Mmmmmm, explosions.

I voyaged to Hewelsfield, Gloucestershire. There, on the edge of a picturesque valley (and on his mum’s front lawn), Toby Stewart and his partner in crime, Alistair Burchill, blew up some crap. Let me pre-empt the lawsuit here and point out that by “crime” I actually mean “legally licensed, safety-conscious pyrotechnic activity”.

To begin at the beginning, Toby and Alistair – of Scorched Earth Pyrotechnics – gave me a brief tour of their kitchen table. This particular quadrupedal specimen of cooking room furniture was adorned with a range of explosive devices which would not be out of place in a James Cameron film. (I wonder how many government organisations have suddenly taken an interest in this website?) At the appointed hour, the neighbours having been forewarned, the two pyrotechnicians began setting off the multitude of explosives with which the front garden had been laced. This included a wooden board which had been rigged with bullet hits. Large quantities of foam were employed to put it out.

I asked whether they could do me something in a fireball. Alistair promptly disappeared behind the garden shed, re-emerging five minutes later with a small plastic bag containing some kind of petrol cocktail. This blew up very nicely. I was later shown a photograph of a fireball they had created previously at an airshow. From the size of the marquee in the bottom of the frame, it must have been over 50ft high.

We then got down to details, discussing the particulars of the film’s two main explosions. Fire or no fire? How much smoke? What colour sparks? Multi-stage or one big bang? It also turned out that another section of Toby’s garden was perfect for shooting the whole of the climactic miniature sequence. Vehicular access, scaffolding and heavy-duty power supplies were all readily available.

This evening I’ve posted on Shooting People for a DoP. I had been planning to shoot the miniatures myself, having long harboured a desire to shoot 16mm, but I’ve decided it’s not worth risking it. I wouldn’t want to make a dumb rookie mistake and wind up ruining the explosion shots.

I spent a lot of last week recording sound effects. Armed with a mic from Rural Media, and a pair of headphones which would look most at home on a Cyberman, I took a midnight stroll around Hereford, recording drunken revellers and a variety of air conditioning systems. This trip’s only noteworthy incident was a brief interrogation by a disembodied voice at Maylord Orchard, which wanted to know what I was up to. “WHY ARE YOU MONITORING?” boomed the voice, and then, “THIS IS SECURITY. COME TO THE SPEAKER. WHY ARE YOU MONITORING?”

On Wednesday I visited some family members in Malvern to record more effects, such as welding noises and various machines. On two successive evenings I made attempts to record that noise that rails make when a train’s coming – you know, the weird ssssshing kind of noise. Both attempts severely tried my patience, got me rained on and bore no fruit whatsoever.

“So there is a curse. That’s very interesting.”

For personal reasons, CG artist Duane Beckett has had to leave the project. Back to square one. AGAIN. A very long time ago I had a vision of me having to buy a 3D package, learn how to use it and do all the umbilical cord effects myself. The vision does not recede.

But for every exit, an entrance, this time in the form of a pyrotechnician (or “pyrotician” as Ed would say). He’s even offered to blow some random stuff up to give me an idea of what it’ll look like when we actually come to exploderise the models.

This afternoon I went to recce Chris Jenkins’ garden for the miniature shoot. I shouldn’t keep calling it Chris’ garden, since he doesn’t live there any more, but his mum Moira is always willing to help out. There are very few people who require mountaineering skills to tend their own garden, but Moira is one of them. As she descended into the steep undergrowth, playing out the rope we were using to measure whether my extensions leads were going to be long enough, and which she was also using to prevent herself from plummeting to her doom in the dell below, she pruned away some of the dense foliage and discovered flowers she had planted years ago and had not seen daylight since. Measuring the dell itself, we found it to be just barely wide enough to accommodate the 25m of set we need. A certain amount of landscaping is going to be required.

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.