Today was the final day of filming. We're done!!!!

It didn't run as smooth as I had hoped, with about 14 extras not turning up. James Fisher and Will Tosh made the treck from London, as did my friend Goke, who played an extra. It was quite a straightforward night-shoot with the night vision camera, and with that, we're now officially onto post-production.

Timelines are as follows:

1. Trailer goes up 01-May-06
2. ADR Completed 20-May-06
3. Foley Completed 20-May-06
4. Music Completed 01-Jun-06
5. CGI Completed 10-Jun-06
6. Film Completed 17-Jun-06

Kev and I also tried out the Rode NT-2 Mic and it was brilliant. We are all set for the remaining ADR days. Thank God this film will be finished soon!

Today Kev and I were joined by actor Jonnie Hurn, and a bunch of co-workers from Kev's job, as we journeyed into the woods to shoot a graveyard attack sequence.

Transport was provided by our ever-dependable production assistant, BoBo Jobes, who also helped us erect crosses and graves. Scott Orr and Mike Peel joined us from make-up to help pull off a rather nasty attack sequence. Everything ran to time, and we rounded off with a good curry. It was quite a smooth day with little stress. When we got back, Scott has a good chat with my friend and fellow filmmaker, Mark Jeavons, about a project of his. It sounds quite interesting, and I hope to be able to lend a hand on this. I am currently pursuing some avenues he asked me to look into regarding pre-production.

A lot of people completely misunderstood my humour in the original entry for this diary log, so I have decided not to mince my words:

Zombie Diaries may be my last film for a very long time, as my priorities have changed over the last few months. My financial and time obligations are to my family, and as a newly married man I am looking forward to spending time with my wife and making the most of the time we are going to spend in the UK with my family.

Zombie Diaries is by no means my last film, and I will continue to help out on other people's films while I can. I will not, though, be working on any big-scale features without sufficient funding or backing. The filmmaking has really taken it out of me for the last year, so a long rest is in order.

This website is by no means about to go into extinction, and I am by no means about to 'give up', but my readers have to realise that circumstances do change. There will be plenty of funding opportunities in the future and I will evaluate each one as they come along and we'll see what happens. But for now, my intentions are to finish and promote the Zombie Diaries, and then take a much needed break to restore my work-life balance. I haven't planned any further ahead than that :)

A few bits of news:

Firstly, we are all set for our Bank Holiday weekend of filming. All extras, makeup, effects, transport, etc has been sorted. We can get these into the edit within a week, so we will have a picture lock for the sound guys within the next 7 days!

I have one more interview with a sound designer tomorrow and then will make a decision over who I am going to recruit to design and mix the sound. Kev and I are almost totally out of budget, so I have ended up having to buy a full ADR Kit (Rode NT2-A Multi Pattern Condenser with shock mount and stand - £280) with the intention of selling it in a month, as I can afford the small loss but cannot afford to rent a studio for two more days. It is a shame as the Theme Team were bending over backwards to accomodate our small budget, but I do not want to exploit anyone.

Steve Hoper has been in touch, and our long awaited trailer to the film should be ready in the next week. I can't wait to see what he has come up with.

I have seen two very good films recently that I wanted to mention on my diary. The first was the South African Academy Award winning film Tsotsi, which was a really good example of how to make a film about an unlikeable character. Most British gangster films are always full of complete wankers who I have no interest in. This film made an effort to explain why the main character was so fucked up in the head, and then charted his slow transition towards catharsis. It was also very moving. My friend, Josh, who I went to see it with was left wiping the tears from his eyes at the end. The cinematography was great, in-fact evetything was great about this film.

The other film, Road to Guantanimo was one of the scariest films I have ever seen. For me the film was about ignorance and stupidity, and rings home the line 'being in the wrong place at the wrong time.' The direction and acting was brilliant. I don't think I ever want to see it again, but it is a film I think every person needs to see once in their life. Kudos to Michael Winterbottom.

The final shoot days have been arranged. We will be filming on 29 and 30 April. We then have some ADR days afterwards. I have been meeting lots of sound designers and mixers in London over the last few days, and hopefully would have chosen someonee by the end of April. Kevin has got a CGI artist involved, who also doubled up as an extra! The CG artist had a look at the footage today. He loved the movie, describing it as 'The horror film that has everything'. I think Kevin and I have made a good decision by focussing on the human struggle in this movie, as opposed to making it an all-out Zombie Fest. Paul, the CG artist, said he can finish the effects work by end of May. It will be tight to finish in time for Raindance. If we do, we'll find out how serious the UK film industry really is about independent movies.

