push it into the car park at the Green Dragon. Then we had to go back to Campions and wait for a second flatbed which was picking the generator up.

Last night we were back at Westons. The scene was a fight which was to take place in the rain. David Abbott had built us some rain bars, but I had been worried over the last few days that they weren’t going to do the job. Edd, Tom and Colin spent the day buying extra bits and pieces so we could extend or modify the bars. Secretly I was hoping for real rain, because I feared nothing we could do was going to produce a convincing downpour.

When we got to location we were, to say the least, a little pissed off to find that the apple pit we were supposed to be filming in, and which we had been assured many times would be emptied in time for filming, was very much still full of apples. After spouting various obscenities, I hurried around the site to find another location. This done, and a water supply secured, we hooked up the rain bars and switched them on. The effect was good, but not realistic. It was too much of a fine spray. I decided to try taking the bars off and pointing the hose up in the air. Thanks to the wonders of industrial pressure water supplies, a 50ft geyser errupted into the air and fell back to earth in a very cool Hollywood-style mini-monsoon.

We set up the gear and started shooting. Edd donned a bin liner poncho and rubber gloves in his role as rain maker, whilst Colin was on hand to wipe the rain-soaked camera lens after every take. Jonny, Ray and Simon were all absolute stars, never complaining once about fighting and jumping around on slippery concrete in the cold and the rain and the mud. It was Jonnny I felt most sorry for as he was fast asleep at 2am when Simon woke him up to swap costumes with him, and he had to put on his manky, cold, wet costume and come out and shoot his close-ups. He was shaking from the cold. I felt so evil. Maximum respect to you, guys.

David Dukes’ props took a beating. Watching the rushes this morning was very funny, After every take Simon and Ray would go to a nearby wall and hurriedly bend their scythes back into shape for the next take. But man, the rain looked good.

Last night we picked up the Doodies scenes which we dropped a couple of weeks back due to our sound recordist pulling out. Bill Dempster, a boom op from London town, came up to help us out and worked alongside Kyle, a student from the local sound college, to record the audio for the night. This was not helped by the mixer which James got them. A portable SQN? Nope, a full size mixing desk, mains powered. It was also not helped by my extremely complex shots. “Right, Bill, in this next shot I’m tracking from this end of the cafe to the other, they’re all speaking and we don’t have any radio mics. Okay – rolling to record…”

We all expected it to be one of those wrapping-as-the-sky-grows-light nights, especially since we had to pick up Kat’s close-ups from the previous day at Doodies, due to H. Lehmann Ltd. (Stoke-on-Trent) being dumb asses. Actually we wrapped at a fairly reasonable 3:30am. My favourite scene of the whole movie was shot last night – Joe teaching Heather to play air guitar. We set the camera up on a dolly outside the cafe window and shot three takes of them letting rip with the silly faces and strenuous hand motions.

Edd’s trying to get to sleep across the room. He stirs: “Don’t forget the cup of tea, leaving your producer to lug heavy objects up the stairs by himself…. If you say I’m whining I’m going to smack you in the face.” The event to which he is dozily referring is last night’s wrap when I pissed off to the actors’ house to pick up my washing, leaving him to cart my armchairs (which had been used in the Doodies scenes) back up the stairs to my flat whilst I enjoyed a cup of tea with Ray. My defense is that such director/lead bonding opportunities subtly enhancing performance and the working relationship on set. But of course that’s bollocks. Probably.

After three hours’ sleep the crew got up to shoot Van Beuren’s introductory scene at TGS Bowling. It was pretty straightforward and we finished just after 1pm. It’s now 3:10pm and in half an hour we’re going back there to shoot a nighttime exterior before moving on to Campions for another short scene.