In this period MakingTheFilm.Com is declared a success. The film is sold all over the world and makes a huge profit. The next steps are to put together a new film idea with a minimum target of a worldwide cinematic release.

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In this period I attended Cannes with James Fisher, signed with Imagination Worldwide (A great sales agent). The film was then released on DVD in the UK and made most retailer's top 10. Kevin and I then attended some major international film festivals to promote The Zombie Diaries.

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In this period we managed to get a distributor for The Zombie Diaries. I then organised a trip to Cannes for James Fisher and myself. We launched the new trailer and website, which resulted in a lot of high-profile meetings for Kev and myself.

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In this period Kev and I completed work on the feature film 'The Zombie Diaries' and unveiled the movie at a world premiere in our home town of Letchworth Garden City.

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In this period Kev and I began work on post-production and pick-up shots. Steve Hoper began working on the music and we began recording the ADR. At the end of this period, the film was almost at a picture lock.

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In this period, the production team completed the majority of filming on "The Zombie Diaries".

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In this period, Kevin Gates and myself cast and began filming our collaborative film "The Zombie Diaries".

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In this period I moved into pre-production on the collaborative project, The Zombie Diaries. I also conducted another radio interview, and Mnemosyne went out to Mark Kermode for appraisal.

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In this period Mnemosyne went out onto the web and was received quite well. Based on feedback, people either loved it or hated it. Dare I say people either understood it or they didn't? Anyway, it was a landmark in this project. I then began developing two new ideas that will both be finished by the end of the year, as Mnemosyne (taking 18 months) did take a little too long.

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In this period we raced to finish Mnemosyne, completing it for web streaming by Halloween. The film went off to the Clermont-Ferrand film market.

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In this period I was shipped to Leeds as part of my new job to start work on "The biggest IT project in the world". Unfortunately for me I ended up joining right in the middle of a hectic period. I thus worked 12 hour days, ended up binning my old feature, and began working on a new feature entitled 'Quiddity', but only got 5 pages done! The sound for Mnemosyne went off to the Composer and Sound Designers, who were all 90% finished by the end of July. But nothing else really happened. Luckily my deadlines were early August, so the next period should be a bit more productive!

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After recharging in America, I came out swinging during this period. I forced myself to take action in a number of areas of my life. I finished the picture lock of Mnemosyne. I got myself a wonderful new job. I got my feature film halfway into second draft. Mnemosyne on the whole (as a picture lock only) was received with much praise, and the stills from the film are going to be included in a new book on Digital Moviemaking to be sold in both the UK and the US. In this period, I also interviewed Shane carruth who won Sundance with his super-16mm, 7K film, PRIMER; a huge scoop!

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This period has been the most eventful by far, and I will sum it up simply as absolute chaos! It began with me editing Mnemosyne in November, plodding along as usual. Then, after much deliberation, I resigned from my job in the interests of my career, giving up my flat in Letchworth in the process, and relocating back to Chatham. I decided to take a much needed break and go to the US to regain focus and energy. While there I finally made a huge update to my Quick Start Guide to Filmmaking , and got my feature film into first draft.

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In this period I completed filming 'Mnemosyne' and got to work on editing it. I also added a few more interviews and created a new section (Films) on my web site. The period was rounded off nicely by an e-mail from the president of the New York Film Academy, who praised the work thus far on the site.

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In this period, 'Mnemosyne' made its third, fourth and then fifth and final draft. Casting was sorted in early June with crewing in late June. I began filming in mid July.

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In this period I began developing a short film entitled 'Mnemosyne'. By the end of April the film had reached its second draft, with feedback from directors Hakan Besim, Kevin Gates, and writers Jeff Day, Stuart Folley and Jeff Povey.

By the end of this period, the location scouting was complete, and some of the shots (not involving the actors) had already been filmed.

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This was a very disappointing period of time. It was spent mainly aquiring new interviews for the site, as well as developing scripts. The camera went back out for repair in December after already being out for a month the first time. Compared with the impetus of the first year, however, this quarter was slow. It taught me that actually developing a good script is very difficult indeed! Jeff Povey (writer of a lot of British TV) did an interview for the site where he picked apart my first ever draft, and it really showed how tough it will be to get something finished of real quality - still, I am up for the long slog!

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In this period I directed three short films which are all available for viewing on the site. I also went into pre-production and script development for a special 30 minute film entitled Living Dead. Some bad news also came my way - my Canon MV30 developed a few burned out pixels and needed to be sent back for repair. The period finished off nicely, though, with a Q&A session with the team behind the British horror film 28 days later.

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During May I was supposed to be shooting and editing my first 10 minute film. My actress was ill, however, and we had to abandon everything. After this initial disappointment, things started to turn out very well. A work colleague by the name of Jeff Day joined my venture. We interviewed the director of a feature by the name of Dusty Rhodes down at the press association building in Victoria, London. We then stumbled upon a competition called 'gone in 60 seconds' which we will use to produce a number of short films and gain experience quickly. In June we found some actors over the internet and shot a 6 minute segment of one of their recent performances in an amateur dramatics group. This then gave us our first taste of editing.

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This was a very fruitful three months. It was spent learning about the different soundtracks available to independant film-makers; the different ways to get video to look like it was shot on film, exploring different lighting options; and becoming familiar with Adobe Premiere which is used to edit films. The period culminated in a flurry of purchases, such as a tripod and a wide angle adaptor for my miniDV camera.

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This period was spent learning about miniDV films in general, and researching into techniques and film-making do's and dont's. I began the period completely naive of the technologies involved in digital film-making, and ended it having purchased a really good grade of camera suited to low-budget film-making, having extensively researched my options.

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