I also got a text from Dusty Rhodes today. He liked the idea I came up with regarding a feature that can be funded. He wants to discuss it with me and Kev in person in more detail. I would only want to pursue this project if Kevin Gates was also on board, as we have agreed that we make a great team and would like to do another collaboration. I am happy with the way we work. Unfortunately although this is supposed to be a 'warts and all' diary, I can't say anything about this new film at this stage.

Today Hakan Besim and I met up in central London to film a corporate film for my company. It was a good laugh. The film was based on Star Wars, and featured Yoda, C3P0 and a wookie :). Everyone had a great time, and although we feel behind schedule, we managed to have a good afternoon session and finished ahead of time. Hakan took over directing for a large portion of the day while I switched to sound recording. He did a great job. It's nice to do something a little light-hearted once in a while.

I was having a chat with my mum today and she suddenly brought up a revelation that Michael Aspel (Presenter of This Is Your Life) had had an affair with Pamela Anderson. She then continued to tell me how she made him admit he was the father of many celebrities. It was all a bit bizare, but mum swore blind that it was true. She said she had recorded a documentary that proved it, where he gets all his illegitimate children to meet up for dinner.

So I start watching this 'documentary' which started off OK. Then one of the children - that chick Michelle from Liberty-X - bursts into tears and runs off. It seemed totally unrealistic, and left me thinking WTF? Then they all have dinner and there is a big confrontation, which was silly. It then was blatantly obvious the whole thing was a spoof. The bloke "Shayne" from Westlife, along with Michael Aspel himself, was actually quite good, but every one else was poor and gave the game away. It was quite a nice try at a spoof and fooled my mum, though. I wonder if she will believe Zombie Diaries was actually a real event she somehow missed in the news? ;)

The last two weeks have been intense. I have been working hard to close off and hand over work, as I left my role in Leeds on the 31-Mar-06 (Where I have been for the last 2 years!). I have now found a new job in London, which I start on 10-Apr-06. My handover duties included training sessions with other members of staff, and producing a film for an important Government Event, attended by Terry Waite!

I will probably now move back to Letchworth Garden City, as I don't want to live in London. Today I got stuck back into producing. There are two events that need organising and also some paperwork that needs to be signed and sent. It's good to be back.

Today I was in London to present the first annual academy awards for mature filmakers. These awards are strictly for people over the age of 40 who have been unfortunately forgotten thanks to socierty's obsession with 'up and coming young filmmakers'.

Everyone over 40, say "I".

Mike Bartlett with director Kevin Gates

Mike Bartlett with Budget Filmmaker, Hakan

'Kevin', runner up for Best New Talent with his film THE SILVER CHALICE

'Rupert', winner of Grand Jury Prize, with his film I KILL YOU

Dusty Rhodes returned from Thailand recently and sent me an e-mail instructing me to get in touch, as he had some news. I did so, and found out that is brother, who is a multi-millionaire out in New Zealand, is willing to financially back the next film, on condition he likes the script and feels it can be successful. The money involved would easily allow a full shoot on High-Def with proper lenses and a paid crew. I would still shoot the film with a high-energy, low-budget approach.

I don't want to get too excited about this though, as I know that there is a lot of speculation and talk in the industry, but rarely does funding truly materialise. Dusty's brother funded his last film, which was shot on super 16mm and distributed around the world (With the exception of the UK - probably as there were no counsil estates involved). They made 6 figures from that, and have a great network of distributors, so there is a good track record there, and much to feel posiitve about.

The last week has been very hectic, with a lot of rushing around for my company. I get to see lots of London, though, which is never a bad thing. I've also been in the process of corresponding/meeting with applicants for our Sound Designer/Mixer post. Normally I just arrange to meet them in a cafe; I can then play a DVD off of my laptop and then listen to material they have created. We have plenty of time to interview everyone so things are looking good - we've had some really talented guys apply.

Today we had Sophia Ellis, James Fisher, Imogen Church and Will Tosh down to the studio in Gravesend for their ADR. We overan by half an hour, but we got everything covered.

