This weekend I took over directing on the film, heading up the second segment with cast members Imogen Church, Ralph Mondi, James Fisher, Sophia Ellis, Russel Jones and Will Tosh. Kev Gates took over producing and 1ADing. Julian Newman Turner was on hand to get stills. DAY SIX was shot at my parents house in Chatham, and a friend's house in Gillingham. On this day I got all the internal shots out of the way. We ran over schedule by three hours, but this was due to getting the light correct internally, and a panic moment where we couldn't find anywhere to park in Gillingham; this distracted me a lot as I was worrying about the cast's cars being clamped even when I was told they wouldn't be. The first day directing on a film is always a little slow as everyone gets used to working with each other.

DAY SEVEN we moved to our farm in Hinxworth and got all our 'non special effects' shots out of the way. The usual railway fuck-ups meant we had to wait until 11am to meet, as a bus service was disrupting the line from Finsbury Park to Letchworth. Luckily my schedule had taken this into consideration, so we were ok. We ran ahead of schedule by about 15 minutes, so we had time to run an improvised scene. I was very pleased with the shoot, and had a long discussion with Kev afterwards about this segment. Kev said he was very pleased with the performances, and agreed with me that we should probably reshoot two of the internal scenes when we get a chance. This weekend has been very relaxed, but the shoot on the 13/14 August will give many cast and crew members the longest day of their life.

Today I sent out my schedule to my team regarding the first weekend shoot of the farm segment. We will begin by shooting interiors on Saturday, then get in all the 'non special fx' shots on Sunday. I'm quite pumped about my first weekend directing on this film, but shadowing Kev's segment has kind of got me back into the swing of things, and as a result I'm not too nervous.

This weekend we pretty much finished off the filming for the DEAD CITY segment of the film. DAY FOUR: the day started off badly when one of the runners didn't show up, only for me to find out he was an hour late and travelling to the wrong location. Luckily Kev found a relative to give us (and all the equipment) a lift to the location. The next problem was that the smoke machine had not turned up that Kev had ordered. What made this even more annoying was that Kev had paid an extra £15 for UPS Next Day Delivery, yet the package ended up taking two extra days!!! I went into Stevenage with Julian Newman Turner and we bought a smoke machine for £50. This proved to be a truly wicked piece of kit, and the whole car crash sequence looked really good as a result. Kev then went off with Jonnie Hurn in the late evening to film the final sequence in the segment.

DAY FIVE: On sunday we filmed the 'zombie attack in the car park' sequence. This was the biggest challenge for us logistically. We had permission from the counsil to use a car park in Letchworth from 5am to 10am. There were about a dozen extras made up as zombies, with three special effects artists on hand. Everything seemed ok until about 7am when some jeeps turned up. Apparently a local gun shop owner (who wasn't interested in negotiating) had arranged a Gun Show, and declared "40 cars will be parking here". There were some heated moments as Julian tried to reason with him. In the end I had to intercept every vehicle and politely ask them if they could park in a nearby car park. If all the people who agreed had said no, the sequence would have looked shit. Luckily they did, and we ended up getting a spectacular sequence shot in a deserted car park. Sophia Ellis, who is one of the main characters in my segment, doubled up as a lead zombie in this sequence and looked really good. Kev will film again in two weekends' time, as I secured a great location for him (an abandoned and trashed food shop) but that is just a one-off. Progress wise, we are now ONE DOWN TWO TO GO.

