So we start tomorrow. We finally got here. Funny, it doesn’t feel like that much of a big deal. I don’t know, maybe it does. I’m kinda excited. I’ve just been sorting out my equipment, trimming gels, charging batteries, that kind of caper. Edd’s been typing up call sheets – he’s been doing far more than I have – maybe I should get him to write something…

Howdy Ho! Edd here, Neils first AD. My abilities have been greatly exagerated (as has my spelling) but its nice to know I’m appreciated. I am very stressed, worried that everything is going to go pear shaped, worried about weather, extras not turning up, the council giving us the wrong type of power socket, the list is long and boring. But I know that in a couple of months we will all meet up in a pub, and then laugh about how it all went pear shaped (well Neil won’t, but hey). Anyway thats it from me. Back to the (Ose)man.

Thanks, Edd. We should make that a regular feature. Um, I’m afraid I don’t have anything else interesting to say. Tune in on Tuesday for news from the front line.

James had an experience with a nipple-shaped biscuit which he proceeded to drop in his coffee.

Edd arrived this afternoon and the three of us went to Doodies for a little production meeting. It turns out that more stuff was sorted out than I thought – it’s just Edd had only been telling me about the non-sorted stuff. I found a spare hour to catch up on a little storyboarding. That’s all. Two days. Pah, I laugh in the face of two days.

It’s coming home, it’s coming, my camera’s coming home.

I mentioned the repair problem to my dear father. He said something like: “You want me to call them up and give them an ear bashing? I quite enjoy complaining about things like that.” Must be a middle-aged thing. Anyway, he must have really enjoyed himself because he spent the best part of two days on the phone and rang me up this afternoon to proudly announce that my camera was repaired and ready for collection. Which just goes to show, when they tell you they’re waiting for parts to come in, they really are talking complete pants. Me and my naivety.

The production team got final confirmation on the street sweeper, which frankly had been worrying me a little.

I’m experiencing the exact same feeling I had in the last few days of pre-production on The Beacon. It’s a kind of empty, hasn’t-sunk-in-yet-and-never-really-will feeling. Anyhoo, must go. Corporate edit job to finish this weekend, unless I want to be working on it during the daytime next week…

Things that made my heart stop beating in the last few days:

1. Location for our first few nights of filming: having apparently cleared this with the council, I received an out-of-the-blue phone call on Monday from a guy talking about booking forms and running things by councillors and other things that sounded like they would take weeks. James was going to ring up and try to charm them into letting us do it. I don’t know how he got on.

2. Props: I got an e-mail from the props maker listing the items he would be bringing down with him for the start of the shoot on Monday. Two crucial items were missing. Fortunately a quick e-mail back sorted this out.

3. Having no camera. What is the one thing you can’t make a film without? What is the one thing I don’t have? Hint: they’re the same. The dumb asses at H. Lehmann Ltd, Stoke-on-Trent (I hope you all burn in hell) didn’t fix my camera by when they said they would. So I’m having to hire one.

All of which was fun, fun, fun. Some advice: never make a low budget film.

Ray was present when I wrote that last entry. I think it freaked him out.

What a fantastic weekend it’s been. For James it was his first opportunity to meet the cast, and for both of us it was quite moving to see the words we’ve had on the page for so long coming to life in the more than capable hands of our very talented cast.

Possibly the weekend’s weirdest experiences were going for meals with the actors in such infamous locations as Doodies, The Courtyard and even Deep Pan Pizza – where, fittingly, inaugural journal entry mentionee Deep Pan Sasha was working at the time. I can still remember showing James my earliest (and extremely bad) concept sketches of Luca in that restaurant, so to have Lara Greenway regail us with tales of learning to twirl toy guys on her fingers in the very same place was quite odd.

We finally got our Cadillac equivalent – Jonny Lewis (Ezekiel) turned out to own a rather nice 72 Mustang convertible. What are the chances of that happening, eh?

I’m off to London for four days of corporate shootology now, so no journal entries for a little while.

One week to go.

First day of rehearsals with the actors today, spent working on the cafe scenes with Joe, best friend Gary and of course Heather, followed by afternoon rehearsing the romantic scenes with the two leads.

No time to write any more really, except to say it went reeeeeeeeeeally well. Production meeting and recces yesterday were also great. Roll on October 20th…

Oh, merry me. Twiddly dee dum twinkly ho ho ho. Edd is now on the case. I don’t have to worry about anything any more. At this very moment he’s sitting at his laptop typing up call sheets for the whole shoot. He’s so on the ball, it’s almost scary.

We did tech scouts of most of the locations today. By we I mean me, Edd, Simon “chop socky” Wyndham, Ian “everything but the boom pole” Preece, Vic, Alie, Colin, James Swindells and Ian Tomlinson. The purpose of tech scouts is to familiarise the core crew with the locations, sort out mundane things like toilet facilities, power supplies and parking, and things of that ilk. I’ve never had the luxury of doing them before, and man were they useful. Particularly for Edd, who made copious notes, and Ian Tomlinson, who got to see the locations he would have to dress and how his props were going to fit into the scenes.

This evening Simon Ball and I went to the Courtyard to see the kids from Fame. Okay, not really from Fame. From the Courtyard Youth Theatre. In order to cast bit parts and extras. More tomorrow, I’m sure.

It’s 12:45am. The only reason I’m still up is that Edd, the 1st AD, is coming up on the last train in order to be present for tomorrow and Friday’s tech scouts. I’ve been taking the opportunity to catch up on some storyboarding, which made a pleasantly creative diversion from all the producing tom-foolery.

I tore my hair out last night and this morning trying to work out a final shooting schedule that took account of all the cast and crew’s availabilities, restrictions on locations, avoiding filming out and about on Fridays and Saturdays, etc, etc. After much rubbing out, pencilling in and rubbing out again (followed by some vacuuming to remove the rubbings-out), I finally arrived at a schedule that works, although five pence says it turns out I’ve made a fatal mistake somewhere.

This afternoon two of the camera assistants came over for some training on how to set up lights and tripods and jibs and things of that nature. I don’t know where the rest of the day went, but went it did.