We will probably need two more days to cover everything. I have also just put an ad out for a Sound Designer/Mixer. Hopefully we will get someone on board to create some great effects for us and polish the film off.

Today we had Alison Mollon, Jonnie Hurn and Kyle Sparks come down to a studio in Gravesend for their ADR. Next week will be Sophia Ellis, Imogen Church, James Fisher and Will Tosh. Everything went well - the ADR was managed by Stewart Taylor of THE THEME TEAM. Kevin and I came away extremely satisfied with the end results.

I also found out which advert Kyle is in. There is a Budweiser soccer commercial playing on Sky Sports (and sometimes ITV) about Americans trying to learn how to play football. One of them misses a penalty kick by blazing the ball over and shouts "Yes!" - well that is Kyle! I saw it just the other day during a Chelsea match, but only realised when it was too late. So I will keep a keen eye out.

Today was a fantastic shoot. About 12 members of the Territorial Army arrived at the farm, fully kitted out and with two extra uniforms for actors Toby Bowman and Scott Ainslie. We were also joined by Simon Frances and his friend Chaz, who provided a military jeep and a host of weapons. This was arranged via Paul Heddel (PDH Enterprises) who I unreservedly recommend for any kind of military vehicle hire.

Kev worked mainly on the camera, and I occassionally took on the role of gathering the sound. My friend Sam Maughan came down from leeds and played one of the contamination guys, along with BoboJones who is one of Kev's friends from Letchworth. They examined a zombie corpse (Adam Lutz) and took samples, always remaining cold and ominous, a symbol of the virus and its aftermath.

It was a real pleasure to work with the TA, who even acted in some of the scenes. The performanced were spot on, and a special mention goes to Victoria Nalder who was simply brilliant as the sole survivor. Overall, an incredibly positive day.

Paul Heddell managed to secure us another Truck, but due to the limited number of weapons, Kev and I decided it would not be worth it, as we wanted a shot with many soldiers getting off of it with guns; this will now not be possible. We agreed with Paul to take £200 off the final cost, which worked for all parties. I phoned his colleague, Simon, who will be bringing the Land Rover and weapons. Everything is now set. Head of SFX, Scott Orr, has been up for the last 3 nights in a row sculpting the zombie for this sequence.

As we approach the 26th February, there are two pieces of news:

1. The TA have confirmed they will be coming to location with a team of around 9 men. They will bring extra uniforms for our actors, and a camouflage land-rover.
2. Paul Heddel, the chap who is renting us the Lorry, Jeep and SA80s, said they his truck man let him down. This means we will be without a Truck and are down to 3 SA80s (from 7). He has, however, been able to come up with 2 alternative weapons. I am in the process of sorting out a recalculated cost.

More updates soon...

The edits that Kevin and I decided to make have really worked. We took on board a lot of the feedback we got from our initial test screenings, and the new version has now gone out to the Cast so they can prepare for their ADR.

Today we started getting comments back from the Cast. Everyone loved the movie, and they have even been having their own test screenings with their friends and contacts; I'm pleased to say the results are excellent.

Initially Kev and I had problems with pacing issues, but most of them seem to have been sorted now. With music and full sound, the film will be very nice indeed!

I have also been really busy this week. I was in London on Friday shooting a film for my company. I then journeyed to Clapham to meet with Chess Grandmaster, Raymond Keene, to discuss joining forces to produce some really swanky Educational DVDs. Chess might sound boring to many people, but it is actually an amazing game, and still unsolved by computers. Playing it also keeps the mind fresh and creative. Raymond has written many books on the various avenues of Chess, and was an official organiser and commentator at the Times World Chess championship in 1993.

After our meeting, I dashed to Letchworth, where Kev and I worked on Version 4 of the film. I reckon it will take 5 or 6 edits before we are 100% happy with it. We also have arranged to shoot two additional scenes in the next month, just to really gel it all together.

Oh yeah! - one last thing. The chemical suits arrived, and they look great. I have also purchased two gas masks to go with them. Fingers crossed the shoot on February 26th goes well. :)

This weekend, Kevin and I journeyed to London to see the film's composer, Steve Hoper, at his new swanky studio. We were joined by our head of special effects, Scott Orr, and actor Scott Ainslie (who played Graham in my film Mnemosyne.