This weekend saw two more gruelling days effort put in by cast and crew. On Saturday we shot our first special effects scene. The zombie looked fantastic (played by Julian Newman Turner) - Scott Orr's special effects were very very good; I showed a still to a few people in the States that I know and they were gobsmacked. I guess everyone was expecting something crappy? We also reshot a scene from DAY ONE, as there was a weather continuity problem. After the shoot, I managed to secure the last outstanding location for Kev's segment (he had a backup, but this was his first choice) and I got it for free :)

DAY THREE: I finally got a cameo in the film - as a zombie in a cornfield! Even though I have tanned skin, I actualy got my first bit of sunburn since I was eight years old. I decided to make an appearance in the film as all our zombies have been white and fully clothed, so I went topless (with a lot of blood splattered over me and a shotgun wound to match) to give the film a little ethnic and clothing diversity. When the shoot was over, we checked out THE HERTFORDSHIRE ON SUNDAY newspaper and saw the article about the film, which featured a great shot of the deserted town and the cast standing vigilant. Everyone was pleased to see this.

Kev got back to me with comments on the third draft. We need to make a lot of changes, but we have a good framework. This means the actors will have to wait a little longer to see the finished script. All in all, things are moving nicely.

Tonight I managed to leave work early and spent all evening working on finalising the first draft of the Third Segment of the film. I will forward it onto Kevin Gates and Scott Orr tomorrow and we will go through a quick revision process. I hope to shoot this section in September. I am hoping to get Ian McCulloch to play the lead, although Kev thinks he would be more suitable in a smaller role. We both have enormous respect for him. Over the last few weekends Kev has been showing me episodes from a show Ian starred in and co-wrote: The Survivors. Now that I have mentioned it on my diary, it is probably sod's law nothing will come of this, but right now it looks a very real possibility.

Today we kicked off the production of The Zombie Diaries with a great day's filming in Letchworth. This was the segment known as 'The Dead City'. Kevin Gates was directing, with me and a runner, Darren, doing everything we could to support him. The cast (Kyle Sparks, Jonnie Hurn and Allison Mollon) were very natural and worked well together. Local filmmaker, Julian Newman Turner, was also present to lend a hand and take some stills.

The shoot went really well, although we required a 4am start in order to shoot without any members of the public walking into shot; we finished around 3pm. With full permission from both the police and counsil, Darren, Julian, and I destroyed one portion of the high street with litter, clothes, etc. I was then posted in a luminous yellow jacket at the end of the high street and made members of the public aware of what was happening so that no unnecessary alarm was called. The locations for this film are absolutely beautiful - I totally put my hands up and accept that we have had a lot of luck on the production. Today Kevin is conducting a press interview, and I am getting the official web site built.

Yesterday some terrorists attacked London, managing to completely shaft the transport system. As a result I have cancelled day two of rehearsals on Saturday, and will instead travel directly to Stevenage tomorrow as we begin shooting the first segment of the film on Sunday. I am a little worried, as all of the cast are from London and I am still yet to hear from one of the actresses!!

Today Kevin and I sorted out the production insurance for the film. We were given a quote a month or so ago, and today went ahead with the policy. It begins covering us from Saturday and will last for a full year. We have employers liability, public liabilty, and third party damage all included, with very high coverage. This weekend we begin the shoot of the film. Not much is on for this weekend, and there will be no special effects. It's always a good idea to start simple.

In other news, I am close to having a draft ready to send out for the third segment of the film. It has been delayed due to the limited time I have to work on the movie (I work very long hours during the week) and right now the other segments take priority. I am also writing in a part for a well known actor in the genre, who we think might be up for starring in the film.

I watched War Of The Worlds on Saturday and was utterly disappointed. In fact, this film needs some serious work! The first 20 minutes were awe-inspiring. The rest of the film was bad acting (especially Tim Robbins) and Tom Cruise surviving ridiculous odds to survive. So I have decided to make my own cut in the same way DJ Hupp did with AI: Artificial Intelligence. I am also going to use the really cool music by Jeff Wanye. Spielberg has utterly disappointed me. In my version, the character 'Robbie Ferrier' will die - his survival was completely unrealistic. It would have also made for a more poignant ending, tying up with the lead character's guilts about being a bad father.

