A worringly large amount of stuff went right today. In fact, everything went right. First David and I took a trip down to Madresfield Estate, where we were shown the perfect location for crashing a car. Next, we secured Holy Well as our bad guys’ hide-out location. Then we went back to David’s to attempt more gunshot FX tests. The results were pretty damn lovely, as you can see on the gunshot FX page. Then I sorted out a video projector for the government briefing room and cinema scenes, then went home to find a message saying we had an army landrover and driver for the SAS command post scene. And any day now I’m going for a test flight in a microlight, to plan the arial photography. Sweet.

It was actually about noon the following day before I finished the script. We had the production meeting on Friday, to which everyone turned up (woohoo!) and seemed very enthusiastic. Mark Evans, our military consultant, said to me afterwards that he was amazed by it all – the way I was asking people completely ridiculous things – like does anyone know someone with a helicopter so we can do some aerial shots? or does anyone have a car we can crash? – and people were saying yes, and coming up with all these great options. I’ve learnt now to be open about this stuff. When I first started crewing for The Beacon, I was reluctant to send people the script because I thought they’d just laugh at its ambitiousness and think I was some nutter who didn’t know what he was doing. Can I just say to anyone out there to wants to make a feature film, but is worried that it’s too difficult, just go out there and do it. Once the ball gets rolling, it’s all surprisingly easy. Of course things do go wrong. The actor playing Conrad, for example, dropped out of the project without even telling me, leading to a panicked calling round of everyone vaguely suitable I knew, before hitting on Josh Green (already on board for a smaller role). My first paid directing job was on a two-day shoot for a community video about skateboarders. In those two days, everything that could go wrong did. Everything from bad weather, through location eviction to cast injuries. (None of it my fault, you understand. Neil wonders why none of his cast turns up for The Beacon the shoot….) I’ve done shoots that have gone like clockwork. Most importantly, I’ve done shoots where loads of things have gone wrong, but we’ve still got it all done and blown people away with the end result. (Okay, so that was entirely due to the talented helming of one Mr. Rick Goldsmith.) Anyway, it’s T minus one week, and I’m feeling pretty good. I know that there are a million things that can go wrong. It’s not going to be easy. It’s a big cast and crew, tricky locations to get to, probably boiling weather, and loads of gear to carry. But it’ll be fun. So I’m looking forward to it, as I sit here at my Apple Mac, newly relocated to The Kitchen’s ancestral seat in Malvern Link. I’m also looking forward to going up the Prince of Wales tonight, and that’s a mere four hours away! Hurrah!

Met up with Simon, the fight co-ordinator, today, to recce St. Anne’s Well cafe. It became clear that they were never going to let us film in there, so after I’d indulged in a surprisingly reasonably-priced Cornetto, we headed Wyche-ward, to look at a possible alternative to the Foot-and-Mouth-closed Gullet’s Quarry. And very nice it was, though sadly not what I need for the film. For some reason we found ourselves climbing over treacherous rocks and risking death/wetness to see if we could get out the other end of the quarry. We could not. We turned back. And didn’t die. Thankfully. Our last port of call was Holy Well, much like St. Anne’s Well, only smaller, more deserted and – as it transpired – absolutely perfect for filming in. There was the spring, in what appeared to be the bottom floor of someone’s house, with a little room next to it – ideal for keeping hostages in – and even though it was a sunny Sunday afternoon, there was no-one around. I ask you: what more could you want? Well, you could perhaps do without the constant noise of the spring trickling, but – hey – beggars can’t be choosers. And round here, film-makers are always beggars. Now you’ll have to excuse me, because it’s gone 9pm and I promised myself I’d finish the final draft of the script today. Bye bye.

Sorry it’s been so long since I wrote an entry, but I’ve just been doing all the boring producing stuff – phone calls, letters, e-mails. I need to get back in the creative groove. I can see myself scribbling storyboards the night before we shoot. Still, there’s a script meeting on Friday, so at least I’ll get a chance then to think about the script as something other than just a list of locations, props and actors to arrange. My friend Rob, who’ll be playing the Prime Minister, is in a similar situation. Only his involves several puppets and a giant lighthouse. (He’s setting up a puppet theatre company, and doing EVERYTHING himself.) Tomorrow night I’m giving a speech – yet to be written, I might add – about my short film Soul Searcher at a Rural Media event in Hereford. An excellent opportunity to plug The Beacon. I’ve spent the last couple of hours designing a funky little postcard. I’ll print some more tomorrow and leave them at the Rural Media gig for people to take away. Wow, publicity – and we haven’t even shot yet. We start on July 7th. I’m moving back in with my parents in Malvern for a couple of months, since I simply can’t take the prospect of flat hunting at the moment.