We did a test screening of the film and then got some great honest feedback. I believe that people should be brutal, and I'd rather have my professional colleagues kick my film in the teeth, than have the buying public do so. That is precisely what happened. Scott Ainslie was very specific about certain things that did not work, and areas that need to be tightened up. Obviously as a filmmaker you decide what criticism to take and leave, but I am pleased to say that Kevin and I agreed with most of it :) Most feedback was related to maintining a coherent pace and rhythm to the film. When you have three seperate stories, you implicitly have three beginnings, middles and ends! Some nifty cutting and editing and will sort this out, though! :)

Saturday night Kev and I journeyed back to Letchworth, where we reran the film and decided what areas to cut. I am sure the running time will be below 90 minutes in light of these changes. Kev will make them this coming week. We also backed up our entire film which took a whole evening to do.

I have gone into super-producer mode over the last two weeks. The following has now been achieved for the 26th Feb:

• Zombie extra and effects agreed
• A set of fully kitted out real soldiers
• A military Jeep and Lorry
• Chemical Suits purchased off Ebay
• 6 fake SA80 guns hired

I just need to cast an actor for the role of the Captain of the army and we are all set.

In other brief news, I decided not to go to the Raindance Cannes Survival Guide. I was quite tired after an early morning trip to the Airport, so decided to give it a miss. I will only go to Cannes if we find a sales agent in time, and I think that is unlikely as I want to make sure we finish the film carefully and don't rush it. Kev has been working on degrading parts of the footage by copying it a few times to VHS. He said it works really well. I will get a chance to see it this weekend, as Kev and I will be meeting Steve Hoper in London, then spending the weekend in Letchworth.

A few developments today.

Kev and I decided to go with The Theme Team for our ADR, instead of doing it ourselves. They agreed on a special rate for us for two days ADR, on March 05 and March 12.

I then agreed upon these days with the entire cast.

Next up was agreement with Victoria Nalder and David Stutley to shoot the final sequence on February 26. That was a big relief. Still up in the air now is the hire of military vehicles. Mike at tanks4hire.co.uk came to me with a great deal which is a possibility. I also am in talks with Paul over at Project X to hire some vehicles. Both offers are attractive, so Kev and I will weigh things up, and probably choose one of these options.

Other things I need to do tomorrow: speak to the Territorial Army about getting some of their guys in. Also need to look into getting white chemical suits and gas masks. Finally need to chase Steve Hoper up and find out when he will have the music ready for the Zombie Diaries trailer. The new website goes up tomorrow. Great work by Kev and James Marshall.

The weekends are nearly agreed for the ADR. I'm just waiting for two actors to get back to me, and then I can finally sign off the dates; it's a tricky part of filmmaking, as some actors need dates confirmed, whilst others cannot confirm until they hear back from others. It's almost like the house-buying chain.

Come Monday I should know exactly what is going on, and the dates will be agreed. The good news is that rather than then have to try and get a studio - on our budget - to agree to these dates, Kev and I came up with a solution. My company have a large basement which is virtually sound proof. Add to that, that they are happy for me to use it on Saturdays and Sundays, and we have a perfect environment. It's also bang in the middle of London. I will make arrangements once I have the dates sorted with the actors.

I feel right back in the swing of things, after a few stressful weeks. Just a few bits of paperwork to sort out now, and we are almost done!

On a side note, Stephen Hoper has now seen The Zombie Diaries and was thoroughly impressed. He is working on the trailer music, and James Marshall is working on the website. Things are progressing nicely.

I spoke to a company yesterday when I got home from work, who have supplied military vehicles for a host of different productions from low-budget stuff like mine, to TV productions. They said they might be able to supply a Truck, a Jeep, and six SA80 guns for a morning for around £400. This was great news. This is just over budget, but we get the weapons thrown in too. The chap I spoke to said the only problem was getting the employees to agree to a Saturday or Sunday morning. Since nothing is agreed I will not be publishing any definitive details until I hear back from them. They said they will know for sure come early next week.

I have had no word back on the ADR, which means Kev and I will probably end up doing it ourselves, but you never know. Let's see what the new week brings.

The last few days have been spent in negotiations with studios and companies to get the ADR recorded, and find some military vehicles for hire for the final sequence. The problem is that the going rate seems to be £1,000. Kevin and I have £350 to £400 to get the vehicles, and another £350 max for the ADR; however, there are travel expenses to factor in too.