Today we had our rehearsals in London. The firm I work for was good enough to let me use their premises, so we got to rehearse in a really gorgeous and ornate building in central London. Litza Bixler turned up and worked with me, Will Tosh and Sophia Ellis (Two of the cast) to create a 'Zombie training video' which I will distribute to my extras. The rest of the cast then turned up and we went through the characters, scenes, dialogue, etc and came away very happy with the final result.

The cast were originally going to improvise dialogue around the framework of the script, but as the drafts have gone on I have become incredibly picky; so much so that the cast have now said they won't need to improvise much because it feels so natural. This was a great moment. A friend of mine remarked recently on how I had a nerve to send the script out without it being formatted exactly to standards, but this proves my point that the story is more important than the font or spacing with which it is written.

I've always felt pretty bad for George Romero, the director who gave us the first Night Of The Living Dead movie. He was pretty much ignored for the 90s and has only now got to direct again thanks to the sudden revival of the Zombie movie. I found this great article on him today on CNN. Worth a look!

This weekend saw the very first rehearsals for the film, with more to follow next week and the week after. I also met Litza, the choreographer who trained the zombies from Shaun Of The Dead, in London, and have arranged to have her come down to rehearsals next week to work on the look of our zombies.

Kevin took his cast around the various locations in Letchworth and is all set to shoot. We'll probably purchase our production insurance in the next few days. I also managed to get around to seeing a film this weekend too (rare for me as I am so damn busy). I watched Undead, a really fun and inspiring zombie flick by brothers Michael and Peter Spierig from Australia. Time for another top 5.

1. Night Of The Living Dead (1990)
2. Night Of The Living Dead (1968)
3. The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue (1974)
4. The Evil Dead (1981)
5. Dawn Of The Dead (2004)

One final thing to note: I have two new interviews coming for the site, from directors Mark Jeavons and Chris Cunningham. Will try and upload them this week.

Over the last few weeks I have been in negotiations with Litza Bixler, the lead choreographer from Shaun Of The Dead, with a view to having her train my Zombies. Kevin, Scott and myself are going for the classic Night Of The Living Dead look, and we want our zombie's behaviour to be as polished as possible.

We have discussed making a choreography training DVD to send out to the extras which will also be included on the final release DVD of the film as an extra. I will try and arrange a meeting soon (possibly tomorrow in London) to hack out the details (Profit Share + Fee).

I've never held back on my opinions about the British Film Industry. It's totally shagged, and all we ever seem to get is shorts and features focussing on Council Estates with very unlikeable characters being all gritty and urban. Throw in a hard soundtrack too to cover the lack of direction.

Well, here is a really nice film made by a fellow poster on simplydv.com. It's not a masterpiece, and the ending is very predictable, but what I like about it is the care and attention put into its craft. It's fresh, and it works. Tired of gangsters? Click here to view the film and see other posters comments.

Today Kevin and I went out into Letchworth to conduct some location sound tests. A lot of planes fly around north Herts (something I noticed when filming Mnemosyne) so we might have a few problems on our hands. ADR is definitely an option, so we are not overly concerned.

I then went into London to meet Scott to chat about the third segment. London hit 30 degrees - I feel an impending Heat Wave is about to be unleashed. Why do I always get them coinciding with my productions??? Anyway, we met an actor friend of his who is up for being in this segment. I have some other actors in mind for other parts, and Kev will continue developing the script on Monday as he has a day off. It's all looking good.

This last week has been very stressful. There are only a certain number of hours in the week, most of which are taken up by my company. This means I have to find time to squeeze in wedding planning and producing The Zombie Diaries whenever I get a chance. Normally this is weekends and the occassional evening! Well this week I kind of 'burned out' and had to hand over the initial draft of the third segment of the film to Kevin Gates and Scott Orr ahead of schedule. I already feel the relief. At least now I know my limits.

