It’s just over a year since pre-production began on Soul Searcher. I could have gestated a baby in less time. Kevin tells me a couple of distribution companies have shown interest, so it may be worth it in the end.

Last night Chris Mayall and I took a nocturnal trip to Dinedoor Hill, having decided it was the quietest place in Hereford to record sound effects. (It had to be night to avoid birdsong.) We pulled up in the little car park in the pitch black, fumbled around with some torches and began making bizarre noises with a delightful assortment of metallic implements. Before long we were interrupted by a pair of tinny-swilling ne’er-do-wells who were keen to learn why we were scraping gardening tools together on a hill in the middle of the night. We furnished a quick explanation, divulged the website address and bade them goodnight. The proceedings continued without incident, save for some unsolicited vocal input from the Hound of the Baskervilles, who was apparently residing in a nearby cottage. As we packed up we observed some shadowy fellows, doubtless of the Druidic persuasion, mounting the hill. We did not stop to determine the particulars of their assembly.

Had a meeting on Monday with a girl from Shrewsbury about making the set pieces for the miniatures. I’ve already scared off one person with the sheer size of the thing (I’ll leave you to make up your own punchline to that one) and another person dropped out due to paying work. Here’s hoping this will be third time lucky. The next step is to find a location – perhaps the infamous garden of Chris Jenkins – and then a licensed pyrotechnician to blow the damn thing up. As George Clooney said in the South Park movie: “It. Never. Gets. Any. Easier.”

We haven’t done any sound work lately because Chris M, the Boom-swinging Buddha of Suburbia, has had back trouble. With Soul Searcher being so quiet at the moment, I’ve taken the opportunity to travel back in time to the days of summer afternoons spent in the Courtyard with James, a pen and a folder. Yes, the dubiously-titled Nightland: The Dark Side of the Earth is almost something resembling a treatment now. God have mercy on my soul.

I’m looking for two or three more songs to use as source music in the film, and if there are any unsigned bands out there who would be interested in a bit of exposure, please get in touch. Specifically, I’m looking for two confident/aggressive rock tracks and one slow, acoustic song.

Royal Mail finally deigned to deliver the order for the miniature Mustang (third time lucky – if only the post office was as efficient as the weather service). I’m relieved that that particular absurd situation is over. I didn’t realise quite how absurd it was until I rang up my bank to cancel the first cheque. Mustangs, I should point out, are of that breed known as “muscle” cars due to their power. The nice HSBC lady asked me who the cheque was made out to and I duly gave her the name of the company: American Muscle Models.

It’s funny because it’s true.

Another post-apocalyptic Sunday in Hereford. Scott Benzie came over to go through the timing and nature of the film’s 27 music cues. We discussed the possibility of using a choir on some parts and a female soloist on others.

Jon sent me a photo of the Banshee so far. It was nice to see it, even though it’s a long way from completion. The, ahem, vehicle Jon is also making is going to be almost three metres long. Some quick calculations based on the length of the shots and the speed it will need to be travelling revealed that the miniature set for it will need to be about 25 metres long. Not so miniature, then.

The well of Soul Searcher news remains obstinately dry. I may mention that I am considering one or two people for the outstanding positions of Miniature Set Maker and Stop Motion Animator (Ezekiel Shots), and that I have a meeting this weekend with Scott to discuss the specifics of the film’s music cues, but beyond that I’m at a loss as to how to fill this entry. I suppose I could allude to some time I spent adding little chinking noises to the soundtrack whenever AJ handles the library chains, and how I was quite pleased with the Fluorescent Tube Hum sound effect which I created the other day, but I’m not sure that would be very interesting.

Until next time.

I’m sorry about the lack of updates, but really nothing interesting has been happening. I’ve been engaged in mundane tasks like burning timecode onto the whole film and compressing it onto CDs for Scott (the composer). I’ve done a little work on the sound design, but tomorrow I’m spending an afternoon with Chris Mayall to record a lot more SFX.