One person who has been really helpful is Michael over at tanks4hire.co.uk. They have some bloody nice Jeeps and Tanks, and even land which you can hire to shoot everything on. He is one of the few people I have spoken to who seems to appreciate the burdens of Independant Filmmaking. He even offered a discount because he liked the idea of what we were trying to achieve. He invested a lot of time to talk to me on the phone about the project, our limitations, logistics, etc. This was really refreshing. Sadly, my budget just doesn't stretch as far as I would like. We may even have to do without military vehicles in the end sequence. I can make it work without them, but they are a wonderful nice-to-have.

Kevin and I are now considering schemes to split royalties with up-front payments to try and get what we need for the money we have. I have known films less entertaining and less well made to sell for a quarter of a million, so the royalties could be attractive. The problem is, of course, there is no guarantee it will sell! More updates on ADR and Vehicles as they happen...

Today I sent an e-mail out to the cast to arrange the ADR sessions. I have also asked our composer, Steve Hoper, if he would be able to help us with the ADR. The end sequence has now been agreed upon by Kevin and myself, and we have agreed a structure for the film which pulls it away from the anthology feel, and pushes it more towards a non-linear structure which works much better. We will need to do a few test screenings, but overall its looking slick.

Dusty Rhodes has been busy helping me find a place to get hold of Military wear nice and cheap, and now is on the case trying to find good vehicles we can rent. It's all looking good. February and March will be busy months. We should have a final cut for April.

I saw my good friend, Hak, in London yesterday to celebrate his birthday. He showed me some clips from a new film he is working on with some other filmmakers. I was quite impressed. Looking forward to seeing the results. Today was a bit crap. Spent all day fixing my Uncle's computer in Chatham and got stuck there due to problems with the trains to Leeds. I wrote a new ending to the film and sent to Kev. This one is much better.

I binned the bleak ending I had written. It was embarressing. The dialogue sounded like it was being read out by robots. It was uninspiring, and at times sounded worse than a student film. So what went wrong?

Here's my problem. I got married recently, and now I don't have free evenings. It is hard to go home after a long day working, and then ignore your wife while you write a script. So I found myself trying to steal moments here and there during the week. Most of the script was written when I was ill.

Big mistake.

You can't put a deadline on creativity, especially when you are busy. Add to this the fact that I haven't been sleeping well and just recently got over my illness and you have a recipe for disaster. So there you have it: my sins are confessed.

I am off to London this weekend, and am already feeling much better in myself. I had a rethink of the whole ending last night and talked at length with Kevin Gates about it. Now I'm feeling good! It's time, as my American wife would say, to 'step up to the plate'.

It's not a mistake. This is a double log. Today has been a very cool day.

I received an e-mail today from a young African filmmaker named Gbenga Salu, who is striking out on his own to make films in just the same way I did four years ago. He has started up a blog (http://www.africanfilmmaker.blogspot.com/, which was directly inspired by my site. I wish him all the best.

Some other news to report - I got an unexpected MSN today from a bloke at work who watched the teaser DVD to The Zombie Diaries. He was really impressed by the acting, and said the whole thing was very realistic. He particularly liked the scenes with James Fischer, citing his performances as key to the realistic atmosphere. I was very pleased to hear this.

I received some feedback from Kev on the final part of the film script. I wrote it with a temperature and a streaming nose/eyes, so I wasn't too impressed. I didn't know what to expect. Kev's comments were very useful, and hopefully I'll get to patch up some of the challenges on the weekend, and have the 'bleak ending' ready for Sunday.

Last night, I saw what was, in my opinion, possibly the worst short film of all time. It was an awkward and embarressing film that was supposed to be a comedy. It gets extra negative points for being shot on 35mm, which means the money that went on this could have gone on three or four good shorts made on digital.

My wife and I sat there for ten minutes and had to wonder: who funds this sort of crap? Well, the UK Film Council were behind it (surprise!). Are they really trying to help filmmakers in this country, or are they just there to take the piss? That's me posing a legitimate question I would like to know the answer to. Remember, these are the same people who threw just under half a million quid at the film This is not a Love Song:

The UK FILM COUNCIL's New Cinema Fund was set up last year to champion new forms of filmmaking and to promote innovative and "cutting-edge" production techniques

Time for some naming and shaming. The short film is Harold The Amazing Contortionist Pig, directed by Carl Prechezer. My god, who read that script and gave the go-ahead to waste all that 35mm film? Here is a hilarious article about the film that shows the UK Film Council has totally lost it. My favourite quote is ".. all part of FilmFour Lab and The Film Council’s initiative to inject a bit of life back into the British film industry". Now that is comedy!