In the last week, I have arranged and scheduled two rehearsal sessions; written around a third of the new segment of the film; secured a new location for interiors; scheduled meetings with actors; arranged specialFX head-casts as a middle-man between the actors and the effects team; oh, and updated the first segment of the story to enhance the characters. Producing is a killer, especially when you have a full-time job to work around! Kevin has also been busy, finally getting permission from the police to use a firearm in his film in public; you'd be surprised at how many things you are required to do in order for it to be legal!

The head casting sessions have begun, as the special effects team, led by Scott Orr, begin work on bringing the zombies to life.

I have also set up a forum for the cast, so we can discuss their characters, and have also finished the new draft of the film which sees two characters removed, taking the cast from 8 to 6. It was received well, and makes the atmopshere much more eerie. This is one of the few films where we did not reach 'final draft' before casting. I actually want to develop the script with the cast, fleshing out their characters so that we achieve a sense of realism not apparent in most low-budget horrors.

I had a very long week of work that contained a lot of travelling and a 4:30am start one day, so I didn't make any progress on updating the script for the feature, The Zombie Diaries. Today I met Kevin Gates and Sophia Ellis and we worked on extending Sophia's character, having removed two of the other characters in the film. It now has a much more creepy feel. We've also spent the last week getting the zombie extras ready for special effects head casting sessions.

The day rounded off nicely when I got to read a script by an explosive up-and-coming indie director, James Marshall, who worked on the Mnemosyne Poster, and some of the special effects. He's come up with an original film that I cannot wait to see and he begins casting/crewing soon out in New Jersey.

A lot of film students will know who Chris Cunningham is. He is a British director who is best known for his unusual music videos for likes of Bjork and Aphex Twin (Come to Daddy in partcular). I was chatting with James Marshall recently, and he mentioned Chris has developed a new short film entitled Rubber Johnny. It looks weird, which is always a good start! I don't know what else to say about it at this point ;)

After I received Elliot's e-mail about Mnemosyne being unoriginal, I asked a few people about the idea. Kevin Gates said that the idea of a dual reality sharing a common narrative is definitely original, but that you have to watch the film carefully to see that, otherwise you will miss it and end up thinking the big reveal is just "it was all a dream".

I remember once I had a friend who had returned home from Southampton University where he had studied English. I been waiting all semester to get his feedback on a short story I had written. He read it, and then seemed confused about the plot. It turned out he had tried to speed read the short story; erm, not a good idea. So with that in mind, it's for the best to not enter Mnemosyne into Raindance or any other festival. I can't realitically expect festival programmers to sit there and carefully watch the full 19 minutes. The ending is quite a lot to take it when it hits you, and is unlikely to be given a second watch. It's a shame, but the best thing for Mnemosyne is for it to be promoted on the net, not at festivals. Another lesson learned.

I happened across a great book recently all about directing actors. Most of the 'texts' on filmmaking/directing/scriptwriting that I have come across in my time are normally quite dangerous and should be avoided at all cost. For example, although it is a good idea to know of the Three Act Structure, you don't want to be brainswashed into thinking all films must comply to that and other 'rules'. Maybe that's why we have a generation of filmmakers that lean more towards the science than the art?

Well, I'm happy to say that the book I stumbled across today was very refreshing. It is about the actor-director relationship, and encourages you to generate your own original ideas, using real world examples of good/bad directing as a basis. Directing Actors by Judith Weston is a book for the open-minded director who wants to get the most out of their cast. I wouldn't be surprised if I read it through cover-to-cover tomorrow. Some of the suggestions about rehearsals and improv' are brilliant.

Elliot Grove of Raindance returned from Cannes recently and was able to offer me some advice about Film Festivals. So far I have only entered Mnemosyne into two film festivals, and had it rejected from both. One of the rejections didn't surprise me at all, but one kind of did. I always thought Mnemosyne was a very good 'film festival' short, as it had an extremely original hook (the dual layered narrative), and was quite polished. I naively expected it to go on a lap of honour of film festivals around the country. That sounds so pretentious doesn't it? Oh well.