Um, what else? We have a mate of Ray’s who’s starting to design a poster for us. We still haven’t got the 1:18 scale Mustang yet because of a farcical series of cock-ups by Royal Mail and others. (How difficult can it be to send an order and a cheque to a company? On this movie, about as easy as skiing on one leg. And if anyone sends me an e-mail telling me they’ve done some skiing on one leg and actually it’s not that tricky, I’m going to scream.)

Locked the edit today at 94 minutes, 28 seconds and 10 frames. Is that light I see at the end of the tunnel? No, that’s the C train.

Turn-out at the last test screening on Tuesday was poor again, despite Chris’s best efforts. There were however enough completed questionnaires to see that my recent cuts had been for the best. Everyone described the film as “good” or “very good” and everyone ticked the “just right” box in the pacing section. Bizarrely, several people complained that there’s too much panning in the film.

Now barely over 97 minutes, the movie is coming very close to a final cut, but I’m still paranoid that there are dodgy bits in there waiting to jump up and bite me in the ass months down the line when it’s too late to cut them. I’ve therefore decided to put off locking the edit for a few more days in order to get some more qualitative opinions.

Last night I went round to Colin’s house and shot some “rain” against black. I also got the flashing red light shot using a fireglow bulb and a wastepaper basket, which means the only non-miniature shot left to shoot is the pressure gauge.

It’s 4:30am and I’m writing a journal entry. It’s just like the old days. What isn’t like the old days is that we’ve all been wearing t-shirts all night.

“This is the most random night I’ve had in a long time,” observed Andrew, one of the runners, “apart from last Hallowe’en.” But we won’t go into that.

Our evening began with a quick bluescreen shot of AJ here chez Jigawatt, then after a pleasant cup of tea we moseyed down to the leisure pool, where we had the singular experience of taking off our shoes and socks in the changing room, rolling up our trousers and proceeding through the shower room carrying lights, cameras and flight cases. AJ was quite nervous by this time. We had a little trouble acquiring a lifeguard, but by the time we had set up the lights and were ready to roll, three had come along to watch the fun. You will be pleased to know that AJ was not killed upon leaping from the board into the watery depths below. In fact he rather enjoyed it and wanted to do it again.

We came back here, had another pleasant cup of tea, then moved outside to shoot a Pepsi can flying through the air and a scythe going into a scabbard. Not particularly taxing stuff.

Most of the crew then adjourned to Manhattan’s for a couple of hours, before reconvening for a third pleasant cup of tea and starting to move the gear round the corner to High Town. You will have gathered by the narrative thusfar described that the night’s work was of a somewhat laid-back character. At 3am (still t-shirt temperature) we were reunited with Phil the Street Sweeper Driver an astonishing eight months after we first employed his services, to shoot the crane shot. This didn’t work out quite as well as I’d hoped, but nevertheless it will help the production value of the opening.

The final shot of the evening involved AJ flinging Ezekiel’s scythe as far as he could. It had been a deliberate decision on my part to leave this shot until the very end of the shoot, and as expected it did not fare well. With every take another piece fell off.

A few quick sweeper sound effects and we were done. All in all, a night of Soul Searcher shooting completely unlike every other night in almost every conceivable way.

By montaging the training sequence and making some trims which James recommended, I got the film down to 99 minutes. The training sequence is much more interesting now. Funny, it was always written as a montage but for the last six months it’s just been sat in linear form on the timeline. I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to go to the test screening in Cheltenham on Tuesday afternoon to witness firsthand how it goes down.

Everything is sorted for the shooting on Tuesday night. On Thursday I have to shoot some “rain” against black in Colin’s back garden, and I will still need to find a pressure gauge and red alarm light to shoot (I can see that not being shot until a week before the premiere), but I’m still on course for picture lock at the end of the week.

Duane is continuing to develop the umbilical cord effect. Suffice to say that I’m now very glad I didn’t pursue the string-in-a-fishtank approach. James Parkes, an animator based in Cornwall, has taken on the stop motion shots of the Moat of Souls and the creatures which dwell within.