Went to Malvern to engage in fighting talk with Simon Wyndham. We went through the fight scenes one by one (Simon pointed out that there are twice as many as in most Hong Kong action movies) discussing the style of fighting, character motivations, camerawork, location and length. If only we’d done that for The Beacon. Simon showed me excerpts from his not insubstantial HK action movie collection to illustrate various points. “What’s that fighting style that’s big and show-offy and crap?” was as technical as I got. We noted that two of the later fights were very similar, and so made a change to the script that will add more variety and I think works out better for the characters in the end.

Edd Reed, the 1st AD, came up from Bristol, and found himself on a little tour of all the settings which will be so familiar to regular journal readers. After meeting with Cat in The Courtyard, we went for food at Deep Pan Pizza, then headed to Doodies, where we went through the script with a fine tooth comb, making sure that every prop, costume and effect was assigned to someone to sort out. Although inevitably most stuff had already been taken on by the art department, things cropped up like vehicles (a street sweeper and a Cadillac, anyone?), stunts (demons leaping down from high buildings, to name but one) and loads of little details (like making an extra, meltable scythe for a fire scene in which Joe’s weapon gets destroyed).

The most productive day of Soul Searchin‘ for a very long time. I called a meeting for the crew at The Courtyard this evening. Alongside Beacon veterans Simon Wyndham and Max Van De Banks were art director Jenni Gregory, camera assistant Tyler Winters, runner/production assistant Lex Collicott and Cat Whiteaway, whose role as production assistant became more and more like production manager as the evening went on. This all makes a big difference to The Beacon, where I didn’t give anyone any responsibilities until the shoot actually started – struggling through the organisation of everything from props to locations myself whilst also trying to prepare for the film as a director – and subsequently found myself with a lot of people hanging around on set who didn’t really know what they were supposed to do.

This time around, Jenni’s handling all the props and costumes, and Cat and Lex are sorting out the locations, freeing me up enormously to concentrate on storyboarding, planning lighting set-ups and rehearsing actors. The production staff even offered to try to raise funding.

After the meeting proper I went through the script with Jenni, sorting out which props I could provide myself, and noting a few changes in requirements due to redrafting. Fortunately her department is going to need negligible funds, except of course for the costumes and props which need to be made. I plan to find an art college student or two to help out with this. The news from Max’s make-up quarter was also good, and he was undaunted by the complexity of the demon concept designs which I showed him.

Filmmaking has its ups and downs. Today was a definite up.

Well, I picked option number one. Tiny budget. To help work out how tiny I can get away with, I’ve called a meeting of the Jedi Council – erm, well the key crew members – on Friday. The guy I originally cast as Joe is kind of back on board now, after a little negotiation with his agent, so in theory, as long as I can scrape together enough cash to cover travel expenses, props, costumes and public liability insurance, principle photography can go ahead. I can then use the rough cut to attract further funding to pay for the special effects.

So Soul Searcher won’t be the step up in budget from The Beacon that I had hoped for, but with the top notch cast we have so far and James’ input on the screenplay, it will still be a step up in quality.

I started making the calls today to let the Soul Searcher cast and crew know that the project is on hold. I’m currently agonising over whether I should go ahead and make it on a tiny, Beacon-esque budget, or hold out for more money. Watch this space.

Britain sucks ass. I’ve been back for less than 30 hours (of which more than half have been spent unconscious), but I HATE it. What the hell is up with all those cars driving on the left? And why does everyone pronounce their vowels properly? And what happened to all the lard, salt and sugar?

Let me explain a little about being a freelance filmmaker. It rocks, basically. It’s well paid, it’s flexible, it’s varied, you get to travel for free, you meet new people, you get to laugh at all the poor plebs who sit in offices for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. It’s brilliant in every conceivable way, except for one: whenever you do a big shoot, you spend several weeks working intensively with a bunch of people who you end up utterly adoring, then the shoot ends and you NEVER see them again. Which is horrible, totally horrible.

So I’m really depressed now, and wondering how soon I can get my ass out of this country for good. What I need is a film, just one film, that will make people sit up, pay attention and say “That guy needs to come over to the states right now and make us a movie.” Hmmm….

Anyway, what was this journal about?

The shoot here continues to be almost farcical in many respects, but still a hell of a lot of fun. I’ve decided my next movie’s going to be made in the US. It’s so cool here, except for the fact that all the food’s coated in sugar and it’s impossible to buy clothes that fit you unless you have a waistline of equatorial proportions.

The guy I cast as Joe has had to turn the part down due to its unpaid nature, and this has led me to a big decision. If people are going to keep dropping out because there’s no payment, I’m going to end up with a sucky movie. So I’m raising the budget to a minimum of 100,000 squid. Of course it’s not going to be easy to get this, so shooting may not begin as planned in October. We’ll continue working on props, costumes, locations and all that stuff, and I’ll do everything I can to get the money together. If you see a spiky haired busker on the streets of Hereford or New York, please write a blank check (oops, been here too long: cheque) and toss it in the hat.

It’s pretty sticky here in Orange County, which I guess is what you’d expect. Hot and sticky. I’m having a whale of a time. There’s about a dozen of us crew staying in a big ole house with a white porch and a screen door, cruising the interstates in a minibus on steroids, singing Cheer Up, Sleepy Jean. There’s lots of night shooting, which is great experience from a lighting point of view; I’m getting to try out stuff that I can use in Soul Searcher. Despite it being pretty intense (last night we shot 10am till 3am in order to get ourselves back on schedule), I’m managing to squeeze in some storyboarding, currently of Soul Searcher’s climax.

James – let’s not beat about the bush here – has dropped out of the project, which is obviously not good, but the show must go on. I’m trying to find a replacement producer, but it’ll probably end up being a case of getting a really good production manager and just producing it myself. So it’s funding applications, location permissions and scheduling all the way when I get back.

I write from an apartment in Brooklyn, on a dodgy laptop that seems to click randomly without me wanting it to. What a rush glimpsing Manhattan from the plane, touching down at Jeff Kaye airport, and cruising under the Brooklyn bridge in a Lincoln. Storyboarding at 40,000ft was a new experience. More soon…