Anyway, Elliot Grove had a watch of Mnemosyne. This guy has seen thousands of shorts and obviously knows what works and what doesn't work in the industry. This was his advice:

Hi Mike:

The camera work is quite nice and you know how to shoot and frame shots. The story achieves what it sets out to do successfully but it's painfully unoriginal and was probably rejected from other festivals because it's a very "film festival" story and has probably already been done in those festivals before.

I cant think of any other reason!

Hope this helps.

Elliot

So now I have some food for thought. Was the dual layered narrative not as original as I first thought, or did I make the ending too cryptic, thus not making this clear enough to the viewer and making them think it was just another one of those 'it was all a dream' films? I have always been a big believer in taking criticism on the chin, as it will only make you better. And it's also really refreshing to have an experienced person from Industry take the time to watch my film and help identify where I may have gone wrong. Kudos to Elliot.

Also, just to let you know, my friend and fellow filmaker, Mark Jeavons, just returned from Cannes. He made a Cannes diary which I found to be really enlightening. I recommend all other filmmakers have a read.

Many moons ago, when I first began this site, I interviewed a filmmaker named Faye Gilbert. She was an Orange FilmFour finalist and BAFTA nominee. Well, she finally got to see Mnemosyne and wrote me an encouraging e-mail:

Mike,

Very spooky! A fantastic exploration of entrapment. The ending was very powerful and the shots very well composed. Surreal. Well done Mike.

Keep on going - its tough out there!

Faye

There is somewhat of a running joke about me between Kevin Gates, Hakan Besim, Matt Hope, Julian Newman Turner, Mark Jeavons and all the other filmmakers I know. I tend to use the phrase 'blown away' quite a lot! Just do a historical search on my diary to see how many times I have been 'blown away' by something. It's becoming a trade remark ;) I can just see a film poster one day with the endorsement: "I was blown away - Mike Bartlett, MakingTheFilm.Com" hehe.

It is now mid-week and Kevin and I have come close to deciding on our final cast. There are two characters we have not yet agreed on. Man, has this been tough! When I look back at Mnemosyne I realise just how easy I had it. The cast were quite far ahead of their competition. But with this film it has been really close. There were so many talented actors, that I am hoping some will be interested in the third segment.

Actully, with that segment in mind, I approached a big Television company recently to see if we could use their premises briefly in the film. I am still waiting on confirmation, and hope to hear back from them this week. It would be a big boost if they say 'yes', so fingers crossed.

I've never thought of myself as anything other than a filmmaker trying to tell my story and help others along the way. But today I got an e-mail from the administrator of a filmmaking website asking if I had been involved in some posts on his forum from a wide range of names and IP addresses.

Confused, I navigated to the site to see a forum full of abuse. It was basically people slagging this guy down and telling him his filmaking would never amount to anything, one of them claiming to be a 'fan' of my site. I also noticed a thread devoted to me! It was quite amusing really, with people saying how arrogant I was because of an off-hand remark I made about a DV tape being worth its weight in gold! I never realised I had such a celebrity status that people would waste their lives debating my words and actions on a forum. These people will be dead in 60 years, so I hope they can find something a little more worthwhile to do with the rest of their lives.

Today we capped what has been a truly impressive weekend of auditions. Special thanks go to the landlords of our venue in West Hampstead, Daniel Oram and Sarah Stevens, who allowed our team to use their swanky flat. Also to Kyle Sparks and Sophia Ellis who read with the potential cast and were simply fantastic! Also to Hakan Besim, my co-producer on Mnemosyne, who made the effort to drive down to the venue despite only just recovering from being pretty ill. The multi-talented Scott Orr also was there to oversee the audtions, and unleashed some hidden acting skills as he read with the actors. Who needs Drama School?

The next week is going to be very tough, as we have some very difficult decisions to make about who to cast. The overall standard at the auditions was very high, and I was especially pleased to see both the level of thought given to the characters and the extent of the preparation by those being auditioned. By late next week, Kevin and I hope to be able to announce a cast.