Not much new news to report. The only thing I have on at the moment is to write the bleak ending to the script for The Zombie Diaries, as Kevin and I have two big names interested who will possibly appear in the final part of the movie.

So with that said, I would like to wish all my fellow filmmakers a very happy Xmas, and a prosperous 2006!

There has been a big change of plan. I just got off the phone to Mark Litwak, a well respected entertainment attorney from Beverley Hills. Our conversation was one of those really important moments in my filmmaking journey: to sum it up, Mark helped me realise that if I went to Cannes without a decent sales agent, I would probably be wasting my time.

I have spoken with a lot of filmmakers recently who were screwed over by distribution companies. I spoke at length with Mark about this. Some people had their films distributed without even giving permission, and others had their films distributed in so-called 'profit share' deals where despite having copies sold in the UK, Canada and UK, got a cheque for a grand total of $30. This was because these filmmakers are easy targets, and not qualified to 'sell' films!

Mark advised Kevin and I to get a good cut of our film finished and then try and find a good sales agent. We may well go to Cannes, but it is likely to be 2007 now! I think the best route would be to take the movie to a number of film festivals to create buzz, and then look at selling it afterwards.

This last weekend was spent editing The Zombie Diaries with Kev Gates. We now have a full rough cut that comes in at 94 minutes running time. After finishing I went out and bought a 250gig External Drive to back up the entire film on, as I do not want anything causing me grief with this movie. The next few months should pan out as follows:

• Jan: ADR/Foley work
• Feb: Mix Soundtrack / Shoot ending sequence
• Mar: Begin Marketing / PR
• Apr: Screening for distributors
• May: Screening at Cannes

I am very excited about the commercial potential of the film, and have been in discussions with a number of close friends who have had world-wide distribution deals for their films - in each case, it happened thanks to a good producer's rep or entertainment lawyer creating buzz.

I've been doing a lot of reseach in anticipation for my forthcoming trip to Cannes to showcase The Zombie Diaries. As part of my research I spoke Elliot Grove who mentioned that Raindance are running a Cannes Survival Guide this February. I also ordered his book Lo-to-No Budget Filmmaking, and I have to say: this is easily the best book on low-budget film production I have purchased. In addition, when I e-mailed Elliot with a follow up question, he responded immediately - now that's service! :) I absolutely recommend this book. It not only covers the basics of film production, but has a lot of great material on Film Markets, PR, Marketing, etc. Very insightful.

What makes a good director? What make a good actor?

There are books on this subject, yet is it really that difficult? After all, Shane Carruth wasn't a trained actor/director and the performances in his film PRIMER were fantastic.

In my experience, I have found a good director has three special abilities:

1. Vision. You need to have a clear vision and stick to it. Don't just make a film for the sake of it. I did this when I made my ultrashorts The Big I Am and Opportunity Knocks, and the end results were poor. If you feel passionately about something you can make your vision work. As soon as you start compromising, it goes to pot. Make sure every moment in your film is faithful to the vision. Do the camera movements work for or against the vision? What about the colours and lighting? And the sound? And the way the scenes move and grow?
2. Blocking. Blocking a scene means knowing how to orchestrate and choreograph it. The camera starts in this position, and moves to that angle, just as this actor enters the frame, and that event happens. This is how you make a scene work. You'll get better with experience, and after a while you'll know when the smallest details are causing problems, such as actor's body langauage and movements. I hate static scenes where actors stand around awkwardly like they are on stage in a theatre play.
3. Timing. When it comes to directing actors you need to be very clear on how things should be said. The accent on certain words, the timing of words and so forth. Actors will bring their own methods and ways of saying things which is fine. But there may be moments where things just don't sound right, and you need to know how to fix this.