This week is insane. My landlord’s informed me I’ve got to move out because his girlfriend’s moving in, I’ve got to redo two days’ work on a paying editing job because the hard drive went down (fortunately not on my suite – phew, someone else is to blame), and a million people have rung me or e-mailed me about The Beacon. Not that I’m asking you to stop, it’s just that I always assumed that it would only be on the shoot itself that I’d run out of free time at nights in which to sleep. And – hey! – the auditions are on Saturday, today’s Wednesday, it’s 8:20pm and I’ve yet to post any script pages or audition times to anyone. Still, this guy with muchos nun chucks experience wants to be in the film. Sweet…..

A ridiculously complicated day of trying to juggle a corporate editing job with responding to the barrage of calls and e-mails that followed an article in the Worcester Evening News about my cinematic endeavours, and attempting to work out the logistics of closing off Malvern highstreet for a morning to film part of the mountain board chase. The latter was going very well, until one of the many people I had to call thought to ask what exactly the scene involved. I was forced to admit that it was basically two people chasing each other down the steep road on mountain boards. And that was the end of that. Oh well, I guess the chase will have to take place entirely on the hills and commons. Still, other locations are looking promising (though I’ve yet to get a definite “yes” on any of them). I spent last Sunday hauling my ass all over Malvern doing a recce. Miraculously, an air ambulance flew around the Beacon, and I was able to get it on video. That’ll be a tad handy for the “air ambulance flies around the Beacon” scene in the script. I’ve got a nice range of CVs coming in, from Equity actors with TV experience through to college drama students. People interested in being extras, or even just coming along to watch, have also been in touch. I’ve also got a professional make-up artist on board, and a friend of a friend who used to be in the TA has agreed to supply replica weapons and help the actors playing soldiers to get into the military mindset. It’s that scary time in pre-production when you realise that you ain’t never gonna stop that snowball now. But man, when it gets to the bottom of the hill… (The Beacon: it’s all downhill from here.)

Woohoo! The hills have been reopened, at least the ones I was planning to film on anyway. David Abbott, action vehicles co-ordinator, came round yesterday to discuss the climactic thrill ride that is to be The Beacon’s car chase. It’s gonna be the most fun bit to shoot, and to watch. It comes to something when you’re shooting a microbudget film and the car chase is the easiest bit to do…

D’oh! The hills remain closed. Still, the government assure us the situation is getting better, etc, etc. Anyway, I’m still avoiding worrying about anything on the production side of things yet. The script is now on draft 4b (yes, it’s got to the Super-numerical Draft Designation stage), and having just sat down and read it from start to finish for the first time since draft 1, I’m pleasantly surprised. It still needs a little extra something in the last act, but it’s very nearly there.

Okay. Script feedback. The main conclusion is: first half good; second half pants. It has become clear that Act III needs to go right out the window, since it’s just a sequence of random (and very expensive) action scenes. What it needs, says the Rickster, is a twist. What it needs, he continues, as I nod in wholehearted agreement, is to not be like every other action film, where by the halfway mark you know exactly what’s going to happen. What it needs, Rick implies, is for me to sit around trying to think of something cool and completely unexpected to happen round about the 90 minute mark. Cue lots of sitting around, and thinking about just about everything under the sun but cool and completely unexpected things. Still, lots of bill-paying work at the moment to take my mind off it (um, cos that’s a good thing) and to pay for some much needed look-nice-o-matic accessories, such as some graduated filters and a telephoto lens. The best thing I’ve heard all month is: the Malvern Hills are going to be reopened soon (curse you FMD, for making my country this way).

The Story So Far. It’s December 1998, I’m fresh off an incredible 3 week film course, and I’m starting a year long contract as an admin assistant for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. As I sit at my desk that first week, watching my superior explain the office’s filing system to me, I suddenly have a vision of an action hero running through the room, pursued by a gang of uzi-toting mercenaries. And I just have to write a movie about someone with a dull-as-a-water-free-ditch job saving the world. With guns. And explosions. And expensive vehicles crashing into other expensive vehicles/buildings/people. One day I’ll make it. When I’m rich and famous, and can make any film I want, with whatever cast I want, as many special effects as I want, and any locations I want. I have created The Beacon, and more than two years later, when I complete the first draft, and make the downright ridiculous decision to make it, now, this year, with a budget that an electron microscope would strain to spot, I have knowingly put myself on course for a heart attack before I even reach 22. And so we begin. While I await feedback from writers Rick Goldsmith, James Clarke and Mark Evans on my script (and wonder how they’re going to tell me it’s awful in a way that doesn’t make me never speak to them again), I release my pent-up creative energy (pretention alert – sorry, I should have warned you earlier) by storyboarding. A large proportion of my flat’s biggest wall is now covered in bad drawings, and that represents only a few pages of the 73-leaf script. It’s good to start thinking about the film visually. It’s amazing how much dialogue you realise you don’t need when you start boarding. Having worked out how the hell I’m going to finance the film (savings, investments and inheritances), I instantly made the first spend: the domain name for this site. I very nearly splashed out on some bargain movie theatre seats, too, for the cinema-gets-trashed scene, but sadly it was a “buyer collects” deal, and neither me nor the capital-based friends I rang round panickedly were able to pick up the red velvet bottom-holders from South East London.