In the last few days Kevin and I have finalised the casting sessions for Saturday and Sunday. We also have also changed the third segment of The Zombie Diaries into a full collaborative effort between ourselves and Scott. I've already ploughed straight into developing this thread, and have already contacted a local TV station in the hope of using their premises. Sophia Ellis, who is playing one of the characters, was very impressed with how we are loosely linking the threads together. With casting just around the corner, I am beginnng to get very excited about this project - it will be a truly wicked production.

I had a long chat with a friend of mine named John, from the States, who is currently taking film classes at the Full Sail Real World Education. We had a bit of an online chat about all things 'film', and got onto festivals and my issues with the British Film Industry. I mentioned on my diary a few months ago that I would try and do some research and find the top festivals worth entering if you are a low-budget filmmaker.

I have been so busy I have only had the chance to enter my film into two festivals, one European and one English. A quick flick through some festival booklets I have has given me the distinct impression that maybe I should be avoiding English festivals altogether, where an ass-licking tendancy towards anything that can be described as 'gritty' and 'urban' is pretty common. They normally get referred to 'as breaking new ground' when in fact Danny Boyle and Guy Richie did it years ago. So anyway, John is going to approach one of his instructors for me and explain what I am trying to do. Hopefully he will be able to get me a good list of reputable places, which I can then use in my forthcoming article. This is something I hope we can see through, as it would make a nice addition to the Quick Start Guide when I update it to include post-production, festivals, etc.

I began today by journeying into London to meet Kevin gates and Special Effects Expert, Scott Orr. We discussed the special effects budget, and how numerous effects could be executed in creative ways. Kevin and I have now released a small funding base to Scott for the intial make-up fx test period on the look of our zombies.

After the meeting I journeyed back to Kent to check out PRIMER which had arrived on DVD. The film is a breath of fresh air, and shows just how big the gulf is between creative, mould-breaking films, and the 99.9% of the rest of the Independent community. I mean: they are leagues and leagues apart. I quite liked how Shane Carruth (The director) cut a lot to black, something which is kind of my 'annoying trade mark' depending on who you ask :)

Kevin and I were very pleased to see the number of responses for cast for our feature hit close to the 100 mark. This is just for the first 3 days. We are still receiving lots even now! We have selected 33 people who we plan to audition over the weekend of May 14/15. I will try to keep new applicants in mind if they really impress me, but I don't like to keep actors waiting and plan to announce the cast very soon after the auditions. Although Kevin and I will both be present, I will be concentrating on the actors from my segment: SUE, AMINE, GOKE, IAN, JEFF and JAMES. Kevin Gates will be particularly interested in ELIZABETH, GREG and JOHN from his segment. Scott Orr already has the actors he plans to use for his segment, and this is no problem as there are only two.

In other news, I finally received my copies of PRIMER today from Amazon.Com. I am going to have a watch of them on Sunday and then let Shane know what I thought if his film (Since I promised to over a year ago!). This is probably the most highly anticipated DVD watch of my life!!

The response to our casting calls for the feature film 'The Zombie Diaries' have been phenomenal. Kevin Gates and myself will tonight choose the actors we believe to be best suited to the film based on their likeness to the characters we have in mind and their location. They will then be invited down to the auditions in West Hampstead, London (The same venue I used for Casting Mnemosyne) on the 14th and 15th May.

The casting calls went out today for the forthcoming feature The Zombie Diaries. The feature is due to be lensed in June, July and August of this year, and is a collaborative project between myself and Kevin Gates, and has a special effects budget of £2,000. I feel the film has large commercial potential, as it is much more mainstream than my previous arthouse short, Mnemosyne, which you can view in the Screening Room. Casting takes place on May 14th/15th in London. Kevin and I are currently accepting CVs and photos, which should be sent to: untilthelastlightgoesout@hotmail.co.uk.