And as for actors - I find a lot of professional actors tend to overact. Not all of the time. But occasionally it happens. Just look at Tim Robbins in the latest War Of The Worlds film. He is an academy award winner but in this instance he was awful. This is a shame, as everyone knows how to act. Think about it. Have you ever played a practical joke on someone, where you were, in a sense, acting?

Why is it that in real life, a person tries not to cry whereas some actors try to cry? Think about this. Imagine you are playing a practical joke on someone when you are in a movie. Try to convince the other actor(s) in the scene you are real and what you are saying is real. Don't just switch on and say the lines in the way you think is acting.

A lot of actors step outside themselves and watch from the outside, which is very distracting. By not living in the moment and being the character, they are heading for failure! When you drive a car you just do it. You don't imagine yourself standing outside the car, watching.

When I finished my first short, Mnemosyne, it was heavily criticized for the acting. I thus spoke to a few directors about ways I could improve the acting in my next film. Based on my discussions, I decided to look at improvisation.

For my next film, The Zombie Diaries, I threw brand new scenes at the actors which they had never seen before and thus didn't have time to think about. I think it worked pretty well. Obviously I didn't do this all the way through the film, but I did focus on doing a lot of rehearsals (Shane Carruth's secret) and encouraging improvisation around the script. We also worked on back stories for the actors. On other scenes, the strategy would be to give differing directions to actors so no one would enter into a scene as expected. Thus they were forced to react honestly, rather than act. It made so much of a difference from the days of Mnemosyne where actors were instructed by me to stick to the script religiously.

I hope this provides food for thought.

This diary entry is also available as Article 3: What makes a good director? what makes a good actor?.

I have had my fair amount of bad luck as a filmmaker, but I also have been quite blessed as well - it all balances out in the end. In July I was getting fed up with my role, and decided to move on to another job. I did so and now no longer work as a programmer, but instead as a Training Design Architect (I build, design and teach training material). I get to flex my creative muscles a lot more and am generally much happier.

Then, about two months ago, a new colleage joined our team from the French office. My colleague, Fred Youdale, got into a discussion about Cannes with me one day. It turns out he has a house in Cannes! He said we are welcome to use it. In addition, he said he used to work for the Cannes Film Festival. He has kindly agreed to come down to the festival with Kevin and I and help us in any way he can. I know Cannes gets booked up well in advance, and costs a ton of money, so as a low budget filmmaker, I was understandably overjoyed at a rent free trip!

Filming has now finished, and I have moved onto securing the necessary paperwork to sell the film. Kevin and I are currently in the process of sorting the details out so that we can screen The Zombie Diaries in Cannes. We will take a week off of work and do our best to promote the film.

If you have a friend who is into low-budget DIY style filmmaking, and they are looking for some inspiration, I recommend the following three DVDs:

1. ADVENTURES IN SHORTS
2. TERRARIUM
3. AMERICAN MOVIE

I promise that if you give one of these to a young filmmaker at xmas, they will be very happy. Adventures in Shorts has a great documentary about a young Indian filmmaker who dropped out of film school and kicked ass with his first short film. Terrarium has simply the most inspiring 'making of' featurette I have ever seen. And American Movie is a film that simply must be seen by all young wannabee filmmakers.

This weekend we closed off the filming for this year. We now have an isolated day in January 2006 to film, and by the time that happens, the rest of the film will be edited.

Saturday Kevin and I directed the scene that ultimately will be the first 'zombie' sequence in the movie. It was thus important that everything went well and that the finished article was spooky as hell. Andy Jones (A zombie extra three-times over!) came along to help out and brought a friend of his, Jeff, who was to play the Farmer. Originally he was supposed to be a corpse, but we changed things on the day and he got to do some subtle acting. Alexa Angelis was the zombie, and did a terrific job. The best direction came from Special Effects make-up Scott Orr: "A little less snarly, a little more PMS".

Julian Newman Turner and his family kindly let us use their house (Big thankyou to you guys) which doubled up as the interior of the farmer's house. It was a great location. Kevin got one of his red-heads with some blue filter gel to simulate moonlight, and it worked a treat. Overall I was very pleased with this day of filming. We overran slightly, but got the key scenes in the can.

Sunday we travelled to London on a 7:25 train from Letchworth for an early start. We started at actress Sophia Ellis' property. Again, a special thanks to her mum and dad for giving us permission to shoot here. This scene involved an interview with a School Governor about the virus and the warning and information given to them by the Government. Juliet Forester played this role and was fantastic. She had don a lot of personal research on the role and her performance was incredibly natural. All she required was a brief discussion about the character, and she was able to work some magic without any further direction.

We then travelled to the Press Association building in Victoria. We were met by my friend Dusty Rhodes, who is a veteran filmmaker. He has been and done it all, including taking a sponsored film, Distant Bridges, to Cannes to represent the UK a few years ago. He secured us this location, and then even got to make a cameo. On location we were joined by Len Fenton (Best known as Dr Legg in Eastenders). We managed to wrap on time. I was thus able to help Kevin get the equipment back to Letchworth and then get home to my wife in Leeds before 10pm! What a day! One more day of filming to go.

If the diary subject for today sound depressing, it is intended that way. This weekend we will be filming the last few interior shots of the film. We then have only a single day in January to film, and the movie is finished. It has been one of the great experiences of my life, and I don't know if I will ever work on such a fun film ever again. Although it will be a relief to get it finished, it will be a hard project to move on from. I hope we get to make a sequel ;) 60% of the film is edited already. Our accomodation and driver is all booked up for Cannes. There are a few outstanding areas for us to focus on:

1. Finalise paperwork with cast/crew/locations
2. Take some days off to edit the second segment
3. Sort out passes for Cannes
4. Sort out ADR sound sessions

I am estimating the film to be ready for the 1st March, 2006.

In some other, rather amusing, news, the principal cast and crew of the third segment (entitled The Outbreak) have ended up in the high-street publication "PC Zone". One of our zombies entered a competition where readers of the magazine had to get their picture taken in an interesting location with the mag in their hands. So BoBo Jones (The zombie in question) thought: what better location that a bunch of zombies and a film crew? And look what happened - he won! Hilarious :) Nice little bit of publicity for The Zombie Diaries, though.

Today Kevin and I began working on our editing. We spent the entire day capturing footage, and then rounded it off with a trip to the pub to meet Matt Hope and his producer, Steven Mitchell (who recently co-produced on Godsend).

I had a very interesting conversation with them about their forthcoming film, The Vanguard, and we also talked about the various types of industry folk we have met in our time, and who should be avoided and who is recommended. Reputation means a lot in this industry, that's why it's important not to annoy the wrong people, as word gets around. It's a small world.

One thing I forgot to mention, was that Mark Wright (a friend who helped out yesterday) viewed some of our film, The Zombie Diaries, and was very impressed. In addition, he said our material was "Better Than Deliverance" as he felt that we had found a good balance between the on-screen terror and the psychologial terror.

Today Kevin and I met with actress, Victoria Nalder, and production assistant, Mark Wright, to reshoot a scene and then move into town and interview people about Bird Flu. Mark was absolutely brilliant, and coaxed people into doing interviews, with the understanding that it was a docu-drama, and not a regular documentary. I was very, very pleased with the range of people we were able to interview. Victoria was careful not to mention 'Bird Flu' in her interviews, and thus we got a very interesting series of interviews about "the virus". You simply cannot get these kind of perfomances from actors! :)

The scene that gave me a headache was the reshoot of a previous scene that didn't work very well. Victoria struggled with a large chunk of lines that had to be said in one take. We did it so many times that I had even memorised the lines by the time we finished! Add to this the fact that we had a lot of kids deliberately making noise because they thought it was a 'real news report' and it made for a frustrating few hours.

Luckily, this is where experience makes the difference. We perservered, knowing that eventually we would get a good take, and that eventually the kids would get bored. Victoria soldiered through with determination, and we wrapped just after 3pm.

This year was blistering. It began with feedback flooding in for Mnemosyne, and ended with the conclusion of filming for my forthcoming collaborative project The Zombie Diaries.

Taking on Writing/Directing/Producing/Editing duties along with Kevin Gates was tough enough. Add to that the planning and execution of my wedding in the States, plus managing a big project at work, and you can see why I am looking forward to a nice xmas holiday.

It is quite amazing to think that The Zombie Diaries had not even been conceived this time last year. It really was a bolt-from-the-blue idea that I simply had to follow through ASAP. I am very much looking forward to getting this film finished and putting it out there for all those zombie fans! The diary chunks will now move from 3-monthly to 6-monthly as my 'Making The Film' prject nears its end.

Things could be worse after all.